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The importance of ethics in leadership
Challenges with culture in international business
The importance of ethics in leadership
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The need for global leadership expertise is on the rise as a result of the growing multiplicity of the labor force and increasing internationalization of the marketplace situation. Global leadership actions involve global business understanding, multi-cultural skills and abilities. The main idea of this study is to identify and analyze the characteristics, skills, and practices crucial to the success of global leaders in multicultural organizations.
Characteristics and practices essential to leading global and multicultural organizations
There are numerous characteristics that are essential for managers to build and sustain multicultural team. These include the skills of international business knowledge and culture specific knowledge. The understanding people have of a particular country’s beliefs, behaviors, principles, and customs is known as culture specific knowledge. Current global leaders must be familiar with the business environment in which they work. According to Mcshane & Von Gilnow (2007), this supports their instinct to pinpoint prospects and know the business ability to apprehend those prospects. The degree of a person’s capability in global business is the level of his or her global business understanding.
One significant practice that is required of global leaders in an international business setting is ethical behavior. Leaders are regarded as trustworthy, truthful, upright promise caretakers. Leadership practices must ensure they act with honor, honesty and trustworthiness. The main purpose of this behavior is that it ensures the reliability of the business. In a sustainable way, this enables businesses to cooperate with all stakeholders. The growth of business is dependable on how workers show positive taste for...
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...ate the spirit of offering support to all workers particularly in the period of organizational change. Teamwork, exchange of information, and innovative thoughts should be encouraged to support fresh, undeveloped and supportive business concepts that are needed for leadership success (Roy, 2012).
Conclusion
To conclude, international organizations ensure that their leaders have distinctive skills and practices if they are to succeed in an international environment. The ability to build, form and sustain multicultural teams is required of international leaders. These leaders must be ethical and cultivate sincerity in the international setting. In addition, these leaders must cultivate a business philosophy that is solid and must have an improved talent to manage conflicts. The philosophy must assist moral standards; help resolves conflict and must support innovation.
Post-bureaucratic leadership is ‘the process of controlling, motivating and inspiring staff’ (Clegg, Kornberger & Pitsis 2011, p. 126), whereas globalisation refers to ‘the increase in financial integration of economies around the world’ (Clegg, Kornberger & Pitsis 2011, p.612). As such the practice of leadership is an integral component in all aspects of an organization as it can determine the success or failure of a business. According to (Punnet 2004) ‘leadership is a key component of all organizations, but its ability and functions have become more difficult with the rise of globalisation during the post-bureaucratic era.’ This essay will examine how the various leadership approaches have contributed to managing globalisation and the effects
Specifically, six themes regarding ethical leadership emerged from the study. Survey respondents from all societies prioritized these six traits as necessary for ethical leadership. First, ethical leaders are accountable. They abide by rules and regulations and take personal responsibility while holding others accountable. Second, ethical leaders have consideration and respect for others. They are approachable, treat others with respect, and demonstrate empathy. Third, ethical leaders are fair. They make objective decisions and do not show favoritism. Fourth, ethical leaders have a strong character. They are sincere and they lead by example, demonstrating integrity and courage. Fifth, ethical leaders have a collective orientation. They promote teamwork and collaboration while protecting the interests of the company. Finally, ethical leaders are open and flexible. They share information, communicate effectively, and are open to diversity (Resick et al, 2011). Though cultural dimensions affect leadership practices and expectations, these attributes and behaviors emerged consistently as the requisite traits for ethical
In addition, a group of Fortune 500 executives stated that they “value…flexibility..., and communication skills” (Terry, 2001, p.1). These executives also related, “Employers’ wish lists for new leaders include charisma, the ability to inspire others, the courage to take risks, awareness of one’s own strong and weak points, the respect of peers, ethnic diversity, and a zest for continuous learning” (Terry, 2001, p.1).
Moral and ethical leaders are essential for any successful business because these leaders are the essential links between the organization’s objectives and its stakeholders. Leaders are the face of any organization, and their actions reflect the values and the ethics the organization they represent. Therefore, if a leader’s action and decision is ethical, the stakeholders and other organizations will respect the leader and the organization. Recent history has shown that ethical behaviors are important in sustaining businesses; large corporations such as Enron, Chevron, and Worldcom, destroyed people’s lives through unethical business behaviors (Josephson, M., 2013). If these corporations and its executives have operated morally and ethically, they would have been able to avoid bankruptcy and escaped going to prison (The Economist, 2002). Having ethical leadership in organizations will help to eliminate the negative impact executive’s gre...
