Leadership is a word whose definition cannot be vividly explained. Many books have been written on this topic Businesses, counselors and motivational speakers have also contributed in this debate. However, the need to find a definition doesn’t require one to look for a specific definition that can be accepted by everybody, but rather a definition that tries to explain what leadership should be in totality.
The reason for choosing a working definition is to enable the debate of its role and importance on globalization to be understood. According to Kouzes and Posner (3), “Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute making something happen.” Lussier and Achua (4) argued that, “Leadership is really a crock; it is about manipulating people to get them to do something they don’t want to do, and there may be anything in it for them.”
Leadership can be considered to be the provision of a vision to the people whom one has authority over and pushing through the understanding of the vision and the achievement of its goals for the benefit of the institution one is leading. Grint (4) on the other hand, looks at leadership from different perspectives. He describes leadership to be a position, a person, a result or a process that gets things done
Some of the popular people in the world have been known to be leaders depending on how one views leadership. The enthusiasm a person has while heading a company, country or an organization will obviously give him/her credit based on the success of that institution. If that is the case, then, there are a number of renowned leaders in the world. Bill Gates for instance, is a famous and popular multi billionaire. Credit is given to him as the leader and brain behind the Microsoft Corporation.
His contribution to the field of Graphical User Interface computing and desktop is a great idea developed by him. Another remarkable leader in the Information and communication Technology Industry is Steve jobs who despite dropping out of school, managed to lead Apple Computers to success and production of Tech Savvy gadgets. Indeed, it is the zeal with which they steered their ideas that led to their success. Other types of leaders can be drawn from politics, religion and education.
Lussier and Achua (7) argue that all managers perform a leadership rolse among their four activities including planning, organizing and controlling. Leadership and skills are very essential in the success of an organization. The kind of a leader an organization has determines the pace at which it will grow if it is growth focused.
Some people say that leaders are born while others say leaders are made. Whichever side one may be in, the fact is that an individual has to learn leadership skills in order to lead. For a business to prosper, it would need more strategic leadership rather than leadership itself. This is because business thrives in a market with many environmental variables which affect the output of the business. It should be strategic because the environment constantly change and the business policies and ideas must change with it.
Globalization
Globalization is the main point discussed in this paper. Steger (2) states that globalization is the “shrinkage of time and space”. It can also be defined as the linkage of world economic, cultural, political, and technological advancements. It has a tremendous importance to the seven billion plus people in the world.
The prevailing tone concerning globalization is that, people are optimistic towards its intentions and outcomes. Incomplete globalization causes undesirable problems along the way though the ultimate goal of global peace and prosperity is considered to be achieved at the end. Not only will globalization bring world economy into efficiency, but it will also provoke political and social fields to overcome national barriers.
The first and foremost benefit of globalization is economic efficiency. Not only have countries been able to focus on their primary industries and save budgets from developing inefficient ones, but they have also been provided with a wider range of products to select from. Globalization has also laid out the groundwork for free trades which contributed largely to the bigger market.
Reasons for globalization
Globalization is making the market accessible to everybody in the world. In fact, the concept of globalization has made the world to be a global village whereby, one can be able to buy a commodity from one continent and within two days, the commodity is shipped to the buyer. There are various reasons why the world has to embrace the concept of globalization.
Globalization has enhanced food security in a number of ways. Food security is a situation whereby, producers produce enough food and sell at a fair price while consumers find enough food at fair prices all times. It is expected that no one should control the free flow of food while farmers are paid well from their produce without exploiting their customers. Food security is a major world concern because without food, everything is in a mess.
There are many ways that globalization can enhance food security. The discovery of food biotechnologies that enhance the growth of faster growing, drought resistant and disease resistant plants has been a great milestone that has been shared throughout the world. Through this initiative, food production has been enhanced throughout the world for those who have embraced it.
The fact that food can be sold freely in the world market with minimum or no barriers, it has also contributed greatly towards food security. McDonald (39) indicates that, “modern globalization brings new opportunities for improving human livelihoods and well being. In addition, it also brings greater recognition of the persistent sources of human insecurity from threats such as a lack of sufficient food.”
The contribution of globalization to food security is so great that a person in Africa can eat chicken from the United States of America with as much enthusiasm as that of their home. The Kentucky Fried chicken company is able to transport its chicken reared in America to the capital city of Kenya in Africa and still make reasonable sales fetching profits from their sales.
The fact that food can move all the way from America to Africa is a big contribution to food security in the region. Food security can simply be defined as availability of food at the right time and place and at affordable rates for the population.
Globalization of culture is also a big idea that enhances world peace and integration. Integration improves relations between countries thereby embracing common values that make people understand each other. Therefore, they are able to live with each other peacefully. Ismail (3) states that, “globalization is currently enhancing the world’s atmosphere and is familiar to people from a diversity of civilizations”.
Globalization is beautiful to world peace but it can be ugly in different dimensions. The fact that countries can trade freely with each other can be misused to for instance, sell weapons to countries that may be in dispute. This is used by countries that produce weapons hence, encouraging war between the countries that are at war.
This is mainly used so that the country selling the weapons gains from the sale without taking the responsibility of the actions of the buying country. This is one of the undesirable effects of globalization. This however, should be controlled by international bodies and the big brother countries like the United States of America in achieving world peace.
Globalization and technology have enhanced each other in different ways. Through free movement of technology in the world, the globe has been made like the size of a village. For instance, one can send an email to another within few seconds in a different continent. Through technology, communication has been enhanced and this has consequently enhanced integration through intermarriages and other unions.
Over the past two decades Papageorgiou and Jaumotte (6) argue that, “income growth has been positive for all quintiles in virtually all regions and all income groups during the recent period of globalization, however, income inequality had increased mainly in middle and high income countries.”
This is contributed slightly by patent rules and regulations. For instance, people argue that through patent, the Microsoft Corporation has ensured monopoly over the years. This is so because the company produces products that cannot be used in other platforms and as well they discourage other people from making similar products.
Technology has enhanced globalization greatly both positively and negatively. Through technology, revolutions have been experienced in the Arab world, it is said that a single ‘tweet’ spreads across the world in seconds. Depending on the message it carries, the results may be detrimental. A case that was experienced in the year 2011 is one that indicated that people receiving calls from a red number ending with triple 6 will die immediately after receiving it.
This was a panic message that went viral and circulated very fast through mobile gadgets. In addition, giving tornado or any other disaster warnings to the populace is fast through technology. This is a great idea in globalization because now, people can communicate easily.
This can influence leadership in the world in general. Previously, it was very difficult to express your views to the president. However, in the world today, it is very easy to drop a message to president Obama in a second. This has been able to put leaders on the spot, backing up the efforts of the media in the pushing of the political leaders to be responsible.
Religion and globalization is also an area that influences each other and the leaders of these religious groups. Laguerre (17) indicates that, “a religion is global when it defines itself as a multinational, multicultural, and multiethnic faith based community project as reflected in its demographic composition.”
Something is said to be global when it includes everybody or everything in the wider set. Globalization of culture, trade, technology, leadership, and socialization and other factors has enhanced the growth of religions and religious beliefs. For instance, through the internet, people are able to learn through correspondence and get to know much about the religion they want to join or learn about. Communication has been made easy so that people can criticize their leaders in their faiths positively.
Another way through which globalization has impacted on religion is by enhancing its growth through free movement of the ambassadors of religion. The believers can be able to meet anywhere in the world and congregate and share what they belief in common. Through satellite Television, televangelism has led to expansion of religious institutions because people get ‘converted’ easily as it is easy to reach them at the same time.
However, there is nothing that has only the best, there are shortcomings of globalization. Some of the religious leaders have ended up duping their followers into contributing money for projects that do not exist. The money obviously, ends up in their pockets. These are some the undesirable effects of globalization of religion.
Impact of leadership on globalization
The phrase ‘think globally but act locally’ is not a cliché in the leadership realm. It emphasizes the need to consult widely before acting. It is very important just like in construction of software’s, there are variables that will be used by ‘everybody’ and there are those that will be used by specific methods only. The programmer has control of all programs, thus, he/she should be able to coordinate them so as to achieve the best results.
The paper has concentrated on globalization on the global sense hence, it is proper to look at how leadership has affects especially the growth of globalization. We first concentrate on leadership and globalization of religion. For a religious group to become global, it has to be multinational, multiracial, multicultural and multilingual. To achieve that, the group must define a strategy in which they will reach different kinds of people. They should be able to devise a means through which they will reach the people and capture their attention.
For that to be effective, it will depend greatly on the leaders. In an economy, the executive and the legislative arm of government make decisions which will affect the economy directly. They will have to make a decision on whether to concentrate the income of the economy like development of infrastructure as opposed to food production or education for a particular period of time. According to Laguerre (68), “developing infrastructural sign posts throughout the globe as a result of the missionary system that fuels its geographical expansion.”
In fact, the local churches are units of the global network in different national territories worldwide. This is a brilliant idea that can only be implemented by the leadership of the church. Those who think locally can never go local but those who think global and act local do so by acting local in different locations. The result is a global network which essentially enhances globalization.
Thus, brilliant leadership is the catalyst of religious globalization in this context. Think of a spiritual leader who thinks that people who are his/her friends are the only ones who should congregate with him. This leader is deemed to fail and the conclusion is that, his/her leadership is not remarkable. This will definitely leave people in their cocoons and they will not learn anything but have squabbles within themselves.
