Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to research the characteristics and qualities that leaders of successful global and multicultural organizations possess and practice. The researcher will describe the specific practices (actions) these leaders follow. Finally, the researcher will analyze, compare, and contrast, and synthesize the characteristics, qualities and practices identified.
Characteristics and Qualities of Successful Global and Multicultural Leaders Possess and Practice
Prewitt, Weil, and Mcclure (2011) states current and future successful global and multicultural leader must be a visionary and have the ability to articulate the vision to others and to make the vision a reality. In addition, the leader must have fundamental beliefs and attributes such as honesty and an ethical foundation which supports and enforces ethical behavior and business practice. Furthermore, a successful global leader must set the example for others to follow, be accountable and responsible for their action. The current and future successful global leader must be able encourages and solicits input from workers and creates a working environment that makes the employees feel safe and appreciated. Also, a successful leader is one who encourages creativity and innovation among the employees. Moreover, a successful global and multicultural leader supports and encourages employee development and advancement (Alberthal, 1995; Wood & Vilkinas, 2005; Prewitt, Weil, & Mcclure, 2011; Fisher, Russell, Nottingham, & Field, 2005).
Practices
Current and future successful global and multicultural leaders must have the skills and ability to build trust among employees from different cultures. Crucial to this practice, global and multicultural l...
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Contemporary organizations expect advantageous styles of leadership to lead and facilitate operations as we move forward into the 21st century. This need requires leaders and organizations to instill a style of leadership advantageous to supporting and leading a culture towards organizational effectiveness and connecting to support and uphold organizational strategies. Thus, the success of an organization usually contains successful leaders who understand and support the needs of the employees. The characteristics of successful leaders include selflessness, mentoring, empowerment, influence, support and empathy among other positive traits (Hoffman, Bynum, Piccolo & Sutton, 2011; Karakitapoglu-Aygun & Gumusluoglu, 2013; Sabir, Sohail & Khan, 2011; Shankers & Sayeed, 2012).
There are numerous leadership skills leaders utilize within a global organization to integrate inclusion. To create an inclusive organization the leader must consider methods that will influence employees that incorporates a diverse cultural organization. Per Bourke and Dillon (2016), inclusive leadership requires six C’s of success in a global organization. The Cs includes; commitment, curiosity, courage, cognizance, Collaboration and cultural intelligence. Commitment encompasses the leader is driven by fairness. The leader’s beliefs and values motivates them to put energy and time into change the work environment. The leader leads with experiences on how to change the organization into one that is inclusive due to the diverse population of employees. Curiosity provides the leader with determination to constantly strive to learn new things. Leaders that are filled with curiosity have an open-mind, a hunger for knowledge, and a passion for uncovering distinctive concepts (Bourke, 2016). A leader that has courage will ask others for help in the decision-making process. They are not afraid to acknowledge when they need others’ opinions and help. Courage permits the leader to challenge others and utilize their strengths to aid in developing an inclusive
Knowledge of different cultures, awareness and acceptance of difference, ethics across cultures are elements of successful leader who actively promote cultural awareness in the workplace by providing training opportunities to staff, maintaining contact with minority organizations in the community and inviting them into workplace, making cultural awareness a frequent topic at staff meetings.
Leadership, no doubt, is one the key aspects of creating a culture and climate that extracts the best performance from employees. It is a significant contributor to long term sustained employee engagement and satisfaction. It is a key building block to creating a high performing organization. When a trained and successful leader from one culture attempts to use these same skill sets and experience, which made them successful, on employees of different cultures or cultural backgrounds and fails; is he now a bad leader? If the leader does not take into account the diversity at hand and understand the differences in perception then he will not be able to successfully influence his employees. Leadership is defined as “a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal” (Kruse, 2013). Who is it that defines good leadership? Is it the leader’s supervisor or is it the manager training course instructor or is it the employees/peers/ supervisors collectively who determine good leadership? Leaders must understand that they must earn the respect of the group in order for them to allow him to influence them. Leaders who do not accept or understand that this is, among other traits, the perception of leadership that counts, will fail or at the very least not be able to extract the full potential of the group, or perhaps create a toxic work environment. As stated in the book Classical Readings in Organizational Behavior, “power will be defined as any force that results in behavior that would not have occurred if the force had not been present” (Ott, Parkes, & Simpson, 2008, p. 355). Leaders within an organization have certain powers that enable them to manage their organization effectivel...
