Developing a Global Mindset

Posted by Jarrett Shalhoop on Mon, Mar 19, 2012

Last week I attended the Developing Leaders for Global Roles Summit at the Thunderbird Najafi Global Mindset Institute in Glendale, Arizona. The summit brought together academics and practitioners from around the world to discuss the concept and issues surrounding global leadership, and approaches to closing the talent gaps that virtually every organization experiences. The stories and insights from the other attendees were enlightening, so I thought I’d summarize a few of the takeaways here in our blog.

First, this will come as no surprise, but nobody is defining their problem in terms of a surplus of global leadership talent. Talent in this area is particularly scarce and extremely valuable. This is a prime battle in the broader war for talent.

Second, gooGlobed leadership skills do not necessarily generalize to a global setting. Leadership skills are distinct from having a global perspective, and successful global leadership requires both. The folks at Thunderbird have a robust body of research on the concept of global mindset, complete with a measurement tool (the Global Mindset Inventory, or GMI) and taxonomy of skills and attributes. The good news is that global mindset can be developed. The bad news is that not nearly enough organizations are actively developing global mindsets in their leadership talent pools or organizations. 

Third, success in a global environment requires not just leaders that think globally, but an entire organization that sees itself as global and thinks in those terms. Making this transition is difficult. For example, moving from being a U.S.-based business that works in China to an organization that does business in both the U.S. and China is a big adjustment, and requires commitment from the entire workforce. From this perspective, global mindset is an organizational development issue, not just a leadership development issue.

So what are people doing to move towards a global organization? I heard a few things from a fantastic lineup of speakers, including:

  • Building cross-cultural work teams. These might be traditional or virtual work teams, but getting some exposure to different people, different business cultures, and different ways of thinking is key.
  • Spending time in-country. Most of the speakers agreed that there is no substitute for spending time in another culture. If you want to do business in Japan, for example, you need to get over there and really get a first-hand feel for the way things work. This is difficult and expensive, but also provides tremendous development.
  • Debriefing past experiences. After projects are implemented, the project teams sit down and replay the scenario, debriefing what decisions were made, and how things could have been done differently. This is probably good practice for any significant project, but hearing the story from others with a different cultural perspective can provide valuable insight that might not have been acquired through the process of just getting the work done.
  • Targeting global mindset specifically through development programs. This is relatively new, but seems like a great idea. The GMI and other assessments are being integrated into development programs to help people recognize their own tendencies (individual and cultural), and how to think outside of those constraints.

It’s a cliché – but no less true – to say it’s a global business environment. Those who can adapt to this playing field will be more successful. Those who impose their ways of doing things onto other culture will struggle. Developing leaders who can be successful in the global business environment will be critical, and the Global Najafi Global Mindset Institute is doing a lot of great work to help organizations meet this challenge.

Topics: leadership development, global leadership, developing leaders, leadership skills

The Importance of Understanding Global Leadership

Posted by Jarrett Shalhoop on Thu, Jul 28, 2011

Globalization has arrived. The work of individuals, teams, business units, and companies span geographic boundaries, markets, cultures, and languages. Organizations have operations around the globe, and the major economies of the world are tightly interconnected.


As applied practitioners of organizational psychology, it’s important for us to understand the implications for work in these organizations, and in particular how to manage talent needs as the nature of business changes. Tasks and duties in low-complexity jobs are often more tangible and easily defined, may have little differentiation across cultures. For example, basic assembly and manufacturing positions require some degree of conscientiousness and teamwork, and may have little variance in the knowledge, skills, abilities, and personality characteristics (KSAPs) required to successfully perform the job in different cultures. In high-complexity jobs, the specific task and duty requirements may be harder to define, and require a higher degree of judgment and discretion on the part of the employee. In these roles, the cultural context may dictate the specific set of KSAPs that will facilitate performance.


Management and leadership positions are generally considered to be high-complexity jobs. The people that fill these roles are given broad goals and targets to accomplish, and are afforded the discretion to exercise their judgment regarding the best way to meet these goals. Just about the only common characteristic of these jobs is the responsibility of the leader to facilitate the work of others. But how do leaders facilitate the work of others? How do they build and motivate high-performing teams? The answer to this is the most oft-uttered line of any psychologist – “it depends.”


Here at Hogan we’ve initiated some research to explore the leadership characteristics in various cultures around the world. These characteristics reflect a culture’s beliefs about what constitutes leadership. According to Implicit Leadership Theory (Fischbein and Lord, 2004), people develop ideas of what constitutes leadership. Collectively, these beliefs form an individual’s leadership prototype. People then compare others to this leadership prototype, and to the extent that a person matches the leadership prototype, we ascribe leadership qualities to that person. Through this research, we are examining whether there may exist cultural differences in leadership prototypes, and thus in the people that are promoted into leadership positions in organizations. Naturally, this will hold implications for organizations whose operations span cultural boundaries.


Stay tuned for research updates, and look for our findings to be presented at the 2012 SIOP Conference in San Diego.
 

Topics: leadership, global leadership, globalization, organizational psychology

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