As a global leader, it’s your busi­ness to know about… well, busi­ness. After all, you’re running an orga­ni­za­tion. Whether you’re an exec­u­tive of a company, a polit­ical party leader, a team manager, or insti­gator of a social move­ment — you have to under­stand all aspects of the orga­ni­za­tion you’re heading up to run it successfully. 

Take Nelson Mandela, for example, who was elected as South Africa’s first black head of state. Yet his vision wasn’t to become head of state; it was to end apartheid, which he did. Do you think he could have done that without a deep knowl­edge of his “industry” — poli­tics? Highly unlikely, right? 

Global busi­ness exper­tise doesn’t end with industry knowl­edge, and we’ll get to other factors in a bit. Both the fast-advancing, ever-changing tech­nology, as well as the chal­lenges of doing busi­ness around the world add to the complex­i­ties of knowing the ins and outs of your orga­ni­za­tion. Global leaders have to be some of the most knowl­edge­able and expe­ri­enced exec­u­tives in their industry. 

There­fore, busi­ness exper­tise on a “global” scale is an essen­tial compe­tency for global leaders. They can be the most compe­tent person from an inter­per­sonal, intrap­er­sonal and multi-cultural perspec­tive — but if they have no skills and knowl­edge of how to run, manage and struc­ture an orga­ni­za­tion and the people they lead, they’ll run the ship aground faster than you can shout “iceberg ahead”. 

5 Factors of Global Busi­ness Exper­tise For Global Leaders

eurac summa­rizes the following five factors of global busi­ness exper­tise based on Allan Bird’s article Mapping The Content Domain of Global Lead­er­ship Compe­ten­cies: Research, Prac­tice and Development. 

The first two cover the basic level of busi­ness exper­tise, on which global leaders expand to build their “extremer” under­standing of global busi­ness expertise. 

1. Vision And Strategic Thinking

Imagine getting in your car and starting to drive — but you have no idea where you want to end up. What is your desti­na­tion at the end of the journey? 

Every orga­ni­za­tion needs a desti­na­tion, or vision, to travel towards. The journey may in fact take different turns for different people within the orga­ni­za­tion, but in the end everyone knows the final desti­na­tion, the ulti­mate goal, of what they’re collec­tively working towards. 

Without a vision of what the orga­ni­za­tion is trying to achieve and what its objec­tives are at the end of it all, members will simply drift apart, work on their own thing, or abandon ship alto­gether. A global leader has to be able to not only make that vision crys­talize for himself, but also commu­ni­cate it to the people he leads in a way that ignites their passion and moti­va­tion to match.

To figure out your vision (whether personal or orga­ni­za­tional — a good global leader will want to know both), ask your­self the following ques­tions: 

• What are your core values?
• What is your focus?
• What is your 10-year target?
• What is your 3‑year target?
• What is your 1‑year plan?
• What are your priorities?
• What are your issues, fears, and worries?

On the basis of their vision, global leaders are then able to devise a detailed strategy of how to get there — setting up the road map to the end desti­na­tion, as it were. At the same time, they under­stand that nothing is ever set in stone; prior­i­ties shift, steps are modi­fied, and strate­gies change. A good global leader has the flex­i­bility and agility to adapt to these changes effec­tively and efficiently. 

Strategic thinking helps global leaders review policy issues, plan long-term, set goals and deter­mine prior­i­ties, as well as iden­tify poten­tial risks and oppor­tu­ni­ties. If you’re wondering whether you’re a strategic thinker, check if the following indi­ca­tors ring true for you: 

• You make better deci­sions by being more reflective
• You advance your career by being a better leader
• You demon­strate orga­ni­za­tional value by creating more strategic thinkers

Successful global leaders are able to capture and commu­ni­cate their vision, as well as share and spread their passion for it. Their ability to think strate­gi­cally gives global leaders a clear visual of how to turn that vision into reality, even through some unex­pected twists and turns along the way. 

2. Being Busi­ness Savvy

Busi­ness savvy people possess a high level of under­standing and tech­nical exper­tise in their field of busi­ness. Global leaders under­stand that to be successful, becoming an expert in their field is an ongoing process of learning and discovery, commu­ni­ca­tion, problem-solving and devel­oping understanding.

First and fore­most, a busi­ness savvy person is an expert at “busi­ness” itself. They under­stand how actions on one side of an orga­ni­za­tion affect the other side. They’re able to consider the entire oper­a­tion of a busi­ness as a whole, while also under­standing the minute details of a business’s inner workings. 

Busi­ness savvy leaders exhibit the following key traits: 

• Industry knowl­edge
• Market inti­macy
• Cost conscious­ness
• Compet­i­tive­ness
• Risk taking
• Action oriented
• Inno­v­a­tive
• Driven by the bottom line
• Sense of ownership

Successful global leaders have the busi­ness acumen to seize every oppor­tu­nity to grow the busi­ness and drive it toward the overall vision. 

3. Managing Communities

No, we’re not talking about online commu­ni­ties on social media here, although global leaders might use Face­book and Co. as tools to manage their commu­ni­ties. Instead, we want to take a look at the much larger scale of how a global leader builds and manages the entire commu­nity around his busi­ness. 

Every busi­ness or brand has a commu­nity. Whether it’s via a member­ship, or simply loyal fans and customers — no orga­ni­za­tion that has any impact on this world is without commu­nity. A good global leader recog­nizes this and knows how to leverage that commu­nity in his organization’s and its followers’ best interest. 

Building commu­nity builds human connec­tions, and clever global leaders under­stand that these connec­tions are vital to his cause or vision. In building commu­nity, you invite poten­tial customers, fans or followers to be a part of some­thing bigger, to have an impact together. Such shared expe­ri­ences and having a collec­tive impact make people feel good about them­selves and their shared cause. Building and managing a commu­nity gives followers a space to feel seen and heard in a unique way. 

A good global leader doesn’t stand back, but becomes part of the commu­nity, inte­grates and inter­acts with the people in it, and guides them towards his vision with humility, kind­ness and respect. If neces­sary, he is able to take a stand, both to the members within but also to people from without the community. 

4. Being Orga­ni­za­tional Savvy

Not to be confused with orga­ni­za­tional skills, orga­ni­za­tional savvy is defined as emotional intel­li­gence on an orga­ni­za­tional level. It’s the under­standing of how indi­vid­uals, teams and orga­ni­za­tions func­tion, as well as the ability to react to those factors in the right way. An effec­tive global leader must have orga­ni­za­tional savvy to be able to move the orga­ni­za­tion forward.

Leaders with orga­ni­za­tional savvy always know and handle what is happening across an orga­ni­za­tion. They under­stand how 

• deci­sions, 
• actions, 
• influ­ence dynamics,
• culture, and
• norms of behavior

affect all parts of an orga­ni­za­tion and recog­nize the inter­ests of all involved. They’re able to use that infor­ma­tion to estab­lish alliances to achieve orga­ni­za­tional objectives. 

Part of being orga­ni­za­tional savvy also means being aware of the “darker” sides of leading. Global leaders under­stand that they may have to deal with decep­tion. Not everyone’s motives are honor­able. A good leader who has been deceived will try to under­stand the opponent’s motive and see the other’s point of view before reacting in the appro­priate manner. 

You demon­strate orga­ni­za­tional savvy if you’re able to: 

• Under­stand orga­ni­za­tional and polit­ical real­i­ties and approach prob­lems accordingly
• Take into account how an organization’s culture impacts how work gets done
• Estab­lishes alliances and resolves issues while under­standing the goals and objec­tives of other depart­ments or teams
• Under­stand the inter­de­pen­dent nature of oper­a­tions and the impact of various depart­ments on work­flow within the organization
• Compre­hend how your deci­sions might impact others across the orga­ni­za­tion and involve them accordingly
• Keep up to date on every­thing that’s going on across the organization
• Proac­tively share infor­ma­tion across the organization
• Consider orga­ni­za­tional culture and behav­ioral norms when making decisions

5. Leading Change

“The only thing that is constant is change.”

Heraclitus

This old saying is more true in this fast-paced, fast-changing world than ever before. Lead­er­ship is not a static endeavor. Successful leaders both acknowl­edge the neces­sity for busi­ness devel­op­ment while also being willing and able to navi­gate their team through change. 

Failure to grow and develop an orga­ni­za­tion, to lead it through change and adjust to new ways of thinking and doing, will lead to stag­na­tion and ulti­mately death. A good global leader under­stands that change isn’t an option, but a prereq­ui­site for success — and that leading change effec­tively is essen­tial for that growth and development. 

A global leader also recog­nizes where change is immi­nent, and knows how to handle it: 

1. Create a plan
2. Under­stand the end goal
3. Commu­ni­cate clearly
4. Iden­tify key players
5. Dele­gate tasks
6. Set real­istic objectives
7. Manage expec­ta­tions
8. Hold people accountable

There’s so much more to know and learn about global busi­ness exper­tise for global leaders than we can cover in one article. But we continue to take detailed looks at all the factors, compe­ten­cies, and facets it takes to be a global leader in our weekly arti­cles. Sign up here to get them deliv­ered straight to your inbox every week: