The need for global lead­er­ship is trans­forming the way orga­ni­za­tions must think about lead­er­ship devel­op­ment. And one of the most impor­tant ways to develop strong leaders is through an effec­tive global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment program.

Yet, 78% of HR profes­sionals see their lead­er­ship and career plan­ning systems as only moder­ately effec­tive or worse.

While there may not be a set template that works for every corpo­ra­tion, there are guiding prin­ci­ples that can help you launch an effec­tive global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment program in your busi­ness to set you up for the future.

We talked with Dr. Wolf­gang Schmitz, global lead­er­ship expert and CEO of the Euro­pean Academy for Exec­u­tive Educa­tion (eurac), to discuss the five steps to launching an effec­tive global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment program in your business.

The 5 Steps to Launching an Effec­tive Global Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment Program in an Organization

Successful leaders must embody many skills and be capable of actively culti­vating these skills in diffi­cult and chal­lenging scenarios. Lead­er­ship devel­op­ment, then, focuses on the “internal and personal devel­op­ment of the indi­vidual leader” and trains poten­tial leaders to reach their true lead­er­ship potential.

In order to create an effec­tive lead­er­ship devel­op­ment program, Dr. Wolf­gang Schmitz recom­mends five key steps to follow in order to help your global leaders succeed.

 Here is how eurac builds effec­tive programs:

• Step 1: Define Goal & Goal-required Compe­tences. eurac works with the company or the deci­sion-maker at the company to define the goals the leaders shall achieve, and then to define the compe­ten­cies these leaders must have in order to accom­plish set goals.
• Step 2: Pre-Assess­ment of Leaders & Eval­u­a­tion of Current Abil­i­ties. eurac eval­u­ates the leader’s current abil­i­ties and compare those to the compe­ten­cies which are needed to achieve set goals. We use four cate­gories & 16 dimen­sions to eval­uate and compare these abilities. 
• Step 3: Create Indi­vidual Goals: eurac dives into global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment by filling the gap between the current compe­ten­cies that the leaders hold and the compe­ten­cies required to carry out the job effec­tively. The lead­er­ship devel­op­ment training is always goal-oriented, and often takes the form of coaching or in-person training. However, training is easier to do if compa­nies have the means and budget to send people around the world. Yet, even if they do, it can be diffi­cult to train effec­tively because of time restraints. There­fore, eurac is devel­oping an e‑learning plat­form to make it easier for compa­nies to over­come these restraints in the future.
• Step 4: Post-Assess­ment. Once the training is complete, eurac reeval­u­ates the leaders’ abil­i­ties and measures their improve­ments. We assess their compe­ten­cies and skills again to deci­pher improvements. 
• Step 5: Create a Supportive Action Plan to Achieve Goals. We inten­tion­ally put the leaders into highly chal­lenging situ­a­tions to assess their training in real life. For example, we’ll send them on a busi­ness trip from the US to Mexico and eval­uate their performance. 

According to Dr. Schmitz, these are the steps eurac always tries to follow; addi­tion­ally, there are impor­tant best prac­tice prin­ci­ples to keep in mind during the training. 

Best Prac­tice Prin­ci­ples for eurac’s Global Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment Program

Here are the best prac­tice prin­ci­ples the team at eurac follows to achieve optimal results when helping an orga­ni­za­tion set up a customized global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment program:

1. Get the CEO’s commit­ment: If we don’t have 100% commit­ment and engage­ment, the training won’t be effec­tive. We need total commit­ment or else there’s no point in proceeding.
2. Strategic orien­ta­tion: We must follow the strategic path set out by the company itself. Ulti­mately, it’s up to the company to decide how they want to benefit from our system, and not for us to decide for them. Once they lay out a path, we can work within their structure.
3. Managers’/Leaders’ involve­ment: All selected leaders must join every­thing and cannot pick and choose what parts of the training to partic­i­pate in. Compa­nies can choose between one-on-one coaching and consulting, as well as group training, so we must choose goals and objec­tives at the outset that work best with the leaders we are training.
4. Clear and rele­vant program goals and objec­tives of the orga­ni­za­tion: Every­thing must be measur­able. We decide what the company’s goals are and measure our results based on these pre-set objectives. 
5. Partic­i­pa­tion selec­tion: We select who should take part in the program based on the over­ar­ching company goals. Not every­body is cut out for the job based on the pre-set goals, so we must choose only those who fit.
6. Inte­grated assess­ment: We conduct a compre­hen­sive assess­ment based on the indi­vid­uals chosen for the program.
7. Thor­ough prep process: We make sure we are prepared and have covered every­thing in full before we dive in.
8. Pre-entry feed­back & coaching session: We meet with the partic­i­pants indi­vid­u­ally and share with them our compe­tence eval­u­a­tions at the outset.
9. Coaching & peer coaching: We set up sessions in which the leaders can learn from each other. When we figure out a common problem or theme that they share, they can learn best from each other based on these shared experiences.
10. The “Try” exper­i­mental approach: We try to incor­po­rate action with exper­i­mental learning. It’s not always possible because of phys­ical distances and time differ­ences, but we always try. 
11. Reflec­tive learning (jour­naling): Every­body writes a ‘diary’ type of reflec­tive thought journal with a coach to track progress.
12. Build social capital: Social capital describes the personal rela­tion­ships within a company that help build trust and respect among employees, leading to enhanced company perfor­mance. We build this through networking.
13. Online and one-on-one follow up: We follow up indi­vid­u­ally with each partic­i­pant to discuss their progress.
14. Eval­u­a­tion: We do a thor­ough eval­u­a­tion at the end of the program.

For more infor­ma­tion on global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment best prac­tice, don’t miss this case study by Salicru, Wasse­naar, Suerz, and Spittle.

Over­come the Main Chal­lenges in Setting up a Global Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment Program 

Choosing an effec­tive program can be more diffi­cult than it seems. Here are nine main chal­lenges that Dr. Schmitz feels corpo­ra­tions face when deciding which program to move forward with:

1. Generic program content: Outdated content that doesn’t take into effect how tech­nology has changed the global busi­ness land­scape that won’t do much to help you reach success in today’s climate. Or, if the content is up to date, it’s too generic and geared toward domestic leaders, rather than real­izing the global land­scape of the modern world.
2. Programs that aren’t scal­able: If you create or choose a top-rate in-house program, you may have success inside your domestic orga­ni­za­tion, but will have trouble when attempting to scale glob­ally. Some of your leaders will benefit, while others will be left behind. 
3. Too much reflec­tion with no appli­ca­tion: Talking about effec­tive lead­er­ship and the prin­ci­ples behind it is a great starting place, but applying it via a thor­ough curriculum is the only way to truly learn. The focus should be on action­able, rather than philo­soph­ical, development.
4. Ignoring the impact of company culture: Don’t forget that your leaders will need to be able to proac­tively apply their newfound skills to your pre-set company culture and values. Be wary of picking a course that strays from what’s impor­tant on a funda­mental level to your organization. 
5. Not tracking the real-life results: The only way to truly under­stand if a program was successful is to track the results. There’s little value in sending employees through a program if you don’t plan on measuring the outcomes and how your poten­tial leaders are doing in the real world. 
6. Context is over­looked: Some programs say they help global leaders when in fact they’re tailored more for domestic leader training.
7. Decou­pling / Reflec­tion from real work: The program can’t stray too far from your actual work or else it will be too theo­ret­ical and not prac­ti­cally useful.
8. Under­es­ti­mating differing mind­sets — Never believe that others will intu­itively under­stand what you are teaching. In reality, across cultures, our mind­sets innately differ and thus the way in which we process infor­ma­tion varies. Be aware of this and choose a program that takes cultural differ­ences into account.
9. Failing to measure the results: Measuring results is more than simply eval­u­ating if a leader seems to be doing better. There must be a concrete system of measure­ment in which to eval­uate leaders on post-program completion.

Dr. Schmitz also mentions that it’s impor­tant to look at the Six C’s of Harvard Busi­ness, who have worked with more than 100 large global compa­nies to design and deliver global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment programs span­ning more than 65 countries. 

Based on these expe­ri­ences, they believe you need to consider the six C’s, which will help you define a lead­er­ship devel­op­ment program that will help your orga­ni­za­tion achieve its global busi­ness goals 

• Context - What is the right context for your program?
• Content - What is the right content for your global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment program?
• Culture - How much should local/regional culture influ­ence the design and imple­men­ta­tion of your program?
• Cohort - What is the best cohort of learners to partic­i­pate in your global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment program?
• Commu­ni­ca­tion - Should you stan­dardize the language of commu­ni­ca­tion among leaders to facil­i­tate their development?
• Connec­tivity - How can you promote maximum connec­tivity among learners to facil­i­tate learning and collaboration?

Keep these in mind as a template for how to avoid the above chal­lenges when searching for a program that best fits your business.

An Insightful Example of a Chal­lenge and how it was Overcome

IBM launched a company-wide initia­tive in 2008 to give its future leaders the kind of expe­ri­ence they needed to develop skills and perspec­tives to effec­tively address the chal­lenges of the global marketplace.

In this program, the leaders learned how to be more coop­er­a­tive, power through cultural differ­ences and become more glob­ally connected. IBM achieved fantastic global perfor­mance because of this and trans­formed itself into a real global enterprise.

You could say this was completely successful. But the chal­lenge was that at the very begin­ning, they had no clear process. Many leaders within the program were not pre-assessed. They knew what they wanted to achieve, but the leaders did not have the indi­vidual strengths neces­sary to easily achieve the goals.

IBM spent millions of dollars trying to get the right set of peers together to get the right training. “Designing is every­thing,” says Schmitz. The better your plan from the get-go, the fewer issues and costs you’ll have throughout the process and at the end. 

In the end, IBM over­came this chal­lenge by creating specific train­ings and following clear steps/principles to make sure they eval­u­ated the trainees at an indi­vidual level to set them up for optimal success.

Not all Leaders Are Cut Out to Be Global Leaders

It’s impor­tant to eval­uate whether all types of leaders can become successful global leaders. The answer, most likely, is no. Some people may not be able to achieve lead­er­ship on a global scale. For a global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment program, you must exclude these people from taking on global lead­er­ship roles, and care­fully select people through pre-eval­u­a­tion steps in order to end up with successful leaders.

There are no clear studies yet in place to measure predis­po­si­tion for success. Most impor­tantly, unless a person is open to expanding their mindset and learning open-ended rules that span across cultures, their chances of success are very slim. 

In theory, all people can succeed in a global lead­er­ship role. In prac­tice, we have yet to see this. 

How Long it Takes to Set Up a Global Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment Program

Dr. Schmitz says, on average, eurac needs 5 – 6 weeks to prepare a program. After that, things depend on the size and goals of the company, but also on a myriad of other details that are diffi­cult to predict and thus make it diffi­cult to give a specific time frame. Each orga­ni­za­tion is so different, that the time it takes to imple­ment a successful global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment program also differs every time. For medium-sized compa­nies, it can take anywhere from 6 months to a year, on average.

The eurac team is incred­ibly expe­ri­enced in running an effec­tive and successful program, for example with Adidas, Daimler, Nestle, Siemens, and SAP. eurac managed to indi­vid­u­alize these programs to be tailored to each company’s specific needs and desires. But in order to have a successful program, the partic­i­pants must be willing, open-minded, and excited to learn. Other­wise, no matter how well the program is struc­tured and thought-out, global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment won’t be successful. 

Learn more about eurac’s Global Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment Program here or sign up for our weekly newsletter to receive our weekly news, trends, updates, and arti­cles about global lead­er­ship straight in your inbox.