Global leadership is the interdisciplinary study of the key elements that future leaders in all realms of the personal experience should acquire to effectively familiarize themselves with the psychological, physiological, geographical, geopolitical, anthropological and sociological effects of globalization. Global leadership occurs when an individual or individuals navigate collaborative efforts of different stakeholders through environmental complexity towards a vision by leveraging a global mindset. Today, global leaders must be capable of connecting "people across countries and engage them to global team collaboration in order to facilitate complex processes of knowledge sharing across the globe" Personality characteristics, as well as a cross-cultural experience, appear to influence effectiveness in global leaders. As a result of trends, starting with colonialism and perpetuated by the increase in mass media, innovation, (brought about by the Internet and other forms of human interaction based on the speed of computer-mediation) and a host of meaningful new concerns face mankind; consisting of but not limited to: human enterprises toward peace, international business design, and significant shifts in geopolitical paradigms. The talent and insight it will take leaders to successfully navigate humanity through these developments have been collectively focused on the phenomenon of globalization in order to embrace and effectively guide the evolution of mankind through the continued blurring and integration of national, economic and social strategies.
Cross-cultural competence (3C) Daniel P. McDonald, executive director of Research, Development and Strategic Initiatives at the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute and his team established for the U.S. Department of Defense a set of 40 general cross-cultural learning statements (knowledge, skills, and personal characteristics) were recommended by a DoD focus group in order to foster the career development of cross-cultural competence in military and civilian personnel. The roles of aptitude and appropriate training components in the development of global leadership were reviewed by Caligiuri in 2006.
Willingness to engage Cognitive flexibility & openness Emotional regulation Tolerance of uncertainty Self-efficacy Ethnocultural empathy
Geert Hofstede Geert Hofstede has performed research for several decades that continues to impact research in global and international arenas of global leadership. Hofstede's research is primarily focused on how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. According to him, all behaviours are determined by culture. In his definition; culture is ‘the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others.’ To conduct his research, he analyzed a large database of employee value scores collected within IBM between the years 1967 and 1973. There are over 70 countries in the data. Hofstede's primary tenants of culture differentiation are summed up through his research more elaborately but primarily consist of In his model, he identified six dimensions of national culture based on his research. Those dimensions are also used to differentiate countries from each other, based on how countries score on the six dimensions. The scale of scores ranges from 0 to 100. If a score is below 50 it is considered Low and if it is higher than 50 it is considered High in that dimension. Here, although countries are represented with a score, the scores are relative and cannot represent unique individuals. In other words, ‘culture can be only used meaningfully by comparison.’ The relevant scores are proven to be stable over time. Forces that cause cultures to shift are global and therefore there is something affecting the culture in a country, it actually affects many countries at the same time in the world. The model consists of six dimensions; which are Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity vs Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long Term Orientation vs Short Term Normative Orientation and Indulgence vs Restraint. Furthermore, he has published several books and academic articles on the subject in order to light the way for global business leaders as well as academic researchers.
Hofstede's cultural dimensions
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
