Blog

Last week I attended the Developing Leaders for Global Roles Summit at the Thunderbird Najafi Global Mindset Institute in Glendale, Arizona. The summit brought together academics and practitioners from around the world to discuss the concept and issues surrounding global leadership, and approaches to closing the talent gaps that virtually every organization experiences. The stories and insights from the other attendees were enlightening, so I thought I’d summarize a few of the takeaways here in our blog.First, this will come as no surprise, but nobody is defining their problem in terms of a surplus of global leadership talent. Talent in this area is particularly scarce and extremely valuable. This is a prime battle in the broader war for talent.Second, good leadership skills do not necessarily generalize to a global setting. Leadership skills are distinct from having a global perspective, and successful global leadership requires both. The folks at Thunderbird have a robust body of research on the concept of global mindset, complete with a measurement tool (the Global Mindset Inventory, or GMI) and taxonomy of skills and attributes. The good news is that global mindset can be developed. The bad news is that not nearly enough organizations are actively developing global mindsets in their leadership talent pools or organizations. Third, success in a global environment requires not just leaders that think globally, but an entire organization that sees itself as global and thinks in those terms. Making this transition is difficult. For example, moving from being a U.S.-based business that works in China to an organization that does business in both the U.S. and China is a big adjustment, and requires commitment from the entire workforce. From this perspective, global mindset is an organizational development issue, not just a leadership development issue.So what are people doing to move towards a global organization? I heard a few things from a fantastic lineup of speakers, including: