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LEADERSHIP IN A GLOBALISING WORLD
Connect
with Society to Survive a Connected World
Globalisation
detaches organisations from particular societies only to require the
internalising of society and its needs. Institutional certainty balances
biz uncertainty
The era of globalisation is characterised by
frequent, rapid, and sometimes unpredictable change, both done by leaders
and done to them by events in the external world. Globalisation increases
the speed of change, as more competitors from more places produce
surprises. System effects send ripples that spread to more places faster —
innovations in one place proving disruptive in others, problems in one
economy triggering problems in others. Although geographic diversification
is a hedge against local risk, geographic consolidation to gain economies
of scope can expose companies to risks that cannot be contained.
Furthermore, companies acquire, divest, or are acquired; the business mix
of globalising companies changes frequently; and job levels fluctuate
across countries. The answer to the question of who we are in the future is
that we are not our current widgets, but we are our values, and that can
help us find the right new widgets to serve society. Globalisation
seemingly detaches organisations from particular societies only to require
the internalising of society and its needs (many societies) in
organisations. Institutional certainty can balance business uncertainty.
Leaders can compensate for uncertainty by institutional grounding —
identifying something larger than transactions or today’s portfolio that
provides purpose and meaning. Institutional work involves active efforts to
build and reinforce aspects of what is loosely called organisational
culture — but it is also much more than that. Culture, as generally used,
is often a byproduct of past actions, a passively experienced outgrowth of
history. Institutional work is an investment in activities and
relationships that do not yet have an instrumental purpose or a direct road
to business results but that instead show what the institution stands for
and how it will endure. Institutional work is a survival strategy.
Globalisation increases the likelihood of shorter organisational
lifecycles, as a result of mergers & acquisitions, industry
consolidation, and intensified competition driving out weaker competitors.
It is plausible to hypothesise that the extent and depth of institutional
work can divide the survivors from those subsumed by global change. The
leaders whose organisational heritage lives on even if names change are
likely to be masters of institutional work. Institutional work infuses
meaning into the organisation, ‘institutionalising’ it as a fixture in
society with continuity between past and future. The institutional work of
a leader involves establishing and reinforcing values and principles
through conversations and actions. In so doing, leaders help the
organisation internalise society and societal goals.
Integrative Work
Globalisation brings more moving parts, more variables in play
simultaneously, and more dimensions of interest. There is a rapid flow of
people, money, and ideas in and around the organisation. An intensely
competitive global information economy places a high premium on innovation,
the faster the better, and innovation itself often reflects a new
connection between previously unrelated elements or entities that now
require further integration. Information has a short half-life — “use it or
lose it”. So there is more need to get ideas connected to tangible products
and services, and to connect innovations with applications and users. Open
access and communication irrespective of levels are increasingly apparent
everywhere in the world. Information technology facilitates direct access
and rewards those who seek and spread information. Globalisation magnifies
the integrative work that leaders must perform. Leaders must ensure ideas
are captured and people connected. Top leaders must facilitate integrative
work on the part of others in the organisation. They must enable more
people to make more connections, establishing roles and processes for
connectors or integrators who link people or resources to one another —
serving as idea scouts and transfer agents. As they do so, they must let go
of full control — so that self-organising can take place, or decisions can
be made by integrators connection across boundaries. Leaders do not stand
‘above’ on a vertical dimension: they lead by facilitating horizontal,
diagonal, or multidirectional connections. The decisions that top leaders
retain involve choices about which potential pathways to endow with
resources to start them moving — that is, which broad initiatives to fund
or which pieces of the organisation to combine formally in order to
facilitate closer connections between related parts.
Building Social Capital
Integrative work at the top involves frequent convening of groups
cutting across the organisation along many dimensions and expecting them to
collaborate as well as serve as connectors between and among their home
units. Groups might meet based on responsibility for a step in the value
creating process — for example, global technology, strategy, and operations
— or various cuts through the organisation, including geography leaders,
functional leaders, as product/service leaders. There might be issues
groups, permanent or ad hoc. They might meet face to face at longer
intervals but hold conference calls at shorter intervals — voice
communication is used even in technology companies for substantial
conversations, with email relegated to short factual messages.
Fostering Self-Organising
Self-organising communities, operating outside of formal structures,
are a valuable resource if top leaders can accept that they are not in
control but can take advantage of the results of lower level integrative
leadership. The driving force for self-organised groups is curiosity and
interest on the part of the people themselves, if left free to conduct the
dialogue. In India, a group of engineers self-organised after the tsunami
to provide support for disaster relief, asking their nominal bosses to
endorse commitments they had already made and place a few phone calls to
government officials on their behalf.
Leaders Across Levels
The complexity of globalisation tends to induce and favour distributed
rather than concentrated leadership. That is, fewer people act as power
holders monopolising information or decision-making, and more people serve
as integrators using relationships and persuasion to get things done, a
hallmark of a flatter organisation. Formal assignments as integrators or
connectors are common in global companies, and integrative work is an
exception for many more people. A large number of people juggle multiple
responsibilities and work with a large set of peers. Mentoring becomes a
much more important part of the leadership role under such circumstances
because of the need to transmit knowledge faster that increases people’s
ability to use their judgment and tap a network of relationships — that is,
to acquire and use what is now called social capital. Social and linguistic
differences and the identities that flow from globalisation constitute a
leadership challenge. They can produce miscommunication, misunderstanding,
mistrust, divisiveness, inequalities, and resentment of inequalities.
Externally, they can complicate the task of diplomacy. Global leaders must
confront identity issues in a way that unites people while acknowledging
individuality. Leaders must develop consciousness about others. They need
an awareness of differences and a willingness to honour them.
(Excerpted with permission from Leadership in a Globalizing World by
Rosabeth Moss Kanter. The full text appears in Handbook of Leadership Theory
and Practice,
published by Harvard Business Review Press
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