The Influential Global Business Leader

During a workshop that I conducted recently with a corporate client, I met Tom Walker, who had joined the company several months ago after a 20-year career with an agency of the federal government, where he was in charge of a department of 50 people.  In his new company, he also has a big staff, about 30, but with one difference:  his staff does not report directly to him.  Tom is responsible for one of the company’s most important corporate initiatives, and he has been given resources and a sizable budget to move this initiative forward.  However, he (like several of his peers who are also global leaders with their own initiatives to drive) has to manage a team that is spread out globally.

Although Tom is excited about the challenge and the opportunity to make a difference, he is also quite frustrated.  “When I headed my former department, I had 50 people under me who would do whatever I said.  I was their boss.  Here, I am not their boss.  While I am the global leader for this initiative, and these guys have been assigned to my team, they still have a day job and I am not their direct boss.  It’s hard to get things done this way.”

It is obvious that Tom is still adjusting to his transition, and I hope that he will succeed in learning how to lead in this new way.  Tom’s role is not unusual these days, as many organizations are driving new initiatives and innovations with parallel teams while maintaining their core business.  In some cases, they create what Harvard professor John Kotter calls dual operating systems – preserving the traditional hierarchy while building networks and teams.  In other cases, organizations are building matrix-type structures.

What is clear is that more leaders today need to learn how to “influence without authority.”  Authors Cohen and Bradford wrote about this many years ago, and their book is still very helpful.  As I have observed, experienced, and thought about this, here is my advice on what characteristics people like Tom need to build on to improve their influencing skills, especially in the context of a global workplace.  For each of these, I am just scratching the surface on the subject, so consider this as just a starting point.

1.     Legitimacy.  Yes, we no longer should rely only on our title or our place in the organization’s pecking order.  However, people in organizations still want to know the legitimate basis for your authority.  Is the team that you are leading supported by a powerful sponsor?  Is the team’s mission an important one for the organization?  Especially in cultures that respect hierarchy, your influence will be greater if employees see you as having the title and the authority.  You just need to be very careful not to over-rely on formal authority as your basis for influence. 

2.     Reputation.  People in organizations have more respect for those who others perceive as a winner.  Have you been involved in other initiatives or work that has had a positive impact on your department or with other departments?  If you are new in the organization, how many people know about your past experience?  Building your internal reputation will help you to become a more influential leader.   In some organizations, it might be the experience you have had working in the industry, or your academic degrees.  In other organizations, it might be your accomplishments for having worked on some successful projects.  Or your reputation might come indirectly, that is, through your association with a prestigious department or initiative, or with a manager you worked for who himself had a good reputation.

3.     Credibility.  This is related to reputation, but is basically about whether people see that your deeds match your words.  Do you follow through on what you say you will do?  Do you honor your commitments?  It’s not surprising that the more credible a leader is, the more influence he or she is likely to have.

4.     Likability.   There has been a lot of research lately on the importance of being likable.  Or recent Harvard Business Review article emphasized the importance of connecting first, and then leading.  In my discussions with executives, many of them are not convinced that being liked is as important as some other characteristics, and perhaps they are right.  Leadership is not a popularity contest, although it helps if people have a positive emotional connection to you.  Think about executives in your organization who are very competent, but disliked.  Your competence will only take you so far.  Here’s the thing about likability.  It’s not about going to charm school, or being slick.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  You make yourself more likable if you think more of the other person than yourself, if you show a genuine interest in others and listen well to them.  It is really not about you, but about them.

5.     Communication.  Not just what you communicate, but how well you communicate is important to influencing effectively.  You don’t have to be a charismatic speaker, nor have a dynamic-sounding voice.  You do need to be sure that your content is substantial, and that you master some communication basics.  For example, when speaking to an audience, maintain eye contact, stand erect, and show confidence.  When sending an e-mail, make the subject line interesting and impactful, and keep the e-mail short.  It also helps to know your audience so you can tailor your communication accordingly.  When I used to make presentations to research scientists in a pharmaceutical company, I made sure that my presentations contained lots of data and references. When working with colleagues and customers in different cultures, learning to adjust how you communicate is critically important to business success. 

6.     Alignment.  So this is where you have to figure out how meeting the team’s goals will also help meet the individual’s goals.  This means you have to take the time to know each of your team members better, to find out what they are interested in, and to find ways to align their goals with your team goals.  If you are a leader of a global virtual team, it is especially important to understand team members’ goals and how you can help build alignment.  Chances are, your virtual team member has an office close to her local boss; perhaps, she was even hired by her boss and they have maintained close working relationships over the years.  You will clearly not have a strong initial influence on this virtual team member unless you build trust and alignment.  One of the ways to do this could be through connecting with your virtual team member’s boss.

You don’t need all of these to be an influential leader; however, but their impact tends to be cumulative.  For Tom, some of these are easily achieved than others.  He certainly has legitimacy, for he was brought in by senior management and placed in charge of one of the company’s most important initiatives.  His reputation and credibility are still untested.  Tom comes across as a bit gruff and brusque, giving the impression that he does not care for your opinion, and so his likability quotient may need to improve.  His communication skills are adequate, but a little passion in his style might help.  And Tom needs to spend more time with each of his team members (yes, all 30 of them!), and even with their day-to-day bosses, to be able to help align everyone’s goals with the team goals.

Whether your team reports directly to you in the organization, or they are matrixed to you, I am convinced that building these foundational elements will help you become a more influential global business leader.

Cohen, A. and Bradford, D.  (1989).  Influence Without Authority.  New York:  Wiley.

Cuddy, A. et al.  (July-August, 2013).  Connect, Then Lead.  Harvard Business Review.

Kotter, J.  (2014).  Accelerate.  Boston:  Harvard Business Review Press.

The Impact of Culture on Hard-Wired Behaviors

Anthropologists tell us that our species of humans called Homo Sapiens first surfaced about 200,000 years ago.  And our ancestors survived through certain behaviors that became pretty much hard-wired into their brain circuitry.   When agriculture was invented about 10,000 years ago, our ancestors no longer had to move around, live in small groups, and live a hand-to-mouth existence. 

However, according to Nigel Nicholson (1998), all the environmental changes we have experienced since that time have not stimulated further human evolution.  Evolutionary psychologists believe that 10,000 years is simply not enough time for significant genetic modifications to take place across populations.

“ … there is a limit to how much the human mind can be remolded.  Proponents of evolutional psychology assert that, because of natural selection, human beings living and working in today’s modern civilization retain the hardwired mentality – that is, the needs, drives, and biases – of Stone Age hunter-gatherers.”

So what are some of the behaviors which Nicholson believes are hard-wired?  They include the following:

1.     Relying on emotion or instinct as the first screen for all information received.  Stone Age people tended to rely on instinct so they could react quickly to predators or strangers outside their circle.

2.     Feeling more self-confident than reality justifies.  Those who survived the brutal conditions of the Stone Age had to project confidence so they could attract friends and mates. 

3.     Quickly classifying people, situations and experiences into categories (e.g., good or bad, in our out) rather than engaging in time-consuming and nuanced analysis.  Without relying on “big data” or complex analyses, our ancestors had to make decisions quickly, whether they were about people to befriend or about the types of food that would not be poisonous.

4.     Participating in public competitions for status and chest thumping about their successes.  Winning in contests and battles, as well as showing off through elaborate rituals and artistic displays, were important to impress others and to boost their status – making them more attractive to potential mates.

5.     Empathy and mind reading.  Our ancestors were not all about crushing their foes.  To survive, they also needed to anticipate shifts in status and build alliances.  They needed to share food, barter and trade, and those who learned how to be friendly and guess what others were thinking tended to be more successful. 

Sound familiar?  We haven’t changed that much, it seems.  I generally agree with Nicholson, and certainly the evidence he and others provide is quite strong.  However, here is what is interesting:  different cultures seem to encourage or discourage these behaviors based on their cultural values.  So while there may be some universal truths to these behaviors, we are malleable enough that culture may trump some of these so-called hard-wired behaviors.

Let’s examine how each of these hard-wired behaviors can be seen through the filters of some cultural values, focusing especially on workplace behaviors.  In my experience, organizations across the world vary in the importance and emphasis they place on different organizational and management practices, in part as a function of their cultural values.   And some preferred practices (and their underlying values) may clash with some of these hard-wired behaviors.

