International Leadership and Management

Today, the importance of identifying suitable candidates for international leadership development has never been greater given the rapidly changing globalized marketplace and the realignment of regional trading blocs. To gain some fresh insights into these issues, the purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis and evaluation of organizational leadership perspectives in general and how an evidence-based perspective on leadership can promote optimal developmental outcomes in particular. To this end and drawing on a recent article by Anders (2021), this paper outlines the main issues and factors that shapes or affect leadership at present, including salient recommendations for leaders based on the article discussions. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings concerning international leadership and management are presented in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

A growing body of scholarship confirms the relationship between leadership development initiatives and organizational performance, but there remains a lack of consensus concerning the main factors that produce optimal leadership developmental programming outcomes. Moreover, there are also some definitional challenges involved in identifying the main issues and factors that shape or affect leadership due to a corresponding absence of a universal definition of leadership. For example, Subedi and his associates (2021) point out that, Leadership lacks universal definition because of its personalized application and different ways to influence people. To understand it simply, leadership is a process whereby an individual influence a group of individuals to achieve a common goal (p. 1).

Based on this straightforward but overly broad definition of leadership, it is reasonable to suggest that the main issues and factors that shapes or affect leadership are those that facilitate individuals ability to lead others towards accomplishing a common goal in which they may not have any interest otherwise. Some of the factors that are cited by Anders (2021) as being important for effective leadership include interpersonal skills and relations with others and the ability to transform and motivate other people while maintaining a focus on the future. This set of leadership attributes is related to the main tenets of transformational leadership theory (Yokus, 2022), but Anders (2021) goes on to emphasize the need to take a number of other factors into account as well.

Based on a careful reading of the Anders (2021) study and relevant coursework, it is clear that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to leadership development that is the most effective for everyone. Rather, an individualized, evidence-based approach to leadership development is consistently cited by organizational development researchers (Soria & Johnson, 2020). For instance, according to Anders (2021), Leadership development efforts need to take into consideration individuals progression through stages of cognitive and moral development, and also their place in the larger context of organizational and societal influences, including culture, power and politics, and continuous learning processes (p. 2). Although this scholarly observation is a good example of academese run amok, Anders (2021) does make it clear that the main issues and factors that shapes or affect leadership are not isolated to a given set but are rather dependent upon the unique qualities, values and experiences of leadership development (LD) candidates.

In addition, Anders (2021) painfully drives this point home...…who are able to overcome such cross-cultural and linguistic differences (Duns, 2020). This reality also means that selecting candidates for domestic and international leadership development will likely involve additional and fundamentally different factors which must also be taken into account in order to produce the next generation of public and private sector leaders who are capable of responding to the exigencies of the international marketplace in timely and effective ways. Human resource practitioners and organizational leaders can improve the leadership development process, though, by ensuring they use an evidence-based, individualized, holistic approach.

Conclusion

The research was consistent in demonstrating the need for evidence-based, human-centered leadership development programming that focuses on multiple factors including intrapersonal, interpersonal, and strategic communication contexts to enhance leadership capacities and abilities. Although every leadership situation is different, one of the most important attributes that is consistently cited in the leadership development research is the manner in which leaders treat their followers. Leaders who consistently demonstrate a sincere interest in the welfare and career progress of their direct reports will likely achieve superior outcomes compared to those that do not, even if they lack any other leadership qualities. Unlike many other leadership qualities, however, this attribute cannot be taught outright but it can be learned through experiential opportunities that provide aspiring leaders with the real-world experiences they need to better understand what really motivates other people. In the final analysis, it is reasonable to conclude that many if not most organizational leaders in the future will engage in some interactions with the international marketplace, meaning that all leaders will also be…