Global leadership challenges and best practices in the modern world

¶ … Improving Global Leadership

Today, an increasingly globalized marketplace demands an informed and timely global leadership response in the public as well as the private sector. To identify the main problems that leaders typically encounter when attempting to assess the demands of a global operating environment, and what approaches have been determined best practices, this paper provides a review of the relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature, followed by a summary of the research in the conclusion.

Definition of the main problems leaders encounter in a global role

The adage introduced in the 1970s to, "Think globally, act locally" is increasingly being replaced with the more ambitious advice to, "Think globally, act globally." This shift in thinking has begged the question, "Do we focus our efforts at the local level, or do we have a greater responsibility to act globally?" (Edginton, 2006, p. 6). Global leadership is achieved when people expand their conceptualizations of responsibilities to the community to include the larger environment in which they live and compete, a process that has been facilitated by computer-mediated forums and communities of professional interest. In this regard, Edgington reports that, "As we live our professional and personal lives, we have the opportunity to apply our influence beyond the sphere of ourselves into increasingly broader forums" (2006, p. 7). For some leaders, this outcome is part of their self-actualization. For example, Edgington adds that, "Furthermore, as people gain greater professional maturity, their focus often moves from a self-oriented perspective to one that increasingly and progressively concentrates on family, community, region, state, nation, and perhaps even the world" (p. 7). In fact, Edgington argues that in order for there to be true equity in the world, "We have to think globally, beyond our local conditions, to see and react to the world in its totality" (2006, p. 7).

An important point made by Ghemawat (2012), though, is that there is no universally accepted definition of a global leader and that the definition could be applied to an enormous wide -- and disparate -- range of practices and activities that transcend the local or regional level, but which have a global impact as a result. In this regard, Ghemawat emphasizes that, "The diversity of roles that fall under the broad category of global leadership argues for substantial customization around that common base" (2012, p. 1). One leader that has operated at the global levels in recent years in both face-to-face and virtual settings is President Barack Obama who has used a White House Twitter account to good effect in keeping his constituency abreast of his ongoing initiatives, especially the Affordable Care Act, as well as other important issues of the day including immigration, the war on terrorism and even his basketball scores with White House aides (pers. obs.).The skill set needed to lead at the global level, though, clearly must be robust regardless of the commercial or public sector that is involved. As Ghemawat concludes, "At the corporate level, this implies developing a portfolio of competencies rather than an interchangeable set of global leaders who have all met a single set of requirements (Ghemawat, 2012, p. 1).

Results of research and best practices that would resolve these problems

There is no "fast track" to global leadership. People become global leaders through education and experience, with little or no room for substitution for either -- indeed, truly effective global leaders will likely have plenty of both. According to Ghemawat (2012), best practices to overcome the constraints to global leadership include "understanding the factors that shape international interactions in their businesses by undertaking a structured examination of cross-country differences and their effects" (p. 4). The cross-country cultural dimensions developed by Geert Hofstede make a useful tool for beginning this analysis, but no amount of coursework will replace practical experience. As Ghemawat (2012) points out, "Conceptual learning of this sort is a complement to -- one might even say a precondition of, though certainly not a substitute for -- experiential learning" (p. 6).

Personal example of contingency theory in a global role for problem resolution

A personal example of a successful application of contingency theory at the global level involved participating in a national taskforce that collaborated in both face-to-face meetings as well as telephonically through conference calls with the mandate to develop a quality assurance checklist for tertiary healthcare facilities. The lead researcher, a physician, subsequently applied this checklist of quality assurance metrics to healthcare facilities in other countries, including Australia and the United Kingdom. This contingency theory-based initiative was in response to a lack of a standardized set of measures that could be used to evaluate one facility against another. In this regard, Goffee (2002) notes that, "Contingency theory says that the key qualities of a successful leader vary according to the circumstances of the business and the economy in general" (p. 35).