Constant technological and global changes create challenges that forces leaders to manage different cultures in different countries. People, goods, services, and ideas are moving today at greater speeds which mean our labor force is becoming more diverse and multicultural by the day. Effective leaders need to understand such global dynamics in order to successfully manage organizational cultures. The cultures of leaders and their core assumptions might be different from the values and assumptions of employees in a different country. Two managers working for the same global company might see things differently due to their backgrounds and cultural values. The different countries, in which the organization operates, will have different cultures depending on the social, economic, and political history of the country. Managing and understanding these differences need an effective cross-cultural thinking leader (Yukl, 2013). Some research questions that Yukl, 2013 suggests are: 1) how behavior differs across cultural values and for different countries? 2) How values and behaviors are influenced by personality across company and country? 3) What types of traits, skills, and experience are most useful to prepare a leader being assigned to a new country? 4) How does the fast-changing culture in developing countries affect and relate to
With many businesses today being global and having virtual leaders, it is important that the leaders of today and the future have the ability to be visionary. They need to not perform in the status quo style but have great imaginations for leading to receive the best outcomes from global teams. They also need to be flexible enough to adjust their leadership qualities to manage and influence in different cultures. If our leaders of tomorrow can learn this flexibility, the companies of tomorrow will be successful.
Managers have leadership qualities; Yet not all managers are leaders. This course has allowed me to challenge myself and learn about my strengths and weaknesses in a leadership role. Exploring the main three practices which include managing ethics and diversity, challenging the process and enabling others to act. This report is an analytical study of the leadership practices mentioned above; while exploring leadership practices, ways to improve them and new innovative ideas.
Globalization has many implications for leadership today and in the future. Global perspectives are being spread to the farthest points in the world and to the most isolated people. People of different cultures come to the United States daily to live, travel, or engage in business. Leaders must respond to this challenge of globalization so they can effectively reach out to as many people as possible. Opening themselves to the world's changes allows leaders to compare and contrast their culture with the arts, language, beliefs, customs, philosophies, and ways of living of other people. By observing and questioning another culture, leaders can understand the origin of an individual's viewpoints and become more sensitive to the cultural needs of that individual. By continually exposing themselves to other cultures, young leaders can thoroughly develop this global perspective and devote themselves to making connections with the entire world.
There are several factors that are important if a culturally diverse business team is to flourish and realize its vast potential. Di Stefano and Maznevski (2000) claim that there are three imperative steps to achieving multicultural team success; namely, mapping the team; where the team members need to clearly understand their cultural differences in how they work and view success. This is often led by the team leader. Next, the team must bridge, that is, to communicate with one another, bearing in mind their cultural differences. Finally, the team must integrate, meaning that they bring together these differences and leverage on them to succeed.
Culture can be defined as the beliefs, values and the pattern of behavior of an individual within designated areas. The culture of organizations defines shared values and behavioral expectations. Cultural issues are especially basic issues all around the globe. These issues can happen in various routes relying upon the size, area and the custom culture of that institution. Social issues happen even because of the states of mind and how each individual comprehend in diverse business environment. Today, the corporate administrations and rising business firms have chosen to give the essential attention on trainings and classes at the multicultural working environment that will help them to understand and create
...Harris, Sarah V. Moran (2011). Managing Cultural Differences, Leadership Skills and Strategies for Working in a Global World. 8th ed. UK: Elsevier Inc.. 10-25.
In recent decades, the process of globalization has accelerated and the world economy has become increasingly interdependent. The rise in the number of businesses that extensively operate in more than one foreign country, which is known as multinational corporations, plays an important role in the ongoing procedure of globalization. The United Nations has reported that multinational corporations hold one-third of world’s productive assets and control 70 percent of world trade (Schermerhorn et al., 2014). As there is a considerable growth in international businesses, worldwide economy is becoming more highly competitive. The global economy not only offers great opportunities for multinational enterprises but also on the other hand, creates many difficulties for them. Therefore, success in the large-scale economy requires a number of elements. One of the major determinants is dependent on global managers. In the operation of organizations, managers may encounter different international management challenges that restrict their business development. These challenges often include issues associated with the host countries, the global workforce diversity management, management across cultures, difficulties in competitive global business environment as well as in the process of global planning and controlling. This essay is going to discuss the above international management challenges in a broad sense and giving illustration in aspects of each challenge.
Leadership in organizations (4th Ed.). Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ.Morrison, A. J. (2000). Developing a global leadership model [Electronic Version]. Human Resource Management, 39, 117. Retrieved March 24, 2014 from LIRN
In today’s globalized world, multicultural teams accomplish a significant proportion of organizational work. Multicultural teams are formed because they improve organizational effectiveness in the global business environment. As such, multicultural teams offer huge potential to organizations. The most critical and practical challenge multicultural teams face is managing conflicts across members’ national cultural boundaries. Other cultural challenges in multicultural teams include dealing with coordination and control issues, maintaining communication richness, and developing and maintaining team cohesiveness. For multicultural teams to be effective, members must learn to address the challenges that arise from team members’ differing nationalities and cultural backgrounds.
With the rapid growth in globalization there are a number of firms who have taken their businesses abroad. Their challenge, cross cultural management and communication. An effective communication strategy begins first with understanding who the sender of the message is and who the receiver of the message is. Many companies have realized this and offer training in the different cultures to help better facilitate communication between leaders (Cross-Cultural Communication, mindtools.com). Without this basic understand between sender and receiver it can be very difficult for companies of multicultural to even begin to communicate. The second important understanding is that leaders must demand a cultural tolerance of acceptable behavior between cultures to facilitate effective communication (Cross-Cultural Communication, mindtools.com).