Leadership Case

Leadership

In past few decades, globalization has had a significant impact on working individuals, corporations and consumers. In this process, generally an organization's growth and expansion leads corporations to new challenges and opportunities. One of challenges is overcoming geographical and cultural differences to form an integrated leadership development program that bridges offices and cultures and adequately identifies, assesses and develops leaders. In doing so, organizations must ensure they have right leaders in place to turn business growth into results, derive sale, and increase profits.

In many organizations, leadership development is identical with standardized development tools such as 360-degree reviews. Generally, this popularity is based on the perceptions of organizational leader, which believe to establish a culture of continuous learning, and provide more global feedback for employees, which will lead to improved performance. But when a corporation grows and expands globally, it also introduces a variety of cultural backgrounds, competencies, styles and experiences into the mix, requiring learning and talent management leaders to work together. A growing organization would be inattentive to rely on a one-size-fits-all approach and standardized tools to develop its leaders.

Instead, with careful and mindful consideration of employees and business goals, an organization can use a mix of cost-effective strategies and tactics that leverage its growing employee base to create leadership development programs. These kind of programs increase consistency across departments and geographies, ensure the right development and placement of leaders in critical roles and contribute to overall business success. A business needs analysis can help define this common thread and determine where gaps exist in an organization's talent development strategy. Based on the results from the analysis, an organization should formally establish global competencies to ensure leadership development efforts, regardless of culture or location map to overall business objectives. (http://talentmgt.com/articles/view/leadership-development-for-a-global-workforce/2).

Building Trust & Making Ethical Decisions

Successful and sustainable business relationships rely on trust. Globalization has had a significant impact on these relationships. After the opening of international markets, organizations have operated on the premise that there are vast supplies of inexpensive labor - which has, in turn, caused buyers to demand lower prices. Organizations have opted for agreements with global suppliers in lieu of local partnership and, thus, have deteriorated the trust of their traditional supply base (Cummins). Moreover, globalized organizations are typically concerned with the bottom line and will not remain loyal to any given supplier unless costs are kept at a minimum.

Studies have shown that an organization must invest significantly in understanding communications; developing harmonized goals; and reconciling global interests in order to develop trust and cooperation in multi-cultural environments (Cummins). Without this trust, the organization and its suppliers, as well as the multinational offices, will remain detached from each other as they work to meet their own narrow interests and goals. This same lack of trust will also affect how each party perceives risk. Because there is little trust, loyalty or understanding, the organization, its employees and suppliers will see the potential for increased risk (Cummins). In globalized organizations, this has led to an increased emphasis on contracts and in risk-management strategies such as confidentially and non-disclosure agreements, as well as liabilities and indemnities. Globalization has eroded trust, and many organizations continue to struggle with how to restore trust without losing the benefits they gain from operating in a global market.

Emotional Intelligence

Among the various tools that help facilitate organizational response to globalization, emotional intelligence - the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships - is thought to cultivate staff understanding of one another, their managers and customers and also help them look at the problems from each other's point of view. Highly emotionally intelligent employees are better aware of themselves and also what's going on around them; they do their best to deal with the situations in the best possible ways (Dadehbeigi, 2008). An emotionally intelligent employee is one who is self-aware, able to manage one's emotions, and also socically aware of the emotions of fellow employees and managers. Emotional intelligence also refers to intercultural sensitivity.

It is important for managers to have emotional intelligence, because they will be able to foster the participation and dedication of employees. An emotionally intelligent workplace promotes creativity, participation and engagement. Emotional labor is the connection of the employee to the company, as well as to the consumers who are being served (Keller & Yeaple, 2008). Globalization and the segmented workforce have caused a fragmentation in emotional labor, such that foreign employees are expected to transcend cultural barriers in order to represent the language, culture and behaviors of the home country of the corporation. Moreover, the shift to offshoring has led to a decrease in corporate cultural morale such that home country employees experience layoffs and wage decreases, while offshore employees are paid at the standard of living in their country - which could be far less than that of the home country. This disparity further discourages corporate loyalty because offshore employees understand the inherent implications of their service to the company, which are to be a facile and inexpensive labor force.

Communication & Effective Feedback

Understanding the impact of globalization on cross-culture communication is imperative for organizations seeking to create a competitive advantage in the global market. As society becomes more globally connected the ability to communicate across cultural boundaries has gained increasing prominence. Global businesses must understand how to communicate with employees and customers from different cultures in order to fulfill the organization's mission and build value for stakeholders. The use of technology has had a profound impact on how businesses communicate globally and market their products and services. Nonetheless, organizations must still remain aware of cultural nuances that can hinder profits and market shares (Matthews).

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