Focusing on leadership development within a company is not an uncommon practice. In fact, a company that does not work to develop leaders among its ranks is very unlikely to succeed. But in most cases, companies are focusing on corporate and domestic leadership rather than developing global leadership skills.
This focus on creating leaders within a corporation or specific geographical location is often enforced by the CEOs and company figureheads themselves. They assume that creating leaders within the corporation and focusing solely on company goals and practices is enough. They know the answers to why leadership development is important, but they often don’t expand it to encompass global leadership.
That’s a problem because global companies need leaders who understand the big(ger) picture, who can deal with overarching issues that go beyond the company headquarters’ domestic location, and who are able to make plans for the company on a global scale.
If you want your global company to succeed in the long run, you need global leaders — and your CEO must be committed to finding or, better yet, training them as you are. So how do you get your CEOs or company leaders on board to that full extent?
Global Leadership Versus Corporate Leadership
Harvard Business Review refers to global leadership as a new era of leadership. Generalized leadership development programs tend to focus on management skills and delegating tasks, while global leadership is so much more than that. HBR explains the differences between the two flawlessly:
“The characteristics of successful global leaders today are quite different than traditional hierarchical managers...Developing global leaders necessitates a shift from focusing on management skills to helping leaders be effective in different cultures by increasing their self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and resilience.”
The First Challenge of Global Leadership Development (GLD)
There are several challenges to overcome in creating a GLD program for a company, but the very first one has to do with CEO involvement. Not only should the CEO be involved in the program, but there needs to be complete dedication and commitment to the program on their part.
McKinsey & Company suggests that a CEO’s role in leadership development is influenced by many things, including the nature of the company and the personal leadership style of each participant involved. Although the role of a CEO is situational, McKinsey also states that, no matter what, a program is bound to fail without the CEO’s commitment:
“Everyone has a role to play in a performance transformation. The role of CEO is unique in that they stand at the top of the pyramid and all the other members of the organization take cues from them... Those who fail to model the desired mind-sets and behavior or who opt out of vital initiatives risk seeing the transformation, lose focus.”
How to Gain CEO Commitment to Global Leadership Development
According to eurac’s best practices for a GLD program, there needs to be 100% commitment and engagement from the CEO for training to be effective. There’s no point in proceeding with the program if the CEO isn’t fully committed. So the real question is this:
How can a company that’s working to set up a global leadership development program make sure to do get the CEO on board completely?
5 Steps to Boosting a CEO’s Commitment
There are several ways to go about gaining a CEO’s full and undivided attention, but it might not be an easy task. This is especially true if a CEO is stuck in the past and believes that focusing on corporate-level leadership is the way to keep moving forward. But the task of gaining CEO commitment to global leadership isn’t impossible, especially when you follow these five guidelines.
1. Explain the Benefits of a GLD Program
There’s no denying that there are benefits to developing leaders within a company. It takes time and resources to create leaders, but the end result is worth it. Increased productivity, talent retention, improved organization culture, and increased organizational agility are just a few of the many benefits that can result from a successful leadership program.
To start on the right note, the very first step is to make these benefits known to a CEO. Once he or she realizes that the potential to benefit is there, it’s easier to overlook the cost and time involved in developing global leaders.
However, solely focusing on benefits doesn’t necessarily ensure that a CEO will be committed to the program, only that he or she will become aware of the program’s value. Presenting the benefits of possessing global leaders within the company is simply the first step.
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2. Refer to Company-Specific Situations
One of the most common mistakes of implementing a leadership program is focusing on generic content. Every company is different in how it operates, and this is in part because a company is made up of unique minds and perspectives.
If you present a generic GLD program to a CEO, it will be difficult for him or her to see its value. The key is to deliver information based on the company-specific situation. Consider the company’s past mistakes, what went wrong, and how exactly global leaders could have handled the situation more effectively.
Maybe these mistakes were a result of poor productivity levels, or perhaps there was an HR issue due to cultural insensitivity. Whatever the situation may have been, a CEO will better see the value of a GLD program when company-specific examples are given.
3. Get the CEO Involved in the Program
No matter how much a CEO has on his or her plate, there needs to be involvement. There are five steps to launching an effective GLD program, starting with defining goals and ending with creating a supportive action plan to achieve those goals. The CEO should not just be involved with goal defining, but with each of the five steps required for program effectiveness.
How can the participants involved feel committed to becoming global leaders when the CEO is nowhere to be seen? Many company leaders will try and make claims that they have too much going on to attend program sessions, and perhaps this is true, but involvement can happen in other ways.
One of these methods is to ask for the CEO’s feedback on which employees he or she feels should be included in the program. Another method for boosting involvement is to have the CEO speak at one of the sessions. Even if he or she isn’t physically present for the entire duration of the program, involvement comes in many forms.
4. Get the CEO Emotionally Invested
Honing in on personal emotions is a fantastic way to boost commitment. When an individual is emotionally invested in achieving an end goal, he or she will feel committed to achieving that goal on a personal level. Highly successful people don’t find success on a whim; they are invested in the goal, which ultimately motivates them to keep pushing forward.
One of the most impressive skills held by CEOs all over the world is that they can get others emotionally invested in their goals. Without this skill, it would be difficult to find a team to strategically work towards achieving the goals of a company. Now it is your job to read from the CEO handbook and get the CEO emotionally invested in your goal, which is to develop global leaders.
5. Present the CEO with Figures and Facts
No matter how much emotional investment is involved, nothing speaks the truth quite like the cold, hard facts. Official statistics and factual articles about global leadership development speak volumes, especially for someone holding the title of CEO.
Try not to present generic figures and facts about leadership development, but delve deeper by offering up information that is specifically relevant to the CEO in question. Here are just a few of the shocking statistics surrounding leadership development that can help to boost a CEOs commitment level to the program:
- Only 18% of organizations claim that their leaders are “very effective” at meeting the company’s goals.
- Only 19% of organizations say that they are “very effective” at developing leaders within the company.
- 25% of organizations say that less than 10% of critical leadership positions have successors who are ready or willing to take on the leadership role.
- 84% of organizations anticipate a shortfall of leaders within the next 5 years.
- 58% of organizations’ top priority is closing leadership skills gaps, and many of them are doing so by implementing GLD programs.
- And according to Deloitte (2014), out of 900 surveyed companies, 52% reported planning for geographical expansion while only 16% said they had enough global leaders to fill business-critical roles
How eurac Can Help Develop Global Leaders and Keep CEOs Committed in the Process
eurac is all about enhancing the leadership skills of a CEO’s employees with the main focus of creating global leaders. We never equip a company with a generic GLD program, but rather provide your company with a customized GLD program geared towards your company, and yours alone.
If you’re on board with getting started, get in touch with us here. For more ideas, information, and topical discussion on global leadership, sign up to our newsletter to get new insights every week.