Cultural Competency Global Leadership

Global Leadership

Global Leadership

Introduction

Any organizational success in the present globalized economy excessively relies on leadership. Leaders must deal with global economic realities (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Nonetheless, most leaders have not been educated, prepared, or trained to handle the current complex environment. Due to the increasingly global environment, leaders encounter several complicated challenges (Javidan et al., 2016). Any organization that plans to flourish within the global market has to enact global leadership development as part of its strategic plan.

Some studies have referred to global leadership as an interdisciplinary study of critical aspects that future leaders in various categories of personal experience should obtain to properly familiarize themselves with globalization’s geographical, physiological, anthropological, psychological, sociological, and geopolitical impacts (Mendenhall et al. 2013). Global leadership can also be referred to as the ability to effectively operate within the global environment while upholding respect for cultural diversity (Javidan et al., 2016). Usually, global leadership takes place whenever an individual or a group navigates the combined efforts of various stakeholders towards a goal by leveraging global thinking (Pacquiao, 2018). Presently, global leaders must be able to connect with people across multicultural countries to engage them to collaborate in a global team to promote knowledge-sharing processes across the globe (Szkudlarek et al. 2020). Otherwise, cross-cultural experience and personality characteristics seem to influence effectiveness in global leadership.

The emergence of global leadership

In 1950, the emergence of international business as a distinct field of study led to consideration of how leadership worked in other cultures. Also was the consideration of cross-cultural leadership differences for individuals in international businesses working within multinational corporations (Mendenhall et al. 2013). Subsequently, researchers studying business management in 1960 began identifying challenges of human resource management in multinational corporations (Javidan et al. 2016). Besides, other scholars also began claiming that organizational and leadership theories may not be applicable across all cultures; however, they should be viewed from the lens of the culture construct itself (Mendenhall et al., 2013). As a result, more sophisticated knowledge of the nature of international cultures and their impacts on how multinational corporations should be managed based on each developed country.

Moreover, some scholars of comparative management have used more limited anthropological theories of national cultures to various processes of institutions to analyze countries’ leadership processes and norms (Javidan et al. 2016). This research was referred to as “country-specific.” It produced compelling insights that have been very useful to leaders, expatriates and managers who work and live with people from different cultures (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). For instance, due to Japan’s post-World War II rekindling into significant economic power, several countries have since concentrated on understanding Japanese leadership and other organizational behavior processes (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Simultaneous to comparative management research processes, the number of researches conducted on expatriate managers and challenges encountered in managing people from a different cultural background in a different country from one’s own increased in the 1970s. Research studies on expatriate managers continued to rise substantially in the 1980s through to the 1990s and burgeoned from the 2000s to date. This has increased insight and awareness about what role culture plays as a dependent variable in expatriates’ leadership and cross-cultural managerial effectiveness.

Nonetheless, in the early 1990s, multinational corporations faced multiple management challenges due to globalization, raising the need to establish executives who could lead and manage from a global approach (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Thus, leadership was considered more challenging and complex due to globalization processes. Since then, most firms have prioritized developing business and global leadership competence (Osland & Lester, 2020). In other words, firms have realized that people leadership is key to global success.

Consequently, there were swift responses to the complex challenges of globalization. There was an immediate need for executives who could handle the global complexity (Javidan et al., 2016). As a result, global leadership development programs were established to upgrade the managerial cadres’ skills and competencies, and training started immediately (Mendenhall et al., 2013). The programs were internally generated within the companies, mainly through the help of consultants sourced externally (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). Moreover, the programs were not founded on empirical findings of the exact dimensions of global leadership but on what appeared sensible to the designers.

As a result, some global firms in the 1990s designed programs on what they then considered three to five essential skills of global leaders’ competence. Other firms also developed programs addressing up to thirty or more skills they considered critical in developing global executives. This hodgepodge perspective resulted in poor outcomes, worsening further the challenges firms encountered (Javidan et al. 2016). Even when firms turned to academe for assistance, there was a lack of effective feedback.

Accordingly, scholars started responding to business needs, and the field of global leadership was established (Javidan et al., 2016). It started with a small cadre of scholars who were determined to figure out the whole challenge to help businesses in their efforts to develop global leadership (Mendenhall et al., 2013). These scholars were also anxious to explore globalization’s theoretical and empirical leadership dimensions (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). To date, the need for global leadership has not changed. However, compared to the 1990s, more research is a foundation for global leadership development programs.

Cross-Cultural Leadership

The study on cross-cultural and global leadership focuses on cultural dissimilarities and their influence on managers. The primary belief is that leaders working in various countries face different problems and requirements (Javidan et al., 2016). According to a global survey, countries have divergent perceptions of several elements of effectiveness in leadership. However, they also have a concurrent perception of some elements. For instance, being decisive, dynamic, and honest are universally desirable across the globe (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Moreover, features like being ruthless, selfish, loners, and irritable were established to be universally undesirable and considered ineffective.

Identifying undesirable and desirable leadership features is essential in effective cross-cultural leadership. It is indicative that even though there are differences among countries, managers should be aware that similarities also exist (Javidan et al., 2016). Such similarities allow managers some level of ease and comfort as they can utilize them to establish a foundation.

Further, an expatriate manager should know the managerial implication of various cultural profiles and have an action-oriented idea of how they can present themselves in the “shoes” of other cultures and adapt (Mendenhall et al. 2013). Irrespective of the host country, two steps help establish a positive route towards cultural adaptability and understanding.

First, the manager must share information about the host country’s culture with his own country’s culture. Most managers are only orientated on adjusting and adapting to other cultures (Bracht et al., 2022). However, whenever individuals of diverse cultures come into contact, they mostly have unstated, exaggerated, or false stereotypes about the other culture (Javidan et al., 2016). Therefore, even though a manager must learn about the other culture, it is not enough. Managers must update host country employees about their culture (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). For instance, if the manager is in Kenya, the manager should inform the employees how the Kenyan and American leadership and culture attributes compare (Mendenhall et al. 2013). Both the differences and similarities should be elaborated on.

Subsequently, some leadership dimensions are universally undesirable, while others are universally desirable. Whenever there are similarities in leadership attributes, that should be a productive ground for the manager to establish mutual understanding (Javidan et al. 2016). The manager can then use such sessions to talk about their implications. Moreover, the manager can also compare the findings about the perception of his culture with the host’s culture to clear any misunderstandings. The surfacing and mapping of cultural attributes can help build mutual trust and understanding among the players.

Second, a global leader must consider bridging the cultural gap (Javidan et al., 2016). Most training and advice managers implicitly or explicitly hint that the manager must assimilate into the host culture (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). Even though it is essential to understand the host’s culture, becoming like them is not recommended; it is not mandatory that a manager automatically apply the host’s approach (Mendenhall et al., 2013). For instance, Egyptian leaders are considered benign autocrats; therefore, if an American manager does not embrace such a leadership approach, he ought to teach the subordinates about his preferred leadership perspective; why it is the most preferred, and why not dictatorial approach.

In addition, managers must ensure that employees know that their leadership approach is an effective style for the team, the manager, and the organization’s success, not a sign of weakness (Javidan et al. 2016). Besides, a global leader should inform subordinates of the managerial roles they intend to change with the team roles they prefer changed by the employees so that the organization can succeed on mutual ground incorporating both cultures (Bivona, 2018). Also, the manager needs to request the subordinates’ help from both perspectives. Each culture adopts changes that strengthen and accommodate the other (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Both perspectives can take place simultaneously concerning both cultures, so long as the global leader involves the employees (Javidan et al. 2016). This means that the manager can establish a collective, productive, enriching, and educational learning journey for both sides, other than creating a solitary learning journey for the manager.

