Developing successful leadership styles

Leading across borders: inclusive thinking in an interconnected world
Developing successful leadership styles

Understanding cross-cultural differences shouldn’t be that difficult. After all, haven’t most global CEOs been there, done that?

But the devil is in the details, as Dr. Mansour Javidan, Dean of Research and Garvin Distinguished Professor at Thunderbird School of Global Management, explains to Ernst & Young’s Billie Williamson, Americas Inclusiveness Officer.

Billie Williamson: You’ve been leading GLOBE, the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Research Project. Can you briefly describe the project and its progress to date?


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Dr. Mansour Javidan: GLOBE looks at the inter-relationships between societal culture, organizational culture and organizational leadership. We’ve got about 170 social scientists and management scholars from all major regions worldwide working on a long-term series of cross-cultural leadership studies.

GLOBE is a multiyear project that’s broken into phases. In Phases 1 and 2, we looked at cultural similarities and differences across countries and tried to understand what we call implicit leadership theories. That is, what do people in different societies expect from their leaders? In the first two phases, we collected data from more than 17,000 middle managers in 58 countries representing 62 cultures. From that, we’ve created profiles of outstanding leadership in each of those cultures.

Now we’re in Phase 3, in which we collected data from more than 800 CEOs in 20 countries (a subset of the total 58). In this phase, we’re looking at the actual behaviors of CEOs and asking how they implement strategic change in their organizations. We hypothesized two things: first, that the CEOs whose styles are consistent with the leadership profiles in their respective countries will be outstanding leaders; and second, that their companies’ financial results will be superior to the results of companies led by CEOs whose styles don’t match the profiles. Thus far we’ve found that this is, in fact, true.

Billie Williamson: What does this mean, in practical terms?

Dr. Mansour Javidan: It means that if you’re a US executive working in Russia or China, for example, you must think about what kind of leadership style you should use and how you must adjust your behavior. We have detailed information about how to lead in different countries.

And now that we have that information, we’re asking what adjustments a typical executive must make and why some are more successful than others in making those adjustments. Our position is that the successful executives have “the global mindset”; a set of attributes that helps executives do a better job of leading people who are different from them.

Billie Williamson: What are your top-level findings from the survey?

Dr. Mansour Javidan: We have identified specific leadership attributes that are universally desirable — no matter what country you’re in. For example, integrity and honesty are viewed as very positive (although they’re more important in some countries than in others). Being collaborative is also highly desirable, regardless of what part of the world you’re in. By the same token, some attributes are universally undesirable for leadership: being irritable, asocial or self-centered is viewed negatively in all countries.

Then, there is a wide range of attributes that are culturally specific. For example, being cunning and self-protective is viewed negatively in the US and Germany, but seen as positive and effective in parts of the Middle East and some other countries.

So US executives in the Middle East, for example, would first want to understand that these qualities may be viewed positively by location colleagues and clients. And second, they’d want to decide how to incorporate those qualities into their own leadership style without losing their identity. That’s the real challenge.

Billie Williamson: In talking about promoting diversity and a global mindset, don’t we risk being somewhat ethnocentric ourselves? We’re telling people, “Here’s how we do it in our part of the world, so that’s how you should do it, too.”

Dr. Mansour Javidan: I get that question a lot. My view is that if you’re an American company that believes in the value of diversity — that it fuels innovation and leads to better business outcomes (and there’s good evidence that it does) — then the people you hire in other parts of the world should abide by your values. Again, that’s the challenge for every global company: how to balance your corporate and societal cultures with those in the foreign country where you’re operating.

The company must stick to its values, but it also must understand that just because you can implement those values in the US doesn’t mean you can necessarily do so in another country. I don’t think there is a simple answer to a situation like that. You have to assess what risk you want to take, and then see what happens.

Billie Williamson: Can you think of any real-life instances where you’ve seen this dilemma? How did it work out?

Dr. Mansour Javidan: This was kind of a nuanced situation, not really black and white. A US company operating in the Middle East sent a very competent, very successful woman executive there. The company’s own country manager said, “If you send us this individual, she won’t be able to build the same personal relations that a man could.” And in the Middle East, it’s true that the boundaries between business and personal relations are fuzzy.

The company decided that the woman met all the relevant criteria, and sent her despite the objections of the country manager. In the short term, the US company actually received strong positive feedback from some of its local clients and supply chain partners, and other people it was dealing with in that country.

Some of them said, in effect, “We appreciate that you’re taking your own values seriously.” Everyone was very pleased. But a year into the job, the female executive realized what the country manager had been talking about. She had very good, respectful relations with her local contacts, but she was unable to build the same kind of personal relations that a male executive could have. Her experience on the informal side was quite different from the formal side. As a result, she was a little constrained in her ability to do more business.

So it’s not about good or bad, or wrong or right, or success or failure — she was reasonably successful — but she herself was the first to admit that a male executive could have done more. Everyone was clear that there had been a price attached to sticking by the company’s values — and the company was fine with that.

Billie Williamson: Are there actions companies can take in the short term that will help their people foster a global mindset?

Dr. Mansour Javidan: First, share information with newcomers about the do’s and don’ts of dealing with people from different parts of the world. Tell people that this is a priority for the organization. Second, multinational corporations employ people from all over the world, but often they don’t exploit this advantage.

Companies should leverage their networks by arranging for new executives to spend time with people from different backgrounds whenever possible. I’m often amazed that companies have no easily accessible database of managers who are based overseas or foreign employees who have worked abroad and then returned. Most companies have a large pool of people who can share ideas and experiences, and it doesn’t cost anything to do this.

Let’s say I want to learn about Japan. Which button do I push, which screen do I access to see the list of all our people? Again, not just those who are currently in Japan, but also those who have had experience working there, regardless of where they are now. Many companies, perhaps most, don’t have this information centralized and made easily available.

Billie Williamson: Don’t most senior leaders know all this already?

Dr. Mansour Javidan: None of this stuff is rocket science. Most people in global positions are pretty smart and they’ll undoubtedly figure it out. But there’s an easy way to do it, and a hard way. The easy way is to take a proactive approach and help prepare people for the challenges of leading with a global mindset.

The hard way is to let them parachute in and assume that they’ll figure it out. Many of them probably will, but the process will be inefficient and painful. And there is the risk that some of them may not figure it out. The solution is for companies to be proactive and help their managers. This requires that they do some thinking about how to thrive in a global economy, and make the issue a priority.

http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Issues/Business-environment/Leading-across-borders--inclusive-thinking-in-an-interconnected-world---Developing-successful-leadership-styles