This document discusses the evolution of globalism and culturally competent leadership. It notes that while 20 years ago leadership texts focused on Americans leading international companies, today it is recognized that leadership must appreciate diverse cultures from around the world. Culturally competent leaders value differences, respond positively to diversity, and possess skills like understanding contexts and nuances. They exhibit styles like servant leadership that value all people. As globalization increases, leadership requires understanding cultures within one's own organization and globally in order to create opportunities and fulfill goals across nations and societies.
An interest in other lands and people is part of the human experie
1. An interest in other lands and people is part of the human
experience The evolution of new technologies, means of
transportation and communication, and public education have
brought awareness of multiple societies, cultures, and peoples.
Fighting wars in other lands, business endeavors, and sports
competitions are just a few of the ways we have come to realize
that there is diversity among those who share this planet.
Should we hope to become “global citizens,” where we see
ourselves predominantly as citizens of one world? Should we
protect the notion of “nationality” with a focus on “America
first?” Is it possible to strike a balance of appreciating a “one
world order” while prioritizing attention and resources on the
United States? Minimum length of paper: 3-4 pages, typed
double-spaced. Include relevant from texts, mini-lectures, etc
clear introduction, thesis and supporting paragraphs Due Feb 26
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Mini Lecture :
Week 6: Mini-Lecture on Diversity Leadership and Globalism
Twenty years ago, one book looking at the future of
leadership emphasized that the next generation of leaders would
need to be “global explorers,” individuals comfortable with
working beyond existing national boundaries, in emerging
international or global companies. In the entire book, there is
only one reference to “diversity.” The target audience for the
book included individuals who might be interested in leading in
those international organizations/companies. It was based on
interviews with 130 senior and human resource executives in 50
companies in Europe, North America, and Asia. The
2. interviewees discussed the importance of being inquisitive,
savvy, of good character and people-focused, and possessing a
perspective that is based on balancing dualisms or creative
tensions, e.g. knowing when to push employees and when to
back off; how to focus on prior beliefs and yet make decisions
based on insights and intuition. The major developmental
experiences needed by global leaders, they stated, were travel,
teams, training and transfers. In other words, much of the book
focused on the importance of international travel as preparation
for global leadership; serving on intercultural/transnational
teams, and taking advantage of training in a variety of potential
executive activities, including finance, management, legal
issues, communication across cultures, etc. Finally, the
interviewees focused on the importance of transferring into
positions in multiple cultures, again, as preparation for
becoming a global/international leader.
Chin & Trimble discuss the difference between diversity and
global leadership, emphasizing that diverse leadership refer s to
different types of leadership related to group differences of
citizens within countries (pg.17). Global leadership, they write,
is “worldwide, international, and intercultural; it includes cross -
culture differences between societies and cultures. While power,
privilege, and equity may apply, its use has been associated
with an examination of differences based on economic,
political, and cultural forces worldwide and across
governmental entities. A global perspective involves looking
beyond geographic boundaries of one’s country” (p. 18).
Here’s the key point: the 1999 book focused on what
Americans can do to become leaders in international
organizations. There was no discussion of understanding
globalism from the inside; in other words, focusing on an
appreciation of cultures and their components throughout the
world, and recognizing that leaders of American
global/international organizations may not be individuals born
in this country, but employees from other countries who went to
work for the American company. The increase of global
3. organizations translates into an increase of diverse leadership
styles—and an appreciation of different cultures and how they
may affect work organizations with locations in more than one
country. Global organizations may reflect diverse perspectives
and approaches in conflict management, decision-making,
information acquisition and use, public relations, and other
leadership processes. Twenty years ago, in this country, a text
was trying to teach one individual how to advance in an
international company. Hopefully, it is now evident we are
trying to teach people the value of the multiple cultures that
contribute to an organization, and that leadership must
appreciate the differences among cultures that a global
organization may represent.
Thompson, Forde and Otieno (2018) have written about
culturally competent leadership in academic settings. However,
their discussion is quite relevant to other settings, including
global corporate, non-profit and governmental organizations.