Common Cultural Attributes

Managers should be able to compare other countries’ cultures with those of their own countries. This would allow them to remain open-minded and embrace the cultures of different nations. A critical literature review shows that GLOBE developed and conceptualized various cultural dimensions (Mendenhall et al., 2013). They are cultural elements of a country that uniquely distinguish one society from the other and has critical managerial influences (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). The various cultural attributes, also known as dimensions, included:

Performance Orientation. This referred to the level at which collective rewards and encourages group members for performance excellence and improvement. Countries like Singapore and the United States ranked high on this cultural practice (Javidan et al. 2016). However, this cultural phenomenon ranked low in countries like Greece and Russia because background and family were the primary determinants.

Assertiveness. This refers to the level at which individuals should be confrontational, aggressive, and assertive in their relationships with others (Javidan et al., 2016). Citizens from highly assertive countries, like Austria and the United States, seem to possess a can-do attitude and thus, enjoy business competition (Mendenhall et al. 2013). However, those from countries with low assertiveness, like New Zealand and Sweden, emphasize solidarity and loyalty and prefer harmony in a relationship.

Power distance. Refers to the level at which collective members should anticipate equal power distribution. A high-power distance score usually marks unequal distribution of power in society. Moreover, countries that scored highly on this cultural practice were more politically, socially, and economically satisfied (Javidan et al., 2016). As a result, those in leadership receive and expect obedience. Businesses in countries with high power distances like France, Brazil, and Thailand seem to have hierarchical decision-making processes with limited communication and one-way participation.

Future Orientation. This refers to engaging in future-oriented conduct like investing in the future, planning, and delaying gratification. Firms in an area with high future-oriented practices like Switzerland and Singapore tend to possess more systematic planning processes and a longer-term horizon (Mendenhall et al., 2013). However, they tend to be averse to opportunistic decision-making and risk-taking. On the other hand, firms from countries that are least future-oriented, like Argentina and Russia, tend to be more opportunistic and less systematic in their actions.

Gender Egalitarianism. Refers to the level at which the collective should minimize gender inequality. Countries like South Korea and Egypt used to be the most male-dominated globally (Javidan et al. 2016). Firms that work within gender-egalitarian societies seem to embrace diversity in personality and ideas.

Humane Orientation. Refers to the level at which the collective should reward and encourage team members to be generous, kind, caring, selfless, and fair to others. Countries like Malaysia and Egypt rank highly on this cultural practice, while Germany and France graded very low.

In-Group Collectivism. Refers to how people should express their loyalty, cohesiveness, and pride in their families or organization (Javidan et al. 2016). Societies like Russia and Egypt have much pride in their families while at the same time taking much pride in organizations that provide employment opportunities to them.

Institutional Collectivism. This is the level to which societal institutional and organizational practices reward and encourage collective action and resource distribution (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Businesses in countries rich in collectivism, like Sweden and Singapore, emphasize team reward and performance. At the same time, those in more individualistic nations like Brazil and Greece tend to concentrate on individual rewards and achievements.

Uncertainty Avoidance. This is how an organization, group, or society depends on procedures, rules, procedures, and social norms to remove the unpredictability of future events (Javidan et al., 2016). The bigger the desire to eliminate uncertainty, the more individuals look for consistency, orderliness, laws, formal procedures, and structure to protect situations in their routine lives (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). Firms within countries with more significant uncertainty avoidance like Switzerland and Singapore develop extensive procedures and processes. They also prefer formally detailed strategies (Javidan et al., 2016). On the other hand, businesses in countries with low uncertainty avoidance like Greece and Russia appear to like broadly stated strategies and simple processes. Moreover, they are risk takers and opportunistic.

Leading and Managing Globally

Following cultural diversity around the globe, effective managers need to act differently in different countries. Expatriate managers operating in multinational corporations rarely need a reminder of various management practices found across the globe. Some organizational doctrines are considered acceptable globally, though effective in one country and ineffective in another (Javidan et al. 2016). For example, it is within expectation in Japan that supervisors should be able to have answers to their juniors’ queries (Mendenhall et al. 2013). However, in the United States, such expectation does not exist.

Another instance is about the perception of working as a group or alone. Different countries globally have different perceptions of the effectiveness of working in a group or alone, influencing the aptitude, fairness, and quality examination of virtual teams in multinational companies (Javidan et al. 2016). As a result, it is unarguable that practices of management found acceptable in a particular country are not guaranteed to work in another country effectively.

Managers tend to depend on their training and experience when appointing new subordinates relative to other factors like procedures, formal rules, and consultation with others. Nonetheless, countries exhibited significant distinction in how managers adopted formal company procedures and rules (Mendenhall et al. 2013). Moreover, culture also influences leadership practices like management. According to studies, a leader’s attributes, influence, status, and behavior vary substantially due to cultural forces unique to regions or countries where the leaders work (Javidan et al., 2016). However, as in the colloquial saying, “the devil is on the details.” The present cross-cultural theory does not adequately expand and clarify the diverse cultural specifics and the cultural universals elucidated in the cross-cultural study.

Required Leadership Qualities Among Nations

In some cases, the managerial leadership similarities and differences among nations may result from residents’ implicit assumptions concerning requisite leadership qualities. According to implicit leadership theory, people hold beliefs about the kind of characters, skills, personalities, behaviors, and attributes that impede or contribute to good leadership (Javidan et al. 2016). Such belief systems, usually called mental models, prototypes, stereotypes, schemas, and cognitive categories in the broader cognitive literature, are presumed to impact the degree to which individuals respond and accept others as leaders.

According to GLOBE research, individuals within cultural teams consent to leadership beliefs. Such beliefs are represented through a set of culturally endorsed implicit leadership theory leadership profiles established for each country’s culture and a group of cultures (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Consequently, the attributes of culturally endorsed implicit leadership theory leadership profiles are below.

Charismatic/Value-Based. This leadership attribute mirrors the ability to motivate, expect, and inspire high-performance outcomes from others based on firmly held strong beliefs. Charismatic/ value-based leadership is universally indicated to contribute to excellent leadership.

Self-Protective. This new leadership attribute focuses on ensuring the individual’s security and safety (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). It is a self-centered western perspective and encounters saving in its approach. It is believed that self-protective leadership hinders outstanding leadership.

Team-Oriented. This leadership attribute encourages effective team building and the enaction of common goals or purpose among the group members (Mendenhall et al. 2013). Team-oriented leadership is universally indicated to promote outstanding leadership.

Autonomous. It is a newly defined leadership attribute that was not within the literature previously. It refers to individualistic and independent leadership (Javidan et al., 2016). Autonomous leadership is indicated to vary from slightly enabling outstanding leadership to impeding outstanding leadership.

Participative. This leadership attribute mirrors how managers engage others while implementing and making decisions (Javidan et al., 2016). Participative leadership is generally indicated to promote outstanding leadership. However, there are significant distinctions among clusters and nations.

Humane-Oriented. This leadership attribute mirrors considerate and supportive leadership, including generosity and compassion (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Human-oriented leadership is indicated to moderately promote outstanding leadership and is also reported to be close to neutral in some areas.

Attributes of Global Leaders

The value of global leadership is the capability to sway individuals who are not like the leader and are from a distinct cultural background (Javidan et al., 2016). Global leaders need to embrace a high level of ambiguity, show cultural flexibility and adaptability, and have a global mindset to succeed. A global manager needs a global mindset because he must understand a range of leadership and cultural paradigms, economic and political systems, and competitive and legal frameworks. Countries can have similar cultural attributes and differ from others (Javidan et al. 2016). For example, Egypt and Brazil are high on ingroup collectivism but differ in performance orientation. The United States and France differ on power distance; however, both are moderate on uncertainty avoidance (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Also, the United States and China are very different in ingroup collectivism; however, both are high on performance orientation. Moreover, there are differences and similarities in the leadership profiles of the countries. Also, even though leadership quality like compassion is culturally variable, another dimension like irritability is undesirable universally.

Another critical attribute of a global leader is tolerance of ambiguity. Every new state in which such a leader operates has a different way and paradigm of doing things (Javidan et al., 2016). This is usually an uncomfortable position for many leaders since it requires learning new ideas and skills quickly and ignoring what one has already learned (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Nevertheless, some things are similar among the cultures, while others need to learn because they differ from one another (Javidan et al. 2016). As a result, expatriate managers find it potentially stressful to figure out which one is which and what action to take.

Subsequently, a global leader must be culturally adaptable. That is the ability of the manager to understand new cultures and conduct himself in a manner that helps build positive and strong relations, as well as attain goals with the residents (Javidan et al. 2016). For example, the manager should not focus on France’s ambitious and grand corporate strategies. However, this can be executed in China (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Therefore, cultural adaptability enables one to be psychologically and mentally organized and ready to move from one country and situation to the other—for example, the capability of one to do an excellent job of establishing personal relationships in Ghana.

Nevertheless, it can also do the same uniquely in German. One’s ability to adjust behavior is vital for a global leader (Javidan et al., 2016). Of course, not everyone can have such potential.

Impact of Globalization

Most probably, no American company is immune from the globalization impact (Javidan et al., 2016). A fact for the American organization and corporations is that they must continuously adapt to the dynamic cross-cultural suppliers, creditors, competitors, and employees. Since culture colors, nearly all the elements of human behavior, a working understanding of culture and its implications can be valuable to a manager in a multicultural business environment (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). It is platitude currently that companies require leaders with cross-cultural and global mindsets and leadership capabilities (Javidan et al. 2016). According to expert findings, United States corporations are unprepared to enact global strategies due to inefficient global leadership. Global managers ought to be given specific advice that can enable them to understand how to behave in various environments (Mendenhall et al., 2013). For instance, leaders with assignments overseas are continually encouraged to respect and have an open mind for other cultures. Such leaders must also be educated on the value of cross-cultural communication and management (Javidan et al., 2016). Besides, some will claim that they want to establish global approaches while being conscious of the local issues.

Even though there are universal leadership attributes, individuals in different states have unique ways of assessing leaders (Mendenhall et al., 2013). The challenge for the American manager is whether the qualities that made him a successful leader in the States will equally contribute to his success overseas, cause harm in a foreign operation, or be of no value.

Cultural Identity

Cultural identity is part of one’s identity, self-perception, or self-conception. It is associated with ethnicity, social class, locality, religion, generation, or any form of the social group with its unique culture (Karjalainen, 2020). Cultural identity is a process that is fluid and can be changed by different historical, social, and cultural experiences (Zajda & Majhanovich, 2021). Some individuals go through more changes in cultural identity as compared to others. However, those who undergo fewer cultural identity changes are considered to have a clear cultural identity. Thus, implying that they have a stable cultural integration that is dynamic.

Pieces that make up an individual’s cultural identity include social connections, cultural knowledge, and category label. Cultural knowledge is where individuals associate their identity by understanding their central cultural features (Karjalainen, 2020). Category label refers to where an individual associates with their identity by being an indirect member of the said culture. At the same time, social connections are where individuals associate with their identity through social relationships.

Subsequently, cultural identity is established through a range of steps. First, an individual understands culture by being immersed in such practices, beliefs, and values (Karjalainen, 2020). Second, the individual goes through self-identification as a member of that culture. The third and final step is that individuals establish relationships with close friends, coworkers, neighbors, and immediate family.

What Shapes and Defines an Individual’s Cultural Identity

Culture establishes whenever a group of individuals unites toward a common goal. However, regardless of the group size, behaviors, norms, beliefs, and values emerge. Its multiple unspoken features complicate culture (Zajda & Majhanovich, 2021). Based on social cues, a particular group can unconsciously establish some standards for what is acceptable and expected. Subsequently, through continuous exposure to the group, such individuals accept such standards as part of their cultural identity (Karjalainen, 2020). Critical parts of cultural identity are shaped due to affiliation with several cultural patterns, groups, or once assigned at birth. Example: Family of origin, local community, sexuality, generation, gender, nationality, language, physical ability, race, and local community, amongst others.