As a capstone student in Engineering Management, understanding the elements of l

Question

As a capstone student in Engineering Management, understanding the elements of leadership competency development are essential for pursuing your future aspirations and, more importantly, leading others to their aspirations.  Read the article provided (George, 2012). Identify the key message(s) in the article and express your thoughts about the author's assessment of the global environment. How is the assessment helpful to you? Do you find your experience in the global environment aligns with the author's assessment? Do you have a different perspective you would like to share?

Note: Make sure your response statements are supported with evidence and examples.

please read these case

A New Era for Global Leadership Development by Bill George FEBRUARY 17, 2012

The realities of globalization, with increasing emphasis on emerging markets, present corporate leaders with enormous challenges in developing the leaders required to run global organizations. Too many multinational companies particularly Japanese, Indian, German, and some American ones still concentrate vital decisions in the hands ofa small group of trusted leaders from their home country. They hire technical specialists, local experts, and country managers from emerging markets but rarely promote them to corporate positions. Instead, they groom future global leaders from the headquarters nation by sending them on overseas appointments. This approach worked relatively well for companies selling standard products in developed markets, but as multinationals transition into truly global organizations relying on emerging markets for growth, it's far from adequate. In order to adapt to local cultures and market needs, companies must shift to decentralized, collaborative decision-making. That requires developing many leaders capable of working anywhere. To address these needs, new approaches for developing global leaders are required: The diversity of top leadership should reflect the diversity of the firm's customers Global leaders must be effective in aligning employees around the company's mission and values empowering people to lead, and collaborating horizontally rather than managing vertically. Rather than concentrating on the on the top 50 leaders, global companies need to develop hundreds, even thousands, ofleaders comfortable operating in a variety of culture
Developing global leaders with cultural sensitivities and collaborative skills requires grea on emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and empowerment than on traditional management skills To understand these approaches, let's examine what leading global companies are doing create diversity among senior leadership To make sound decisions, companies need a diverse set of leaders who have deep understanding of their local customers, especially those in emerging markets. opportunities at the highest levels,includingc-suite and CEo, must be open to people of all national origins. Atlanta-based Coca-Cola is a pioneer in geographic diversity. As early as the 1960s, the company was run by South African Paul Austin. Since that time, Coca-Cola has had cuban, Australian, and Irish CEos, leading to today's CEo, Turkish-American Muhtar Kent over the past decade two Swiss companies, Nestle and Novartis, have made dramatic shifts from Swiss-dominated boards and executive leadership to a diverse set of nationalities. Both now have non-Swiss majorities on their boards and several business units based outside Switzerland. Nestle's executive board represents ten different nationalities, while 8 of Novartis executives come from outside Switzerland. Focus on values, not hierarchy. The characteristics of successful global leaders today are quite different than traditional hierarchical managers. They need high levels ofemotional intelligence and self-awareness to unite people of different cultures, many who are new to the enterprise, around the organization's mission and its values and empower them to make decisions without waiting for higher-level directions Samuel Palmisano, IBM's chairman and former CEO, recognized that IBM's traditional hierarchical structure would not be effective in the 21st century because it was dominated by product and market silos. In 20o3 he reorganized the company into an "integrated global enterprise" based on leading by values and collaboration, and uses special bonuses to empower leaders to extend IBM's culture globally.

Broaden the reach ofleadership development. Collaborative organizations like IBM's require far more leaders than the traditional focus on a select group of top leaders. With flatter organizations and decentralization of power, corporations must develop savvy globalleaders capable of operating locally and globally simultaneously. IBM's former chief learning officer recently estimated that IBM will need 50,000 leaders in the future. Unilever has more than half of its business in Asia, and that percentage will continue to increase. The company has undertaken a major initiative to develop 500 global leaders in intensive leadership development programs to prepare them for expanded roles. According to CEO Paul Polman, Unilever's Leadership Development Programme prepares our future leaders for an increasingly volatile and uncertain world where the only true differentiation is the quality of leadership. To be effective in global roles, leaders require experience working and living in multiple countries. Extensive travel overseas is no substitute for living there, gaining fluency in local languages, and deeply immersing in the culture. German chemical maker Henkel, whose executives come from a diverse set of countries, insists they live in at least two different countries before being considered for promotion. New methods for developing global leaders. Developing global leaders necessitates a shift from focusing on management skills to helping leaders be effective in different cultures by increasing their self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and resilience. Dean Nitin Nohria at Harvard Business School recently sent 9oo MBA students overseas to work with companies in countries where they have neither lived nor worked It's not enough just to work overseas. To process and learn from their experiences, individuals should utilize introspective practices like journaling, meditation or prayer, and develop support networks of peers like True North Groups. There they can consult confidentially with people they trust about important decisions and have honest conversations about their dilemma mistakes, and to develop the self-mastery and appreciation and challenges. These experiences enable le acceptance of people from diverse backgrounds required to become effective global leaders.

Explanation / Answer

The key message of the article is to convey that for a truly global organisation it needs to have a high degree of local cutomisation specific to the geography it operates in and to achieve that it is extremely critical that the leadership have representation from across geographies. The idea is to not skew the board of directors towards the HQ origin, rather have people from different origin, gender and regions so that the local aspects of the geographies could be worked on. This is extremely critical for the effective operations and understanding the pain points of the operating countries.

The more skewed the leadership is, higher are the chances that the local integration is very low. The organisation fails to then achieve the optimal mix of the global presence and local integration. The examples illustrated in the article very well strengthen the fact, which is in agreemnet to my belief as well. The organisation needs different perspectives, the different lenses from which the problem can be looked at and hence it becomes critical that the leadership team should be truly global and every employee in the organisation is groomed to be an employee.

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