GLOBAL LEADERSHIP

Globalization, Leadership, and Organizational Change

Globalization, Leadership, and Organizational Change

Introduction

As the leader in Global organizations ascends the ladder of power and authority in the Global Organization, the expectations for leadership increase. Increased positional authority and visibility attract greater attention to and reliance on the manager's leadership style. In fact, from an administrative perspective, leadership is the main element that integrates management functions from planning to evaluation. A great deal has been written about leadership, also for Global sector, and the coverage here will be necessarily brief. This paper explain what is leadership and how globalization affects leadership.

Discussion

Leadership is a complex phenomenon that could be examined and explained from a variety of perspectives. The perspective presented here addresses responsiveness to the organization's atmosphere and both the effectiveness and the efficiency issues confronting today's administrators. We will first review some of the current perspectives on leadership at nonprofit organizations and then look specifically at management of change, a main aspect of leadership in the current dynamic setting. (Finch, 2001)

Various theories have been proposed to describe leadership, and some are briefly mentioned here. Trait theories originated with the idea of the “great man” (historically in Western culture, women were not often considered as great leaders): leaders were seen as effective based on inherent traits. In another vein, It may be said that good leaders follows the approach of the U.S. Army, that describes leadership with the words be, know, do. According to this perspective, who the leader is as a person (“be”) is fundamental to successful leadership, with a particular focus on personal ethics. The other two aspects of leadership, know and do, represent leadership behavior, often framed as competencies. The path-goal approach instructs leaders to assess followers' goals and provide leadership that enables them to reach these goals, that need to be aligned with managerial goals. Finally, leader-member exchange suggests that developing positive relationships with subordinates enhances leader effectiveness. (Dym, 2005)

Running an efficient unit, program, or organization is a necessary but insufficient requirement for today's leader in Global organizations. It has been said that management does things right and leadership is doing the right things. In other words, in addition to doing things right—that is, mastering the managerial knowledge and skill of planning, organizing, and so on—leaders in Global organizations must also be able to “do the right things.” They need to be not only proficient managers but also ...