Posted by Peter Samardak on Wed, Dec 16, 2009 @ 08:52 PM
Sports figures are often forced into a leadership role they do not want, nor can fulfill. I have heard some basketball players even make the statement, "I am not a role model. People shouldn't follow me." I can't remember who exactly made that statement, but I often think of business leaders, managers and current golfers who neither fit the role nor know how to maintain their leadership.
Recently, Bob Moffat, a former executive in IBM was arrested for insider trading and, having personally met him, I found him to be approachable, to have seemingly high values and to be driven. I guess the real question is, what does someone with high values look like? Is it a visual? Not hardly. Maybe that's it, he was so driven there was a fear of falling short of expectations. Maybe with the pressures of success, or the pressures of not failing were too much. Maybe it was simply greed and ego. Ego, its a funny dynamic which enters into everyone's life from time to time.
Once you start comparing yourself to others, you are either behind or ahead. I'm not sure at what time or age you reach a point where you are happy with you. I am sure Maslow identified it as self-actualization. However, it seems that today's mediocre leaders find excuses to blame everyone but themselves. Its always been somebody in their lives who caused them to do whatever it was. I remember a series on TV where "the devil made me do it." Guess what, its no excuse.
There is no excuse for harming others. There is no excuse for poor leadership. There is no excuse for not taking responsibility and not motivating others to excel. There is no excuse for letting people go because you could not identify the unique skills they had and capitalizing on that strength.
Leaders need to be able to synthesize the differences, turn it into an innovative driving force and then getting out of the way enabling those who are empowered to excel.
True global leadership is unique because it recognizes even some of the deep seated cultural differences which have existed and then turns it into a knowledge base driving excellence. Leadership is not easy. Nobody said it would be.
Posted by Sue Perlmutter on Mon, Nov 09, 2009 @ 08:55 PM
One of the consequences of the recent economic downturn is that more and more companies realize they can no longer continue to grow their businesses successfully on domestic turf alone. In writing of the Japanese pharmaceutical industry, a recent Financial Times* article states: “With diminishing prospects at 
home…companies have little option but to scour the globe for richer pickings.” While I do find the notion of Japan manufacturing ‘fat-busting’ products for its rotund Western customers a bit tongue-in-(plump) cheek, it is nevertheless a compelling sign of this trend in action. Whether through shrinking populations, as in Japan’s case, or shrinking earnings figures and GDPs, companies from Bentonville to Bangalore are, more than ever, “[taking] the fight abroad.” For those of us in the global coaching and consulting industry, it signals cultural challenges and tough times ahead.
As businesses expand their operations through various means (M & A activity, joint ventures and the like), they must resist the temptation to fixate solely on the financial picture. Although this seems obvious, the spate of recent articles on the lack of global mindset and proper attention to cultural context and human capital factors would have us believe otherwise. In the Harvard Business Review*, Rosabeth Moss Kanter discusses successful mergers, and outlines the importance of attending to the cultural and emotional facets of a transaction in order to “create real value.” In her eyes, “a deal is never a bargain” when these all-important factors are shortchanged.
Similarly, the title of an editorial in last week’s Nikkei Weekly*, “What Good is Globalization without Global Perspectives?”, effectively describes the many frustrations of UK companies who have been operating in Japan, stymied in their attempts to reach across the cultural divide. It is a striking example of how, even when the aforementioned factors are taken into account, and even with thorough due diligence – and who better for assiduous information gathering than the Japanese – putting globalization into practice is far easier said than done. Old cultural habits die hard.
From the unfolding Kraft and Cadbury drama, where the merging of two major US and UK business cultures is at stake, to the countless discussions as to whether the cultural differences of East and West Germany have been reconciled successfully since the fall of the Berlin Wall, signs of the difficulty in managing cultural interactions are nearly impossible to ignore. With the world’s economic future still uncertain, and companies ramping up their overseas efforts, we can at least be sure of plenty of intercultural activity on the horizon.
* http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/72688fb8-c9ab-11de-a071-00144feabdc0.html
* http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2009/10/mergers-that-stick/ar/1
*
http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/e/cf/fr/tnw/weekly_index.cfm?Keisai_dt=20091026