The leadership of the ‘church’ then must be aggressive and change with time as well. They should also be able to devise new ways of attracting people to their congregation in the process of globalizing the church. In any case, a leader who cannot see the way, no one will guide him or her.
The cliché, a blind man cannot lead another blind makes a lot of sense here. It is very important for the leadership of an organization to show and lead the way to the truth. Hence, for religion to become global, the leadership of the religion must be able to design policies that can encourage the followers. Otherwise, the ‘church’ or ‘mosque’ will not be in a position to go global but will just belong to a certain region.
Leadership’s economic effect on globalization can be considered a great topic to discuss. Thompson and Reuveny (74) indicate that, “leadership change affects the Northern economy more than the Southern economy.” This clearly indicates that, leadership is pivotal to the economy of the world in general.
The leadership basically makes decisions that affect the movement of products, knowledge and goods within an economy. This is so because if the leadership is clear in their mind, they are supposed to formulate policies that encourage investments from other countries (foreign investment) because they will do so within their means.
An example is a third world country that is developing which has to concentrate on particular issues than others. For instance, it is clear that education, medical care and shelter are very critical in the development of the country.
But then, it is fair for the leadership to think outside the box and develop infrastructure that will enable private and foreign investors to invest in the country so that they generate jobs. The jobs so far generated will then make the lives of the employees better and the government will collect taxes that they would divert to education, medicine and other areas of development.
Changing leadership technically affects globalization. For instance, there is something called friendship of nations. Once governments change, the concept of giving tenders to quality is not abided to rather, it is directed to nations that seem to be friendly to the sitting leadership.
This is experienced in developing countries in the world. In America, the effect is usually felt by the party having presidency when it changes between the republicans and the democrats. The push to accept ideologies of either party greatly affects where to invest in the world and what to invest in. This directly affects the concept of globalization.
According to Thompson and Reuveny (80), “it is consistent in our expectation that systematic leadership and long waves of economic growth are drivers of systemic phenomena such as economic globalization.” The economy of a country purely depends on government policies. These policies may be made in a way that will encourage or discourage foreign investors.
If they encourage foreign investments, it is possible for people from all parts of the world to have a share of the local market. And this is what is known as economic globalization. It is clear that the leadership greatly impacts economic globalization a great deal. Leadership directly dictates the policies formulated, this is what will either encourage or discourage globalization.
Political impact on globalization is very evident in the world. The latest incidences are coup staged in West African countries. Once the politicians cause instability in a country, any foreign agent in that country runs back to their country.
Each country hosts ambassadors from countries it thinks have common interests. In most countries, the ambassadors are supposed to sell the good things about their home government. However, sometimes the big brother countries try to influence the politics of developing countries so that they can benefit from it.
Prechel (3) wrote, “Advocates of this ‘global neoberalism’ believe it is necessary to sub ordinate states and politics to requirements of capital accumulation. This is clear because it affects globalization directly. In a matter of fact, the concept of globalization was born by political leaders because it must be steered ahead by the same political leaders who embrace the idea. Those who did not like the idea will keep fighting it to the end.
Something good and beneficial to the masses will always go viral and the many that like it will make good use of it. The world bodies like the World Bank, United Nations, and International Monetary Fund are influenced by political leaders.
The decisions made by these bodies directly affect politics of other parts of the world. This is something to think about in globalization. The politicians of a certain country may be backed by the UN while the opponents are not backed. This may because a major drift will either affect globalization positively or negatively.
In the case of Muhamar Gadhafi who was ousted in Libya by the Transitional Government Fighters backed by NATO, is a good example of the effect of politics in globalization. It is said that the former Libyan leader was ruling with an iron fist hence, discouraging democracy and the immigration of foreigners into the country. Thus, he was discouraging globalization. Someone may conclude that after his regime, the country opened up and there is free flow of information into and out of the country.
Recommendation and Conclusion
Globalization is real and helpful in the world today. It is of prime importance that people embrace togetherness making the world like a global village. If globalization is used objectively, it will enhance world peace, food security and international cohesion. Leadership has the biggest role in it. It is clear that if the leadership of various countries doesn’t enact proper government policies that encourage international business, international culture, and international relations then globalization cannot prevail.
Leaders must remember that they must have a vision and work for the dream tirelessly. Sometimes they have to go an extra mile so that their dreams of a prosperous nation can be realized. The cliché a blind man cannot lead another blind man is true in the sense that leaders must be brilliant people who are informed and ready to work in a vision that they have.
Thinking globally and acting locally is a great quote for all leaders because local makes global. Leaders must factor in all global factors before implementing any action locally. The fact that human beings have common basic needs is a clear driver of why people should share the world resources through globalization. The reason for this assumption is that, globalization makes it possible to sell or buy commodities that one cannot produce in his/her country.
Works Cited
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