How effective is your leadership style? Are you able to coordinate and manage your global team to accomplish your collective goals in an efficient and effective way?
As previously discussed with global leadership expert Dr. Wolfgang Schmitz, leadership effectiveness is one of the 4 Main Challenges of Global Leadership — and it’s a big one. So we wanted to take an even closer look at what exactly leadership effectiveness is and how global leaders can work to improve it.
Defining Leadership Effectiveness
Leadership effectiveness is a multi-faceted term with a wide variety of possible components that can be difficult to distill into one specific definition. So let’s make sure we’re all talking about the same definition of leadership effectiveness in order to move forward and discuss it further:
“The successful exercise of personal influence by an individual, which results in accomplishing one or several goals as a result of the coordinated efforts of those who are led.”
From a historical standpoint, leadership effectiveness used to be measured in terms of a leader’s ability to influence, coordinate and control others on a top-down basis. While some of these factors surely still play a part, leadership effectiveness has evolved with the times, especially in the context of global leadership.
As we move away from an authoritarian style of leadership, global leaders can no longer rely strictly on the authority of their position. Team members and employees have an evolved expectation of what effective leadership entails. They expect leaders who are
- accountable,
- able to inspire change, and
- hold to values that are worthy of respect.
Add to that the fact that being “close” to your team and remaining an active part of their development as their global leader, who is often not situated in the same location, and it becomes clear that leadership effectiveness for global leaders adds another level of skill sets that must be met.
The Challenges of Leadership Effectiveness
Dr. Schmitz breaks the challenges of effective leadership down into four categories:
- Development of managerial effectiveness
- Inspiration and motivation of the workforce
- Developing employees and the rise of “servant-leadership”
- Leading a team
Let’s take a look at all of these challenges one by one.
1. Developing Managerial Effectiveness
A global leader must cultivate the right set of skills to develop their leadership effectiveness, including:
- Time management
- Task prioritization
- Strategic thinking
- Goal-setting ability
- Good judgement
These are key skills for a global leader to deliver successful projects and manage the potentially conflicting demands of different tasks. Without them, a leader is likely to burn out from focussing on unimportant things and achieving little of the planned tasks and goals.
2. Inspiring and Motivating the Workforce
Motivating and inspiring people to follow you and act in a certain way is a talent that some people seem to be born with and others have to learn. But whether you have an innate knack for motivating people or not, it’s a skill every global leader needs to inspire his or her global workforce.
A key factor to inspiring and motivating others is passion. Passionate leaders light that fire in their team members that lets creativity thrive and excites people to get involved. Effective leaders are able to naturally share and properly communicate that passion and drive with their team and stakeholders.
3. Developing Employees and the Rise of “Servant Leadership”
“Servant leadership” is based on the idea that leaders shouldn’t just be delegating tasks, but instead view themselves as servants of the people they lead. Their actions are motivated by what is best for their team or employees rather than themselves, which expresses itself in the following possible ways:
- Development of close partnership between management structures and employees
- Active involvement in the development of their teams
- Leading by example and embodying the values leaders wish to see in their team dynamic
- The use of value systems to inspire teams to act instead of instilling fear
- Sincerity and humility intrinsically woven into this management style
A global leader who can strike the balance of this servant-leader management style will be able to inspire and motivate their team without resorting to more outdated, authoritarian ways.
4. Leading a Team
Effectively leading a global team means getting all the different cultures and perspectives to work and collaborate together. Whether they’re building a new team or taking over an existing one, global leaders need to be in a position to provide the support their team needs to cope with and go through change, or to create something completely new.
Defining the type of support needed can be challenging. Teams are as unique as the people that make them. Global leaders must be highly attentive in order to recognize their teams’ needs. What works for one, doesn’t necessarily work for another. Leaders must be able to adapt their management style to the needs of their teams.
How to Increase Leadership Effectiveness
There are several measures a global leader can take to improve any or all of the above-mentioned challenges they face in their leadership effectiveness.
Identifying Blind Spots
It can be incredibly difficult for people to see their own blind spots. As a result, they’re less able to counter and work on them. Outside help is often needed to figure out where weaknesses lie, especially when it comes to less tangible things like motivating team members or striking that balance for a successful “servant leadership”.
This help can come in the form of honest feedback from people’s own leaders, colleagues, or, if they’re brave enough, even from team members they’re leading. Intrinsically motivated global leaders will welcome honest feedback, seek it out, and try to learn from it. Performance reviews or team development assessments, for example, can be great opportunities to receive honest feedback.
Additionally, global leaders can seek council from experts. Eurac’s Corporate Academy, for example, offers professional assessment and analysis of people’s leadership competencies. The results will show which skills a global leader needs to work on to lead effectively — and also show possible routes to take to develop them.
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Professional Development Trainings and Education
To develop the skills necessary for leadership effectiveness, global leaders can
- take courses,
- go to conferences, or
- take part in specific programs designed to develop growth in these areas.
We at eurac offer the latter with both our Corporate Academy and Executive Academy. In these trainings, seminars, and coachings, we strive to assess, fine-tune, and give you all the customized tools you and your company or team need to achieve Personal Excellence, Team Excellence, and finally Company Excellence. Find out more with one click here.
Walk the Talk
As mentioned earlier, effective global leaders lead by example. They embody the values they wish to see in their team dynamic and use their value systems to inspire their teams to act.
Fear and manipulation aren’t good tools for effective leadership. They may work to a certain extent, but they lessen people’s motivation. Their aim becomes “keep your head down and get the job done” instead of striving towards the same main goal and shared vision. Frustration instead of motivation, and resistance instead of teamwork become the norm.
A global leader’s ability to lead by example comes from understanding his values. Global leaders with a clear set of values find it much easier to almost instinctively base every action and decision on those values.
Know the Vision
Much like their values, global leaders need to know and understand the vision behind everything they’re doing, behind everything their company strives so hard for. Only then is it possible to motivate and inspire the people in their team or company to follow that same vision.
If the shared vision isn’t clear, everyone will have their own and end up following their own path. But knowing the vision is only one side of the coin to effective leadership. The other side is communicating that vision.
Communication is Key
Global leaders can know the vision, the way to success and the measures to get there by heart in minute detail — but if they can’t communicate any of this beyond their own understanding, their leadership style will never be effective.
They must be able to communicate to team members their part in driving organizational success, as well as their expected behaviors, in a motivational and inspiring way. The more people know, the safer they feel in the knowledge that they understand the goal, the steps and the stakes, and the happier and more motivated they will consequently be. And communication becomes even more important for teams scattered across multiple locations, where members hardly ever see each other in person.
As a global leader, you have to make sure to always communicate your goals, plans and benchmarks with your team in a timely manner. Discuss progress on a regular basis, as well as necessary adjustments and changes — especially the changes. The more upfront a global leader is about upcoming changes, the less resistance to those changes his team will be, and the more effectively they’ll work to make those changes happen.
We hope this article gave you insight into leadership effectiveness, the challenge it poses for global leaders, and ways to improve it. At eurac, we strive to support global leaders in their quest for effectiveness and excellence. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to stay up-to-date on global leadership here: