Leadership in a Global Environment - Essay Example

Leadership in a Global and Multicultural Environment The interconnectedness in the world has opened-up various parts of the world for investment in. In addition, companies have adopted expansionary strategic plans as the only way to remain competitive and safeguard their market shares. The coupling of the two factors has resulted in countless global entities (Connerley & Pedersen 2005, p. 12). Globalisation has remained one of the key phenomena, which has characterized the corporate sector. It has resulted in a challenging managerial environment. Thus, one of the key challenges that managers in global entities have to deal with includes multicultural staff, varying regulatory requirements and massive operational logistics. Management at the global level has resulted in a massive capacity strain on leadership and leadership strategies owing to the multicultural nature of the staff. In a multicultural managerial environment, leaders encounter a workforce with varying religious, political, cultural and racial backgrounds. As such, they view numerous things that are relevant in the workplace differently. The difference in the views may result in conflict among members of the workforce or between the management and the staff members (Griffin 2006, p. 72). For an entity seeking to establish a subsidiary in a different country, it is vital for the leadership of the company to adopt a leadership style, which will resonate well with the culture and the ideals of the new country. If such factors are overlooked, the human resource department will experience many challenges that will result in reduced output per employee. Some societies value individualism, for instance, in the western nations while other societies focus on projects, which will uplift the society in its entirety. The leaders in the multicultural managerial environment must remain alive to the complexities that result from diversity. Diversity is a great asset to a company since different people bring different skills and perspectives in the entity. However, if leaders fail to manage diversity shrewdly, it becomes an impediment to the management. Multicultural workforces have become symptomatic with global entities. Hence, one of the steps the leaders should undertake is to ensure that the mission and vision coined are global in nature. Most of the missions and visions will be a reflection of the ideals of the country of origin (Toyota 2014 p.1). Nonetheless, such missions and visions may work against the entity as they fail to embrace employees from different backgrounds. Managing diversity in entities will require patience and realism from the leadership hierarchy. Leaders must identify shared values among the different cultures, religions and societies. Consequently, the multicultural leadership strategies, which result, will attempt to create a sole system that will represent employees from the varying cultural, religious and racial backgrounds (Connerley & Pedersen 2005, p. 21). The ability to assimilate the ideals of the different cultural backgrounds should be at the centre of leadership strategies. The failure of leadership in global organization would be costly considering the amounts of funds entity invest in expansion. The leadership strategies have to be well thought-out due to the sensitivity of the issues they address. Toyota, a Japanese carmaker, provides one of the best case studies for leadership strategies in entities with a multicultural workforce. The organization is the leading automobile entity globally, which means that the entity has numerous subsidiaries globally. To manage its diverse staff base, the company developed a value-based strategy of leadership (Toyota 2003 p.1). The key aim of this strategy was to capture shared ideals among all the employees. In addition, the leadership styles also required the workforce to embrace certain ideas, which would make employees better in a variety of ways. Toyota acknowledges the challenges that the leadership brass encounters in a multicultural environment. Accordingly, the company has instituted measures to improve its leadership capacity with regard to multicultural or global managerial environment. The organization has a global leadership programme whose core objective is nurturing some of its employees on global based leadership in the company. The graduates from the institute should acquire a skill set that will make them adept in dealing with leadership challenges that the entity experience on the global front. The leadership strategy seeks to create a worldwide human network that will represent a human resource pool with appropriate leadership skill, which will go a long way in fostering Toyota’s values (Toyota 2003 p. 1). Toyota’s leadership targets the middle level managerial personnel who are tasked with the implementation of policies developed at the executive level. The company wants to ensure that the middle level managers who are a link between the executive and operational levels have the appropriate skill to implement policies through a workforce with different cultural, religious and racial affiliations (Connerley & Pedersen 2005, p. 78). Toyota’s leadership strategy has been coined by the human resource department, which has the authority to evaluate the human resource capacity of the company relative to its needs (Toyota 2003 p. 1). The way forward is informed by the evaluation that shows the human resource needs of the entity. The human resource department realized that for the company’s expansionary strategic plans to succeed, it had to have an appropriate leadership strategy implemented by employees who had skills in leadership on a global level characterised by diversity. Leadership is an imperative attribute that enables managers to influence the workforce towards the realization of a certain objective. Influencing a diverse workforce is a tough undertaking, which requires the leaders in an organization to understand what the societal and cultural differences (Toyota 2003 p. 1). For instance, Japan is a conservative society, which gravitates to an official organizational culture. The leadership adopted in Toyota’s headquarters should consider such factors. On the contrary, Americans prefer an unofficial culture in which the employees have access to their leaders. As such, the leadership style adopted in Toyota’s American division should consider such factors. In essence, leadership strategies on the global or multicultural level should be subjective. The management should develop leadership strategies that will suit each particular environment and the work force present while ensuring the shared values are not compromised (Toyota 2014 p.1). With the changing business environment, the human resource department has to undertake capacity assessment exercises continuously, which will ensure that it has staff members who can deal with the leadership challenges. If global entities fail to equip their leaders with relevant skills, then such entities will encounter a talent crunch. The human resource department has to take a proactive role in dealing with leadership challenges in a multicultural workforce. Operating on a global scale makes leadership tougher and engaging as it requires consideration of more constraints. Diversity offers a rich pool of talent, which a company should utilize to realize its ambition. People from varying religious, cultural, educational and racial background bring with them different skill sets. Therefore, the leadership should work on ways of harnessing the personnel pool created by diversity. Diversity or a multicultural staff should be an asset to an entity as opposed to a challenge (Ethic World 2009, p.1). The leadership has to develop leadership and negotiation strategies, which will harness the potential that diversity brings to the organization. In Toyota, the leadership had sought to harness the diverse skills that employees from varying nations present. The leadership recognizes that diversity is a strategic asset, which will be imperative as the organization continues to expand. The organization’s success on the global front will be depend significantly upon Toyota’s ability to harness the skills presented by the different people in different nations. The leadership has adopted appropriate strategies, which seek to harness the skills of the diverse staff members. Toyota has also created a policy, which recognizes employees on merit. As a result, only the exceptional workers receive rewards and promotions. Such a reward system is part of the strategy that the present leadership has developed. The leadership has to develop objective policies, which will enable the organization progress internationally (Griffin 2006, p. 152). Toyota’s management acknowledges the challenges that a multicultural workforce posses. As a result, it has enacted a program to equip its middle level managers with skills that will enable deal with the challenges that the organization will face on the global front. In the training, the global leadership institute instils a global perspective into the managers. Globalization puts the leadership capacity to test as it presents numerous human resource challenges that will require diverse perspectives (Ethic World 2009, p.1). In addition, companies also have to reformulate their strategies so that they are relevant to the multicultural workforce. For instance, global entities have to formulate visions and missions based on shared values. The leadership should establish a system, which brings the employees together in the quest to realize the organizational objectives. From the analysis, diversity makes leadership challenging requiring the human resource department to retrain managers in the organization as a way of improving their capacities to deal with matter on a global scale. Evidently, leadership strategies should differ in the different part of the world. The subjectivity of the leadership styles should facilitate the consideration of cultural, religious and racial persuasions or concerns that may influence productivity or the employees’ morale. The leadership should tweak their strategies so that they are adaptable to the different parts of the world the organization may venture. Adaptability of the leadership and negotiation capacities among the employees will be a vital determinant of the success of the entity’s managerial philosophy since the leaders influence how the workforce performs. Bibliography  Connerley, L., & Pedersen, P. 2005, Leadership in a diverse and multicultural environment: developing awareness, knowledge, and skills. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Ethic World. 2009. Managing Workplace Ethics. . Online] (October 26, 2009) Available at:  Griffin, R.2006, Management. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. Toyota. 2003. Human Resource Development. [Online] (updated 2003) Available at: http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/environmental_rep/03/jyugyoin03.html Toyota. 2014. Toyota & Its Management Practices Toyota & Its Management Practices. Online] (May 10, 2013) Available at: Read More