Leadership is all about power and influence. Leaders use their power to get goals accomplished. A simple distinction is between two forms of power. Socialized power is used to benefits others and fulfill their needs. The other form is personalized power, power that is used strictly for personal gain. These two forms are not mutually exclusive, a leader can use their power to benefit society but also gain personally. However, leaders can become intoxicated by their power, engaging in unjust behavior simply because they have the power to and will get away with it. They focus on their own desires and are less able to see others' perspectives. A good leader should have good qualities to represent. Some of these qualities include honesty, their business and it's society are a reflection of their leader, having honest and ethical behavior and making it a key value will result in the team following that behavior. Another important quality is communication, being able to clearly describe what is needed to be done is crucial. If they can't relate their vision to their followers, they ...
Hyun, Jane. “Leadership Principles for Capitalizing on Culturally Diverse Teams: The Bamboo Ceiling Revisited.” Leader to Leader. 16 Mar. 2012: 14-19. Web. 2 Apr. 2014 < http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ltl.20017/abstract >
To be successful in managing diversity in the workplace first one must understand it from a personal perspective. To be able to derive knowledge and strength from one’s lineage and differences shows deep facets in character. These traits show brilliantly when dealing with individuals of many cultures and backgrounds in the workplace. A leader with this ability can handle everyone uniquely and ethically and is in tune with what differentiates one associate from the next. Once one has a firm grasp on who they are then and only then can one expect to have the aptitude to lead a diverse team.
Diversity plays a major role in society. People tend to perceive one another by their physical appearance. This creates a mindset that may affect one 's path to leadership. Relating physical appearance to the work force the individuals that have a greater physical stature tend to receive more recognition to leadership and power, than shorter individuals. Research is shown that taller people are more successful have higher authority, higher professional status and are projected as leaders.
The management and development of leadership, trust, and accountability in culturally diverse virtual team members is an important business topic in today’s global economy.
Globalization has many implications for leadership today and in the future. Global perspectives are being spread to the farthest points in the world and to the most isolated people. People of different cultures come to the United States daily to live, travel, or engage in business. Leaders must respond to this challenge of globalization so they can effectively reach out to as many people as possible. Opening themselves to the world's changes allows leaders to compare and contrast their culture with the arts, language, beliefs, customs, philosophies, and ways of living of other people. By observing and questioning another culture, leaders can understand the origin of an individual's viewpoints and become more sensitive to the cultural needs of that individual. By continually exposing themselves to other cultures, young leaders can thoroughly develop this global perspective and devote themselves to making connections with the entire world.
There are several factors that are important if a culturally diverse business team is to flourish and realize its vast potential. Di Stefano and Maznevski (2000) claim that there are three imperative steps to achieving multicultural team success; namely, mapping the team; where the team members need to clearly understand their cultural differences in how they work and view success. This is often led by the team leader. Next, the team must bridge, that is, to communicate with one another, bearing in mind their cultural differences. Finally, the team must integrate, meaning that they bring together these differences and leverage on them to succeed.
In today’s globalized world, multicultural teams accomplish a significant proportion of organizational work. Multicultural teams are formed because they improve organizational effectiveness in the global business environment. As such, multicultural teams offer huge potential to organizations. The most critical and practical challenge multicultural teams face is managing conflicts across members’ national cultural boundaries. Other cultural challenges in multicultural teams include dealing with coordination and control issues, maintaining communication richness, and developing and maintaining team cohesiveness. For multicultural teams to be effective, members must learn to address the challenges that arise from team members’ differing nationalities and cultural backgrounds.
...Harris, Sarah V. Moran (2011). Managing Cultural Differences, Leadership Skills and Strategies for Working in a Global World. 8th ed. UK: Elsevier Inc.. 10-25.
With the rapid growth in globalization there are a number of firms who have taken their businesses abroad. Their challenge, cross cultural management and communication. An effective communication strategy begins first with understanding who the sender of the message is and who the receiver of the message is. Many companies have realized this and offer training in the different cultures to help better facilitate communication between leaders (Cross-Cultural Communication, mindtools.com). Without this basic understand between sender and receiver it can be very difficult for companies of multicultural to even begin to communicate. The second important understanding is that leaders must demand a cultural tolerance of acceptable behavior between cultures to facilitate effective communication (Cross-Cultural Communication, mindtools.com).
Many people associate leadership with a specific job title or form of power within an organization. However, through personal experience, I have concluded that leadership can come in many forms and position as well as from multiple sources of roles and job titles both with and without power. Based on the definition of leadership, anyone can be considered a leader as long as they have the ability to influence people to achieve a particular result or goal which benefits the organization or group as a whole. Individuals with a secure sense of self and understanding, acceptance of diversity within an organization tend to be the strongest leaders that not only make others want to follow, but they also encourage other leaders to gravitate to their