Advances in Global Leadership: Volume 5

Welcome to Volume 5 of Advances in Global Leadership. Our objectives in this volume remain the same as in Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4 of this series (Mobley, Gessner, & Arnold, 1999; Mobley & McCall, 2001; Mobley & Dorfman, 2003; Mobley & Weldon, 2006). We seek to advance the definition, conceptualization, and understanding of global leadership processes and the development of international and global leaders.

The first section of this volume deals with leadership qualities in the global environment. In particular, we are pleased to have scholars share their leading-edge research in terms of the following leadership characteristics and qualities: personality, competency, the ability to scan environment in search of useful information, the ability to anticipate and manage errors, and integrity and ethical leadership.

As we move deeper into the 21st century and organizations continue to expand globally, the need for talented leaders and enhanced leadership development programs will grow. In fact, rapid economic growth in parts of the world coupled with the number of experienced leaders retiring in other parts of the world point to a global leadership imperative – we need to understand better how to select and develop leaders who can deliver organizational results. This chapter makes four principal assertions: (1) leadership is a function of personality; (2) leadership is a determinant of organizational effectiveness; (3) principles of leadership are formal; and (4) using the leadership value chain, one can trace the links from personality to leadership to organizational effectiveness. We conclude by offering some suggestions to help understand and guide future, global leadership development.

The chapter describes the SHL Corporate leadership model (Bartram, 2002) and the results of an investigation of leadership competency potential in 11 different European countries (39,354 people). The measures of potential used are eight competency factors known as the ‘Great Eight’ (Bartram, 2005) derived from Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ32) scale scores. The results show some very clear trends in terms of effects of managerial experience and effects of gender on competency potential profiles. While there are differences in patterns of results between countries, these tend to be relatively small and non-systematic. The gender and experience effects, on the contrary, are consistent across countries. Overall, we find that transactional competencies decrease and transformational competencies increase with increases in level of managerial experience and that females show generally lower levels of transformational competencies and higher levels of transactional competencies than males. These findings are discussed in relation to the literature on gender differences in leadership.

This chapter attempts to reinvigorate scholarly interest in executive scanning by outlining a model to guide future research on executive search within the context of international strategy. Executive scanning has received considerable empirical attention but only limited theoretical attention. Most of this research has studied scanning as the receipt rather than the search for information. Based on the application of learning theory, we outline a model advancing two broad categories of executive search exploitative and explorative, consisting of six specific search behaviors. We advance search as integral to managerial decisions relating to the various aspects of internationalization, notably choice of location, corporate strategy, and mode of entry. The implications for future research are presented.

Transformational, charismatic, and related leadership theories play an important role in understanding how leaders motivate better performance. However, these approaches have paid surprisingly little attention to the management of error in organizations. In fact, current studies in transformational leadership tend to define the management of error as one of the negative features of leadership. Preventing error and learning from error is a high profile leadership role in a wide variety of global industries, and therefore, it is important that leadership theories encompass this critical task. We draw on different streams of research to provide a more integrated and positive approach to leadership and the management error. Studies of error management culture provide insights into the organizational systems that are important for responding and learning from error. We discuss how error learning culture can inform the leadership behaviors that will enhance learning from error. We also draw on regulatory focus theory to show how managing error can be differentiated from other leadership activities. The integration of these ideas with current leadership theory provides a more comprehensive framework for understanding the role of leadership when error management is critical. We present this integrated framework and discuss how cultural factors are likely to shape the role of error management in a variety of global contexts.

In this chapter, we propose that society- and organization-level social context cues influence the endorsement of ethical leadership. More specifically, we propose that certain organizational culture values provide proximal contextual cues that people use to form perceptions of the importance of ethical leadership. We further propose that specific societal culture values and societal corruption provide a set of more distal, yet salient, environmental cues about the importance of ethical leadership. Using data from Project GLOBE, we provide evidence that both proximal and distal contextual cues were related to perceptions of four dimensions of ethical leadership as important for effective leadership, including character/integrity, altruism, collective motivation, and encouragement.

Organizational leadership in global corporations has always been a challenging task for several decades. It has become even more stressful and difficult in recent years. Global economy hallmarked by open trade, friendly tariff practice, and relatively easier flow of capital, intellectual property, and low-cost labor brought tremendous benefit to consumers while intensified global competition among global companies. Since 1985, there has been a sharp increase in the number of companies that Standard & Poor calls high risk. The forecast for most companies is continued chaos with a chance of disaster. The most common advice you heard over the years has been “to get comfortable with it.”

Strategic Alliances (SAs) have become widely used by global businesses for pursuing strategic goals.¹ Because of the special nuances that can make these kinds of joint ventures (JVs) effective means for achieving challenging strategic goals, they are generally more difficult to establish and manage. Some of the larger, more successful users of SAs recognize the special nature of these relationships and some such as Cisco and Pfizer have even created high-level divisions or departments in their organization explicitly focused on planning, pursuing, and managing outside strategic partnerships. These units not only monitor the alliances (in some cases, dozens at a time) but also develop tools and insights that will allow the organization to engage in SA more successfully.

Developing global leaders is one of the most pressing needs for global companies. We present a framework for a more integrated talent management development program. The framework is based on several key principles and includes the use of assessment tools, 70-20-10 development tactics, external coaching, and an emphasis on critical experiences. We focus specifically on key considerations for implementing this type of a framework and the keys to success.

Globalization requires business leaders who can manage effectively in multicultural environments. Although many organizations assume leaders will enhance their multicultural skills through international assignments, it is unclear how leaders translate these international experiences into knowledge and skills that enhance their effectiveness. Based on experiential learning theory (ELT), we propose that cultural intelligence (CQ) is an essential learning capability that leaders can use to translate their international experiences into effective experiential learning in culturally diverse contexts.

In recent years, the concept of cultural intelligence has attracted increased interest among scholars and practitioners in global leadership research. This chapter aims to contribute to the understanding of the impact of Experiential Learning Theory on the development of cultural intelligence in global leaders. It proposes a model that addresses the relationship between four modes of experiential learning and four facets of cultural intelligence; and hypothesizes that learning styles exercise a moderating effect on the relationship between international experience and cultural intelligence. Managerial implications for global talent selection and leadership development are also proposed based on the model.

I remember talking with Hugh Stephenson some time in the early 1980s after he returned from a trip to the Middle East. Hugh was in charge of Career Development for NCR and had been assessing the leadership and management skills of NCR leaders in the Middle East. I recall his amusement and his frustration as he remarked on how difficult it was from his Western perspective to interpret leadership motivation and drive when the answers to so many of his questions was tempered by, “If Allah wills.” This led us into a long discussion about assessing across cultures, including the challenge of seeing and interpreting things from a different cultural perspective, and the relevance of the NCR corporate model to leadership effectiveness in the Middle East. It would be another 18 years, however, before I was to gain first hand experience assessing and developing leaders in the Middle East.

Korean organizations’ attempts to transplant home management practices directly to their overseas operations have not been received positively by foreign staff; the application of hierarchical Confucianist management principles has led to high reliance on expatriates in Korean overseas operations and failed integration with both local staff and local markets in host country. In this conceptual chapter, we examine the significance of strong informal social ties (based on the unique social psychology of jeong, woori and nunchi) as cultural control in the Korean workplace and develop this as a novel explanation for Korean management discomfort in overseas settings. Promotion of weak social ties with local staff is suggested as more appropriate for achieving goals of exploring local expertise and knowledge.

This article verified the construct of servant leadership and validated a measure developed in Western culture. Results from exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (N=285) produced a five-factor model – altruistic calling, emotional healing, persuasive mapping, wisdom, and community stewardship with less items than the original measure. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (N=304) indicated that the 5-factor servant leadership model fits the data best. Correlation analysis of the supervisor-subordinate paired sample (N=209 dyads) showed that servant leadership has more common features with transformational leadership and less with paternalistic leadership; the predictive power of servant leadership was roughly equivalent to that of transformational leadership but higher than that of paternalistic leadership when predicting criterion variables such as overall satisfaction and deviance behavior. Our results totally demonstrated that the revised servant leadership scale in Chinese culture has higher reliability and validity, which could be used for subsequent studies as an effective instrument.

Hogan and Benson's chapter in this volume used the CEO of both Nissan and Renault Ghosn, who was born in Brazil with Lebanese heritage, educated in France, worked in the U.S., and then resurrected a major Japanese firm, as an example to support the view that the principles of leadership are formal and not culture specific. Campbell (2006) earlier had argued that some leadership principles are universal and timeless, such as ethics and integrity. Ethical leadership is critically important in our global society today. The fact that ethical and moral issues have contributed to the falling of banks and financial institutions on Wall Street and in many other parts of the world tells us that ethical leadership is a prerequisite for the health of the global market. Financial institutions are required to engage in global thinking and acceptable standards of behavior to regain a stable and safe global financial market (Garten, 2008).

William H. Mobley is professor of management and advisor on executive education at China Europe International Business School in Shanghai. He is also an experienced executive and management consultant and coach working primarily with executives and leadership teams based in China and the Asia Pacific region. He is the president and managing director of the Shanghai-based Mobley Group Pacific (MGP). MGP focuses on executive assessment for selection and development; executive coaching; organizational design, culture and effectiveness; China business entry and development. He earned his BA degree in psychology and economics from Denison University in the United States and his Ph.D. degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has also been awarded honorary degrees from the University of Americans in Pueblo Mexico and the University of Akron and is an honorary professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has served as a visiting professor at National Taiwan University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and as a visiting fellow at Cornell University. He is the author of Employee Turnover: Causes, Consequences and Control (Addison Wesley) and executive editor of Advances in Global Leadership (JAI/Elsevier). He is a registered organizational psychologist and a fellow of APA, APS and the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology. Bill previously served as corporate manager of HR Research and Succession Planning for PPG Industries; as dean of the College of Business Administration and later president of Texas A&M University; as managing director of PDI Asia Pacific; and president of the Global Research Consortia Ltd. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of several companies and foundations in Hong Kong, China and the United States. He is a U.S. representative on the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC).

Soon Ang (Ph.D. Minnesota) is Goh Tjoei Kok Distinguished Chair of Management and Head, Division of Strategy, Management & Organization at the Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests are in cultural intelligence, global leadership, and outsourcing. She has published extensively in Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Information Systems Research, Organization Science, Management Science, MIS Quarterly, and Social Forces, and serves on editorial boards including Management Science, Organization Science, Applied Psychology, Decision Science, Information System Research, MIS Quarterly, etc. She has pioneered and coauthored two books on cultural intelligence (Stanford University Press) and coedited the Handbook of Cultural Intelligence (ME Sharpe). She was recently awarded the prestigious Distinguished International Alumni Award by the University of Minnesota for her academic leadership and scholarship record.