Andrew
L. Molinsky, Thomas H. Davenport, Bala Iyer, and Cathy Davidson state that “executives
often feel inauthentic when their behaviour conflicts with their ingrained
values and beliefs, and doubly uncomfortable when others assume that it is a
true reflection of who they are. They may also feel incompetent, anxious and
embarrassed about acting in a way so far outside their comfort zone. Deeper
down, they may feel frustrated and angry that they had to make changes in the
first place. After all, managers don’t usually have to adapt their behaviour to
the needs of their subordinates; most often it’s the other way around.
Together, these feelings can prevent executives from making a successful code
switch, thus imperiling their careers and their companies’ success.”
Some
organisations try to develop global leaders within their ‘home’ culture through
various forms of training and development initiatives. The unfortunate truth is
that there is no substitute for being in the ‘new’ culture and having to deal
with a ‘live’ situation on the ground – this is something that can’t be
replicated in a classroom. What the classroom can teach is; what to look for,
what to research and make them aware of the discussions that need to take place
with the stakeholder.
The
best way to develop global leaders is firstly to let them hear from experienced
global leaders – people who have had experience entering new countries and
hearing their key learning points.
The
second way, after having talked with global leaders is to give the potential
‘candidate’ exposure and experience through assignments in a different country
as global followers – that’s the quickest way for them to experience the
culture without any threat to their career and the ‘overseas’ organisation.
The
problem with the classroom is that it can’t substitute for a totally different
culture – where often the ‘trainers’ themselves don’t help the situation as
they are from the home country and don’t speak and act in the way their international
counterparts would act.
A
global mind-set is all about research, flexibility and the ability to adapt to
new and seemingly ‘strange’ management and leadership techniques that are an
integral part of a countries culture.
Where
most ‘new’ inexperienced global leaders go wrong is assuming that their style
is best – and since they have the ‘leadership’ position, the organisation and
its stakeholders must change and adapt to meet their style. This will always
lead to complete disaster for everyone involved – where the leader just gets
frustrated with, what they see as, the organisations inability to see how
effective their leadership style is and adapt accordingly – or at least that’s
the internal dialogue that they have with themselves.
And
the stakeholders just get ‘annoyed’ with this ‘outside’ coming in without any
respect for their traditions, customs, culture and past successes.
There
are enough real life case studies of organisations that have failed on the
global stage by trying to ‘force’ their leadership culture on the international
stage, and at the same time case studies of those organisations that have been
successful.
Patience
and professionalism are a key component to developing global leaders who can
adapt and adopt a global mind-set; where there is no substitute to experiencing
differing cultures on the ground. Even the most experienced and adaptable
global leaders will still make mistakes, as all leaders do, but it’s how they
react in the ‘culture’ of their environment – rather than maybe their natural,
instinctive reaction from their home country – that differentiates between the
good and poor global leader.
As
Andrew Molinsky et al conclude “being culturally fluent means being able to
enter a new context, master the norms, and feel comfortable doing so. In
situations where executives perceive a serious threat to their competence and
identity, they often show a strong psychological resistance to appropriate
behavior. Learning to be effective at cultural code-switching is the key to
becoming a truly global leader.”
References:
Molinsky,
A.L., Davenport, T.H., Iyer, B. and Davidson, C. (2012). Three Skills Every
21st-Century Manager Needs. Harvard Business Review, January – February.
No comments:
Post a Comment