Because leaders in such organizations work with multiple
national and societal cultures, it is important that they be
culturally competent. The authors have created a continuum of
progressive levels which include five levels of extreme
resistance to diversity: genocide, discrimination, prejudice,
stereotyping, and bias. There are six levels of increasing
awareness/practice of valuing different cultures, including
cultural sensitivity and cultural awareness, moving to:
Cultural acceptance: valuing cultural differences and
similarities and viewing the differences as positive;
Cultural action: recognizing differences and responding to
them in a positive manner; an advanced step in the process of
becoming cultural competent; and finally,
Cultural competence: moving beyond mere acceptance or
tolerance of diversity to a deeper and genuine appreciation of
people from diverse cultures.
Cultural competent leaders also are proactive, facilitating
cultural acceptance by employees/organizational members by
offering information, training, committee appointments from
4. different cultures, selection of managers from different cultures,
and development of programs/rewards that foster, not just
tolerate, cultural competence.
Thompson, Forde and Otieno also discuss three types of
skills that culturally competent leaders should possess, and
these skills are needed by global/international culturally
competent leaders in organizations beyond those in education or
academia.
Process skills: strategies developed that help one successfully
interpret environments and situations. An example would be the
processes developed to manage conflicts between individuals
from different cultures that might emerge during financial
decision-making, or hiring processes that should involve a
committee or team whose members are from different nations..
Conceptualization skills: understanding contextualized
meanings, nuances, and nonverbal cues, as well as engaging in
innovative thinking. These skills are important when chairing
meetings of diverse organizational members to create new
products, solve production problems, or work on public
relations efforts for a global organization.
Personalization skills: learning the behaviors of diverse
people, encouraging multiple perspectives and taking
responsibility for acquiring specialized knowledge and skills.
These skills are important in creating positive relationships
within teams and with individuals, as well as knowing the
information acquisition processes needed to collect sufficient
information for decision-making.
Obviously, over time, culturally competent individuals
begin to exhibit patterns of behavior, or styles, of leadership.
These styles are also described when discussing follower -
focused leadership, and one assumes that an individual focused
on followers is going to value the variety of cultures from
which they come. The five styles mentioned by Thompson,
Forde, and Otieno are styles one would anticipate from
culturally competent leaders.
-Servant leadership: Robert Greenleaf, a retired AT&T
5. executive coined this term in his 1970 book. He wrote that good
leaders serve others first, including helping them achieve
personal and professional goals; he or she does not focus on
self-interest. This follower-focused style obviously values the
identity components of followers, e.g. their race, ethnicity,
culture, etc. Individuals from various cultures/nations/societies
are appreciated, as are their places of origin and cultural
practices.
-Collaborative leadership: Leaders facilitate bringing people
together, for their mutual interest, satisfaction and productivity.
Leaders focus on people working together, coming together to
achieve organizational goals, with a focus on community and
collective experiences. Such leadership understands the
important contributions that people from different cultures can
contribute to a global organizational vision.
-Transformational leadership: This style of leadership brings
about substantive change in the organization and the
accomplishment of an individual’s goals and advancement.
When this type of leadership was first discussed by James
McGregor Burns in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book,
Leadership, he wrote that such leadership created major change,
e.g. Mao Tse Tung in China’s revolution. Using this
conceptualization, 21st century culturally competent leaders use
a transformational style to bring people together to make
changes in a nation, a group of nations, or parts of nations…all
with different cultures involved.
-Visionary leadership: A vision is not a hallucination. It is a
view of the future with one’s feet firmly planted on solid
ground, after assessing a variety of variables observed in the
past and the present. A visionary leader can communicate a
view about a desired state, attaining a commitment to that
articulated view. He or she understands the components and
worth of different cultures outside of a given organization or
nation.
In an age of globalism, where many of us consider
ourselves citizens of the world, and care about hunger, war,
6. earthquakes and their effects on peoples of other nations and
societies, some of us may want to be part of international
organizations, to work in other countries, to interact with
people of other nations, to live in other societies. Thi s does not
make such individuals traitors or unpatriotic. Indeed, global
leaders can create opportunities in the future for organizational,
and societal, members and fulfill a nation’s, as well as a global
organization’s, goals.