Relying on emotion.  Many organizations like to pride themselves as being data-driven, and push for decisions that are based primarily on facts and air-tight logical reasoning.   On the surface, this might seem to contradict those hard-wired behaviors that rely on instinct.   Yet we know that, like our ancestors, emotion plays a large part in our decision-making.  So organizations with practices that place a high premium on rationality and logic (e.g., through the use of quantitative tools and a preponderance of data to drive decisions) may sometimes find them difficult to implement. Not only are we hard-wired to use emotion, but there are cultures where freedom of expression and spontaneity are encouraged (what Hofstede calls “high indulgence”).  On the other hand, even societies where emotional expressions are not encouraged will have citizens who will from time to time find ways to express their emotions.  Several years ago, the organization I was working for decided to assign a very competent and passionate leader from a Latin American country to become the general manager of its failing German subsidiary.  He was just what the German employees needed; he energized the organization, excited the employees in that subsidiary; in two years he had turned the subsidiary around to profitability.

Feeling self-confident.  I am sure that we are all familiar with cultures where this kind of behavior is encouraged.  In fact, in countries like the U.S. and Great Britain, pointing out your accomplishments, doing a bit of self-promoting, and making sure that colleagues and bosses know about what you have done are in general acceptable behaviors (as long as they are not done excessively).  In other cultures, individuals may let their accomplishments speak for themselves because of the cultural norms around humility.  Ken Watanabe, a very well-respected Japanese manager in a Tokyo-based financial services organization, is looked up to by all his colleagues.  He has a quiet and calm style, is always prepared, and has developed a reputation for his research reports on the industry he is focusing on.  Yet he is very self-effacing, and to a Western manager, may seem to constantly be diminishing his accomplishments constantly.  In some ways, this behavior reminds me of the profile of what Daniel Zweig (Harvard Business Review, May 2014) calls the “invisibles” in an organization, those who do not toot their own horn but are at the top of their game and are very valuable to an organization.

Classifying people into categories rapidly.  We will tend to do this, don’t we?  What I have observed is that different cultures make judgments about people based upon a narrow or wide scope.  In some cultures, we look at someone’s face, perhaps their attire and their bearing and the way they speak, and quickly classify them accordingly.  People from other cultures may cast a wider net in classifying people.   They may also consider a person’s family background, social status, and the way they follow the unwritten rules and the cultural code.   For example, George Freidrich, an Austrian manager just recently back from Buenos Aries on a two-year assignment, made sure that while in that country, he was careful about his attire, his body language, the way he addressed people at different levels in the organization, and his deference to women.  He knew that the Argentinians would be looking at all these cues in reaching conclusions about him.

Engaging in competitive behavior.  Our capitalistic culture is based on the value and benefits of competition, and most organizations encourage some form of competitive behavior – whether it is through beating the competition, or competing for scarce resources within the organization.  Yet in some cultures, such competitive behavior is downplayed; Hofstede refers to these cultures as more feminine, in that they place less emphasis on power, wealth, assertiveness and “living to work.”  It’s not that these cultures (which include Denmark and Norway) are not competitive; the competitive drive may still be there, but it is within the larger context of a culture that values family time, relationships, and “work to live.”

Empathy and mind reading.  While Daniel Goleman popularized the term emotional intelligence, it seems that even with our ancestors, having this characteristic enhanced one’s chances of survival and success.  I definitely think that cultures that are more high context (Edward Hall’s term) develop people who are good at “reading between the lines,” and who can communicate in different ways without offending others.  These cultures have code words that people in that culture understand.  For example, in Japan, a statement like “that might be difficult” really means “I don’t agree with you.”  Similarly, in China, a statement like “it’s not convenient” really means, “I don’t want to do it.” 

As a leader managing individuals and teams across cultures, there are two implications for you.  First, be aware that these hard-wired behaviors are part of what makes us “human” and it will be impossible to completely eliminate these behaviors in the work place. Through organization design and the reinforcement of specific management practices, we might be able to curb some of these behaviors but they will always be present.  For example, many organizations have implemented hiring and promotional practices that emphasize merit and results rather than relying on the initial impressions or judgments that people might have. 

Second, recognize that a society may differ in how the workers in that society express behaviors associated with these hard-wired behaviors.  Understanding the cultural code and the hidden cues will help you better manage and motivate individuals in different cultures. 

Goleman, D.  (2005).  Emotional Intelligence.  New York:  Bantam Books.

Hall, E.  (2013, reissued).  The Silent Language.  New York:  Anchor Books.

Hofstede, G.  (2001).  Culture’s Consequences.  New York:  Sage Publications.

