Global leadership used to be a bit of a novelty or niche part of doing business. While many businesses have engaged in global commerce and discourse for quite some time, it was much more limited in many other parts of industry. However, the advancement of technology, the internet/computers in particular and supply chain logistics has been a game changer. Also significant is the massive movement of many peoples from their customary and common parts of the world to new endeavors and locales. Whether it be the refugee migrations from Africa and the Middle East or whether it be professionals from Asia finding new frontiers in the West as doctors and so forth, demographics are changing swiftly and significantly and this will require a level of cultural awareness and understanding even for businesses that do not intentionally operate in a global fashion.
Analysis
Even though much of the developments relating to the global leadership paradigm are positive and increase diversity rather automatically, there are some growing pains and conflicts that emerge when it comes to meshing and merging cultures together within a singular commerce domain. Indeed, there are noticeable, if not massive, differences in the way that women are treated and regarded from one culture to the next. Indeed, a study on the matter proved this as they examined gender differences at random by pulling from a random pot of nearly 1,200 managers in 74 countries. Even when women and men had similar opportunities and leadership positions, the things that they strived for and were passionate about tended to be quite different....
Women tended to focus on things like diversity, intercultural empathy and diplomacy. On the other hand men were more focused on stronger global leadership self-efficacies such as business savvy, going for a cosmopolitan outlook and good impacts of an interpersonal nature (Javidan, Bullough & Dibble, 2016).
While there is only so far that theory and ideas can take a person when it comes to the real world practice of global leadership, there are some broader frameworks and conceptual models that one can consider and ponder when it comes to the subject. Indeed, global organizations, by virtue of their status and position, must content with and handle other global leaders. Beyond that, it is less than easy to find full and constant parallels between the facets of domestic leadership and the same thing for global leadership. It has been found rather consistently that global leadership has a different perspective and level of cognitive complexity, human capital, personality processes and mindsets. Even so, it has also been found that global leadership focuses can and should focus on a number of important variables such as the aforementioned cognitive complexity, emotional resilience, intelligence and literacy when it comes to cultural matters and so forth (Mathews, 2016; Vanderpal, 2014).
It takes strong leaders of a global fashion to corral and properly influence the followers that look to them for leadership, guidance and confidence. Being able to pull this off is commonly a result of a strong loyalty and commitment to what is known as global leadership development, or GLD…
