Global Leadership: Cross-Cultural Competence and Strategy

Introduction

Organizational success in the present globalized economy relies heavily 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 today's 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 must 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 defined as the ability to effectively operate within the global environment while upholding respect for cultural diversity (Javidan et al., 2016). Global leadership typically occurs whenever an individual or a group navigates the combined efforts of various stakeholders toward a goal by leveraging global thinking (Pacquiao, 2018). Presently, global leaders must be able to connect with people across multicultural countries, engage them in collaboration within a global team, and promote knowledge-sharing processes across the globe (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). Cross-cultural experience and personality characteristics also appear 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, as well as cross-cultural leadership differences for individuals in international businesses working within multinational corporations (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Subsequently, researchers studying business management in the 1960s began identifying challenges of human resource management in multinational corporations (Javidan et al., 2016). Other scholars also began claiming that organizational and leadership theories may not be applicable across all cultures; rather, they should be viewed through 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 emerged, varying based on each developed country.

Moreover, some scholars of comparative management used anthropological theories of national cultures to analyze countries' leadership processes and norms (Javidan et al., 2016). This research was referred to as "country-specific." It produced compelling insights that proved very useful to leaders, expatriates, and managers who work and live among people from different cultures (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). For instance, due to Japan's post-World War II rise as a significant economic power, several countries concentrated on understanding Japanese leadership and organizational behavior processes (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Concurrent with comparative management research, the number of studies conducted on expatriate managers and the challenges of managing people from different cultural backgrounds increased substantially in the 1970s and continued to rise through the 1980s and 1990s, burgeoning from the 2000s onward. This growth increased insight and awareness about the role culture plays as a dependent variable in expatriates' leadership and cross-cultural managerial effectiveness.

In the early 1990s, multinational corporations faced multiple management challenges due to globalization, raising the need to develop executives who could lead and manage from a global perspective (Mendenhall et al., 2013). Leadership was seen as increasingly challenging and complex. Since then, most firms have prioritized developing business and global leadership competence (Osland & Lester, 2020), recognizing that people leadership is key to global success.

There were swift responses to the complex challenges of globalization. An immediate need arose for executives who could handle global complexity (Javidan et al., 2016). Global leadership development programs were established to upgrade the managerial cadres' skills and competencies (Mendenhall et al., 2013). These programs were internally generated within companies, mainly with the help of externally sourced consultants (Szkudlarek et al., 2020), and were not founded on empirical findings about the exact dimensions of global leadership, but rather on what appeared sensible to their designers.

As a result, some global firms in the 1990s designed programs around what they considered three to five essential global leadership competencies. Other firms developed programs addressing up to thirty or more skills they deemed critical in developing global executives. This inconsistent approach resulted in poor outcomes, further worsening the challenges firms encountered (Javidan et al., 2016). Even when firms turned to academia for assistance, effective feedback was largely absent.

Accordingly, scholars began responding to business needs, and the field of global leadership was formally established (Javidan et al., 2016). It started with a small cadre of scholars determined to understand the full challenge and help businesses develop global leadership capacity (Mendenhall et al., 2013). These scholars were also eager to explore the theoretical and empirical dimensions of globalization's impact on leadership (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). To date, the need for global leadership has not diminished; however, compared to the 1990s, significantly more research now underpins global leadership development programs.