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: