Qualities of Global Managers

Presence

A certain charisma surrounds you if you are an influential global leader. Part of it but only part is position or title. The bigger portion is dress, self-confidence, energy level, interest in other people and comfort with the challenges at hand. You may not want to believe these things matter, but they do.

Good Negotiator

Doing business across ethnic, national and regional boundaries requires strong negotiating skills. If you can add these skills to an innate enjoyment of the gamesmanship involved in negotiating, you will become a highly effective negotiator.

Cultural Cognizance

When corporations open up manufacturing plants or distribution centers in foreign countries, company leadership needs to take the area’s cultural practices and regional values into account.

Organizational structure, for example, differs from culture to culture. In countries that traditionally emphasize social hierarchy and classes, a business executive should install a clearly defined pecking order where formal respect of those in positions of authority is expected of lower-ranked employees. On the other hand, more egalitarian cultures may function better with a less formal organizational structure.

A competent global leader is cognizant of cultural variations when choosing managers and defining employee wages, benefits, marketing strategies, and long and short-term goals.

Good Communicator

Given the challenges of working via interpreters or fumbling through conversations in more than one language, the ability to say clearly what you mean is a key global business skill. If you converse with others in their native language, you usually earn brownie points however, if what you have to say is obscure or unintelligible, you’ll quickly be in a deficit balance. Clear communication is a powerful leadership trait to have on the global stage.

Flexible Approach

The ability to communicate ideas and directives in a clear, concise manner while still taking cultural variations into account can make or break an executive. An effective leader needs to be flexible and shift his or her tactics and approach while continuing to command a room and guiding the business in the right direction. Adapting to a wide range of business challenges quickly is instrumental in leading a global organization.

Patience and timing require a flexible attitude toward unforeseen events. A flexible leader who promotes active communication between all team members and is not afraid to take risks can be invaluable to a company with a worldwide footprint, where unanticipated events may occur frequently.

Humility

Being interested in other cultures and how people in those cultures do things, especially with regard to business, implies a certain humility. Humility here means a belief that other lands and cultures have figured out very interesting answers to life’s problems. As a good international business person, you must be open to and fascinated by those answers. This trait requires a willingness and ability to listen well and with real intention.

Global Strategic Thinking

When you have a global perspective, you think strategically about managing business using the best people from around the planet. Much of your ability to do this comes from a lifetime of networking at the highest levels in global boardrooms and your aptitude for seeing how various pieces of global industries play out internationally. To make strategic decisions for your company, you need to understand how the business world works on a global scale.

Broadened Networks

The importance of networking with people in other departments or even in other businesses cannot be overstated. An effective leader is a well-networked leader. Networking at the global executive level means that instead of managing in a vertical sense, from subordinate to superior, a global leader concentrates on collaboration in every direction, horizontal and vertical.

Cautious Honesty

Surprisingly, the definitions of “Honesty” and “Truth” vary widely in the business arena. People sometimes omit information or only tell the truth they think other people need to know. However, you design your ethics and morality in your personal life, in global business settings, executives need to know they can count on you. If you don’t deliver on your business promises, your reputation will suffer. Effective global leaders can balance the need to be cautious in different contexts while demonstrating they can follow through.

Inclusiveness

Fostering an inclusive, collaborative environment can strengthen leadership with innovation. The alternative is to leave the majority of decision-making in the hands of a select few leaders, which closes off external influence and feedback. An inclusive leader cherishes feedback and ideas, especially from those who hold a variety of points of view different from his or her own.