Introduction
Nowadays, it became quite clear to just about anyone that Globalization does not only affect the mechanics of organizational processes but that it also calls for the reassessment of these processes’ discursive premise – specifically, in regards to the currently deployed leadership-practices. The reason for this is that the process of Globalization results in the accumulation of more and more evidence that it is specifically the systemic approach to leadership, which should be considered circumstantially appropriate (Bremmer 2014).
This simply could not be otherwise – as the realities of post-industrial living indicate, the overall quality of a particular organization is much more than the sum of the qualities of its integral parts. Consequently, this implies that, in order to be an effective (global) leader, one must be capable of removing any obstacles on the way of the free flow of informational transactions within the organization, as the main precondition for ensuring the organization’s overall functional efficiency (Northouse 2013). Two of the main challenges, in this respect, are as follows:
Choosing in favor of a proper strategy for motivating employees
This challenge has been predetermined by the fact that, as of today, Western societies continue to become increasingly multicultural. In its turn, this presupposes the out-datedness of the euro-centric (positivist) approach to providing employees with performance-stimulating incentives. The reason for this is that, as practice indicates, the specifics of one’s cultural affiliation do affect the concerned person’s view on how he or she should go about trying to achieve professional self-actualization (Smith & Victorson 2012).
What it means is that there can be very little rationale in believing that, once exposed to the prospect of receiving a monetary reward, people will necessarily feel much more enthusiastic, while on the line of addressing their professional duties. Nevertheless, there is a way to tackle this challenge. It is concerned with the managerial would-be adoption of the ‘transformational’ paradigm of leadership – something that should facilitate the process of the targeted employees becoming closely affiliated with the values of multiculturalism/diversity.
Increasing the measure of the operational sustainability/structural resilience of an organization
This particular challenge has to do with the growing volatility of the global economy – the objective reality that requires just about any organization to be able to react promptly The task of a leader, in this respect, is to ensure that employees would be emotionally comfortable with taking care of their responsibilities in a semi-autonomous manner to the externally applied stimuli. (Sheppard, Sarros & Santora 2013).
This can be achieved if, during the course of the process, a leader never ceases to be thoroughly observant of the theoretical provisions of the so-called Corporate Responsibility Management (CRM) theory, the main of which is concerned with upgrading the status of followers to that of ‘stakeholders’ (Hadders & Miedema 2009).
It appears that the main precondition for a leader to be able to succeed, while addressing the mentioned challenges, is his or her endowment with what can be referred to as ‘cultural intelligence’. This term stands for one’s capacity to adopt a ‘holistic’ (all-encompassing) outlook on the discursive significance of the fact that just about any organization can be conceptualized in terms of an open thermodynamic system, which in turn suggests that the qualitative aspects of its functioning are innately interconnected (Earley & Mosakowski 2004). In order to acquire this type of intelligence, a leader must be willing to apply a continual effort into becoming ever more proficient in defining the essence of the dialectical relationship between causes and effects.
References
Bremmer, I 2014, The new rules of globalization. Web.
Earley, P & Mosakowski, E 2004, ‘Cultural intelligence’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 82, no. 10, pp.139-146.
Hadders, H & Miedema, J 2009, ‘Leader fairness, social contract and corporate sustainability performance’, in J Politis (ed), The proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance, Conferences Limited, Dubai, pp. 46-52.
Northouse, P 2013, Leadership: theory and practice, Sage, Thousand Oaks.
Sheppard, J, Sarros, J & Santora J 2013, ‘Twenty-first century leadership: international imperatives’, Management Decision, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 267-280.
Smith, M & Victorson, J 2012, ‘Developing a global mindset: cross-cultural challenges and best practices for assessing and grooming high potentials for global leadership’, People & Strategy, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 43-51.