Why do chief executives fail, regimes topple and elected leaders fall out of favour? It’s not a lack of leadership, per se, but instead a lack of leadership strength on the bench. Too often, those at the helm of companies believe that the best – and indeed, only – way to maintain control is to surround themselves with the classic “mirror image managers”: a team that listens and executes, but hardly challenges.
This strategy is flawed for far too many reasons than I have space to elaborate on here. Perhaps most fundamentally, real leaders must be more than champion delegators to qualified executors. Indeed, true leaders are committed mentors and supporters for training and development initiatives that allow employees to climb the leadership ladder.
Simply said, the last thing the business world needs is more managers. On the contrary, it is in need of more leaders.
But let’s be careful how we define leadership. A leader may in fact be the person occupying the corner office. But, he or she may too be the person ascending the divisional ranks or the more youthful executive fresh from business school. The concept of leadership must not be confined to just the “headliners”; it must be a concept with the potential to include and apply to everyone.
That is not to say that everyone will become a leader, but rather that everyone does and can possess some leadership qualities. It may be a cliché, but it is an important point: organisations need leaders at every level, not simply at the top. Indeed, every team needs a leader and there are many teams within most organisations. This critical need for leaders exposes a fundamental flaw in our societal approach to leadership training. That is, the training and development of leaders should not start on the job, as it too often does now. Instead, it needs to happen at a much earlier stage in an executive’s career cycle.
Training people to be leaders must be one of the main pursuits of business education. MBA students should not only earn a degree, they should also earn leadership. Business school programmes should be developed as training grounds for global leaders to teach communication and networking skills; how to build a diverse team; how to make decisions; how to set goals; how to mentor and be mentored.
At Insead, training the next generation of leaders is at the forefront of the MBA programme. Through research and programmes from our Global Leadership Centre, students learn to develop qualities that are essential to be successful leaders. They not only learn to develop a responsible, accountable attitude, but a set of sustainable behaviours that will enable them to lead more effectively in a global marketplace. Most important, they learn the art of transcultural leadership.
The argument that the business world is in need of more leaders, not managers, may in fact be too simplistic for today’s complex marketplace. The world does not just need more leaders, it needs more transcultural leaders, people who possess the knowledge and sensitivity to operate anywhere in the world. They are not executive “know-it-alls,” but their exposure to many different cultures in their careers and in their education has enabled them to think, act and relate to people and organisations across geographies.
Far too often, western executives attempt to force their ideas and decision-making processes on to eastern organisations and executives. It just does not work. What does work is patience, an ability to listen, an ability to build consensus and an ability to “get along” in another culture.
How do we develop more transcultural leaders? The first answer is to create an educational community that is culturally diverse. Business school and executive education programmes alike must become more multi-cultural and offer more “study abroad” initiatives. At Insead, the MBA programme has participants from more than 70 countries, with no country representing more than 14 per cent of the total.
The second answer is more experiential than it is numerical. If we want to teach transcultural leadership, we must go beyond classroom learning and focus on the overall experience. Experiential learning and “outward bound” programmes will serve as critical training grounds.
While many business schools are starting to offer more non-traditional courses, they will need to continue to enhance efforts to provide the real-world experience that is essential to developing great leaders. Insead’s “Building Businesses” elective allows MBA students to travel to global technology and innovation hubs such as Bangalore and Mumbai, as well as Silicon Valley to see how entrepreneurs build companies. Students hear first-hand from entrepreneurs in both locations about the challenges and opportunities associated with starting a business. Drawing on real-world cases, the course provides the type of experiential learning that is critical to grooming tomorrow’s leaders.
Leadership training must, however, extend beyond the degree. In the broader business environment, we need more “tours of duty:” international training programmes that will enhance an executive’s global mindset. Organisations need to put more emphasis on cultural diversity and institutionalise rules for promotion (for example, promotions will only be awarded if one has lived and worked in multiple environments). These types of progressive ideas must become commonplace.
PwC’s “Genesis Park” initiative is an example of a real-world leadership development programme that has successfully brought together “rising star” executives to hone their transcultural business skills. For more than six years, the firm has offered a five-month programme for aspiring leaders in a central global location. The programme has allowed PwC to develop a more expansive network of leaders within the firm to serve their multinational client base. There are approximately 160 alumni of this in more than 40 countries.
Fast-forward 10 years and we will no longer see a business world defined by a western-dominated corporate culture. The rise of Asia, Latin America and eastern Europe will bring to the forefront new corporate norms, organisations and business executives.
Those who will succeed in this new world order will be those that embrace the traditional concepts of leadership, such as mentorship and succession planning, while also being fluent in a new global, corporate language. They will be executives who lead and forge new business paradigms in a complex, evolving world, not capable managers successful at executing business norms and practices.
But this transcultural leadership is earned, not inherited. For that reason, it will be incumbent upon business schools and corporations to give the next generation of executives the tools and knowledge to forge pioneering paths in a dynamic marketplace. So, I call upon the corporate world and peer business schools to do just that: to think beyond the traditional parameters of business education and help breed a generation capable of leading this new world, not just managing it.
