(Editor’s note: This post is part of a six-week blog series on how leadership might look in the future. The conversations generated by these posts will help shape the agenda of a symposium on the topic in June 2010, hosted by HBS’s Nitin Nohria, Rakesh Khurana, and Scott Snook. This week’s focus: cultural distinctions and diversity.)
The best leaders:
- Are friends with their subordinates but make decisions on their own
- Compete with their own direct reports and make sure they are better than others
- Speak honestly, but take into account others’ status
- Use indirect language and metaphors rather than get straight to the point
- Avoid taking risks
American readers are probably scratching their heads: what kind of a leadership profile is this? How can a leader ignore his direct reports when making key decisions? What happens to credibility when you’re constantly massaging the message?
The brief profile above came from a survey of Chinese managers as part of the research program called the GLOBE project. Of course, there are also parts of the Chinese ideal leadership profile that are similar to the American profile, but it’s usually the differences that get managers in trouble.
In a recent survey of senior executives in 100 global corporations, conducted by Worldwide ERC, 95% of the respondents reported that national cultures of the places they do business in play an important or very important role in the success of their business mission. So much for a “flat world.”
In any part of the world, leadership is about influence. There are many ways to influence others: Directing them, rewarding them, inspiring them, or giving them ownership of the decision are but a few examples. The leader’s task in a multicultural world is to influence direct reports, project teams, supply chain partners, client organizations, and regulatory agencies that have different cultural, political, and institutional backgrounds.
But there’s a disconnect.
In most societies, ordinary citizens are socialized to learn how to work with people who are like them. They develop a unicultural lens that helps them understand and interpret their surroundings.
This formula has worked for many centuries, but it is an obstacle now — kids grow up learning how to work with people who are like them; as adults, they start working for companies who require them to work with people who are different from them and who have different cultural lenses.
I started this post with a look at the role of leaders through the Chinese cultural lens. This is one example of why leadership in a multicultural environment is so difficult and complicated. How should leaders prepare for this?
What does the leader of the future need to be successful? At the Thunderbird School, we’ve been trying to find the answer to this question for the past five years. Our interviews with over 200 global executives and our surveys of over 6000 managers have helped us identify the set of individual qualities that are critical for the leaders of tomorrow. We call this collection Global Mindset. Leaders who have a high level of Global Mindset are more likely to succeed in working with people from other cultures. Having Global Mindset requires:
Intellectual capital: Global business savvy, cognitive complexity, cosmopolitan outlook
Psychological capital: Passion for diversity, quest for adventure, self-assurance
Social capital: Intercultural empathy, interpersonal impact, diplomacy
Leaders with a strong stock of Global Mindset know about cultures and political and economic systems in other countries and understand how their global industry works. They are passionate about diversity and are willing to push themselves. They are comfortable with being uncomfortable in uncomfortable environments. They are also better able to build trusting relationships with people who are different from them by showing respect and empathy and by being good listeners.
Given that I have a stake in business school education, I can’t help but wonder how we should be preparing our graduates for such a global environment. Can a business school improve the Global Mindset of its students if the school, its administration, and its faculty don’t have it themselves?
Mansour Javidan is the Dean of Research, Garvin Distinguished Professor, and Director the Global Mindset Leadership Institute at Thunderbird School of Global Management. His latest HBR article, “Making It Overseas,” was published in April 2010.
(Editor’s note: This post is part of a six-week blog series on how leadership might look in the future. The conversations generated by these posts will help shape the agenda of a symposium on the topic in June 2010, hosted by HBS’s Nitin Nohria, Rakesh Khurana, and Scott Snook. This week’s focus: cultural distinctions and diversity.)