Nicholson, N.   (July-August, 1998).  How Hard-Wired Is Human Behavior?  Harvard Business Review.

Zweig, D.  (May, 2014).  Managing the Invisibles.  Harvard Business Review.

Global, Local or Glocal

As we all know, corporations are not immune to occasional accounts of hype and exaggeration.  You are no doubt familiar with the inflated claims that some firms make about their products and services.  The FDA and other government agencies sometimes have to step in and dismiss firms’ claims about the supposed efficacy of their products.  Just recently, for example, the FDA has warned a genetic testing company, 23andMe (co-founded by the spouse of Google’s Sergey Brin), to stop sales of its genetic tests because the tests have not been clinically or analytically validated.

I have noticed that corporations in general make two additional questionable and sometimes exaggerated claims about their firms.  The first is that people are their most important assets, and the second is that they always operate ethically.  My point is not that these claims are always false, but that we should not be naive enough to accept these statements at face value.  What we have to do is look for the evidence, to ask ourselves what proof corporations have for making these statements.  At times, the rhetoric fails to catch up with reality.  Johnson & Johnson, as one example, is a firm that takes pride in its credo, a series of statements about its values.  I know many students and business colleagues who work for J&J, and who take these values very seriously.  Yet recently, J&J has been involved in a series of scandals that makes one question the extent to which these values are truly institutionalized. Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer raises similar concerns in his book “Hard Facts, Hard Truths and Total Nonsense:  Profiting from Evidence-Based Management.” 

The latest exaggerated claim that I have observed is with companies that say they are truly global.  After all, it is somewhat “in” to claim that you are a global company.  If in fact more than 50% of your sales are coming from outside of your home market, or if your strategy entails your opening up businesses in different markets around the world, it might make sense for companies to brand themselves as global.  Occasionally, these companies say that they “think global but act local.” 

Several years ago, Professors Bartlett and Ghoshal coined the term “transnational” to refer to a type of management strategy that tries to resolve and integrate the tensions that arise in global companies between responding to local pressures to customize (“localization”) and global pressures to standardize (“integration”). This is otherwise referred to as a “glocalization” strategy.

Let’s spell out a little more clearly what this means.  To be global, or transnational, is not just about having products and services sold outside of your home country.  Companies that simply export their products are not truly global.  Companies that have subsidiaries overseas in several countries, or where their overseas sales are approaching close to half their revenues, are not necessarily global companies. 

In my experience and observations of these companies, I propose a set of questions whose answers would indicate whether or not a company is truly global or transnational. 

1.     How culturally diverse are the executives in the C-suite?  Do they only come from the company’s home country, or are other countries represented?

2.     Do subsidiaries in the most important overseas markets have direct reporting relationships to the CEO or COO or do they tend to be buried in layers of reporting structures?

3.     Do executives in key subsidiaries have meaningful global roles (e.g., chairing a global task force) or is their role restricted to delivering profits for their country of responsibility?

4.     How frequently do headquarters executives meet with their subsidiary executives as a team?  Do they fly out to the regions for meetings or do they expect their subsidiary heads to come to home office all the time?

5.     How involved are subsidiary executives with key corporate initiatives?  Do they sit on important corporate councils?  And do headquarters executives seek their input on corporate initiatives before they are rolled out to their regions?

6.     Does the company have a global talent strategy which includes, among other things, the identification of high potentials globally and targeted development plans for these high potentials, no matter what their nationality or country of origin is?  Does its talent strategy also include rotation of individuals from country to country, and not just from headquarters to subsidiaries?

7.     When cross-functional teams are formed to tackle specific initiatives, to what extent are various subsidiaries represented?

8.     Does the company have global leadership programs that are offered worldwide, and to what extent does the curriculum include content on globalization, cross-cultural sensitivity and related subjects?

9.     Are there mechanisms and processes for sharing information and leveraging expertise across borders?  For example, if the company has centers of excellence, does it make sure that these centers have worldwide responsibility for sharing information?

10.  Is global mindset a competency that the company is actively developing, both for its employees and for the firm as a whole?

If a company can respond affirmatively to at least a majority of these questions, then it is well on its way to becoming a truly global or transnational company.  A company that can only answer three or fewer has a long way to go.

Bartlett, C. and Ghoshal, S. (1988).  Organizing for Global Effectiveness:  The Transnational Solution.  California Management Review.