Looking for the Path to Global Leadership? Go Lead in an Emerging Market

Jul 9, 2013 3:00 AM ET

Looking for the Path to Global Leadership?

Being globally minded is no longer a professional choice. It’s a business requirement. To achieve global progress and shared value solutions to the big problems that are facing our planet—challenges such as food security, economic development, access to clean water, and adequate healthcare distribution—every corporate Joe or Jane must transform to meet the new standards of global leadership. Those who meet or exceed these expectations will lead the world to a better future. Those who do not are likely to fall behind, and, inevitably disappear.

But who is the enigmatic global leader? As leadership development pedagogy has grown, the true meaning of global leadership has become increasingly vague. A few scholars, however, have managed to develop greater clarity in this domain. In Being Global: How to Think, Act, and Lead in a Transformed World, Ángel Cabrera and Gregory Unruh detail three primary foundations for an individual’s global leadership potential – global mindset, global entrepreneurship, and global citizenship.

Multinational companies in rapid-growth markets are aware that these problems critically constrain their international expansion. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Beth Brooke, Global Vice Chair of Public Policy at Ernst & Young, stated, “When my organization commissioned a survey of more than 800 business executives working in 35 markets, not even a third of them expressed strong confidence in their top management’s ability to build and execute a global talent strategy.”

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