BSc Business Management: Leadership and Global World Perspectives

This essay delves into the multifaceted nature of leadership within the context of a globalized world. It examines how leadership perspectives shift in response to economic, social, and political dynamics, highlighting the challenges posed by globalization, including the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) environment. The essay explores the importance of managerial effectiveness, workforce inspiration, employee skill development, and effective teamwork within a global setting. It contrasts traditional leadership styles with responsible leadership, emphasizing the need for transformational qualities, time management, delegation, and strategic alignment. Furthermore, it analyzes the significance of responsible leadership during organizational change, covering the phases of unfreezing, change, and refreezing, and underscores the importance of transparency and emotional intelligence. The essay concludes by highlighting the crucial role of culturally and emotionally intelligent leaders in navigating the complexities of global business environments, emphasizing communication as a key leadership characteristic.

Running head: LEADERSHIP AND GLOBAL WORLD
Leadership and Global World
Name of the Student:
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Author Note:

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Changing perspectives of leadership in different economic, social and political
contexts
The role of leaders change depending on the changing economic condition of the
global world. Due to globalization, organizations need leaders who are able to understand the
ever-changing economy of the global market (Ryan 2013). This is particularly applicable to
the multinational companies as they work across country borders and the leaders need to have
the abilities to manage a diverse workforce and external environmental challenges. When
companies expand to other countries or continents, the economic condition of the country
decides the kind of strategy that the leader will take to penetrate the market, create brand
value, promote brand image and manage the diverse workforce. For example, the developed
countries provide a highly saturated market and extreme competition. The leaders generally
take aggressive approach to penetrate the markets (Chiu, S.C.S. and Walls, J.L., 2019). While
in the emerging markets, the leaders must use other strategies like cost leadership or
franchising to penetrate the market. Thus, it all depends upon the leader and his decision
making how the company will compete in the international market.
The leadership perspective also changes with globalization as globalization introduces
new social customs and approach. Businesses operating in the western world operates
differently than the eastern countries. Most of the eastern countries are based on collectivist
culture and thus prefer top down leadership (Baškarada, Watson and Cromarty 2017). The
western world on the other hand are more individualistic in nature and seeks equal
contribution and role in the decision making process thus, leading to a flat organizational
structure. Social aspects like cultural diversity, minority and social structure shapes the way a
leader modifies the approach. In simpler words, people belonging to different social structure
views leaders differently and have different expectations from the leadership.

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The political environment too changes leadership perspectives. The leaders consider
the governmental demands, policies and legislatures in a global business environment. Even
while working in the home country, they must conform to the governmental policies in order
to do their business legitimately. For overseas business, the government seeks development
of the country through Foreign Direct Investments and sustainable planning for the
environment and society. The governments of the emerging markets and the underdeveloped
markets are more likely to compromise and negotiate than the developed countries. For
example, when Google wanted to penetrate the Chinese market, they had to face much
barriers from the governments and had to sit for many negotiations. Even after all that
discussions, the government was unwilling to relent on some key terms imposed by them and
the penetration did not happen.
The perspective of leadership has changed significantly through time. Earlier, leaders
were more of a boss than people persons while in recent times; an effective leader is
considered a servant of people rather than a boss. The difference being, a boss directs people,
gives them orders and a leader experiences the journey with the people so that people find a
guide. In the globalized business world, leaders need to focus on the incidents of successful
leadership rather than theories so that they are able to learn from real life accounts.
Challenges in leadership in today’s volatile business environment
Globalization has created a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA)
environment. Due to the volatility of the present business environment, many challenges have
arisen for the leaders in present times. The first challenge is developing managerial
effectiveness (Kok and Heuvel 2019). This includes key managerial skills like time
management, strategic thinking and decision-making. Time management helps the leaders to
effectively manage the multiple tasks and deliver the projects within deadline. Strategic

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thinking allows them to consider the situations of the global business environment and create
strategies that will ensure the organizational competitive advantage.
Another challenge is inspiring the workforce. Due to the changing world, people’s
needs and desires change as well. Moreover, due to differences in the cultures and beliefs,
different things motivate people. The leaders need to consider these differences and ensure
that the people that they are working with are satisfied with the job that they are doing
(Tepper et al. 2018). Leaders also face challenge in developing the skills and ability of the
employees. People come with different sets of skills and ability and the leader must ensure
that the employees are experiencing growth in their work. Professional growth motivates
people and increases their competitiveness. Additionally, training and coaching are different
according to countries.
Teamwork and leadership is an integral part of working in a VUCA world. As more
companies become multinational, the emergence of cross-cultural teams are becoming more
common in organizations. Exceptional leaders have the ability to manage the multicultural
teams and establish cohesion and cooperation among members. Team development and
management is one of the greatest challenge that leaders can face in the present situation
(Hall and Rowland 2016). Organizations must change periodically in order to maintain their
competitive edge and the leaders are the most important drivers of a successful change. They
are responsible for communicating the details and assure the employees. This, again, pose a
hurdle to leaders.
The greatest challenge that leaders face in the VUCA world is the rapid change that
organizations go through. Due to technological advancements, the organizations need to
update themselves constantly. The problem is that the leaders need to be prepared for the
challenges in this volatile world (Alkhaldi et al. 2017). The frequency of change is also

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extremely high. Organizations shift from one change to another even before the earlier
change has been assimilated.
Finally, the management of internal stakeholders and politics are complex set of jobs
that the leaders must conduct. They must ensure that there is cooperation among the different
organs of the organization and the internal relationships and political agendas are contained
(Sarkar and Sarkar 2016). Statistics show that eastern countries like India, China, UK and US
consider developing managerial effectiveness as one of the greatest challenges for leadership
in a VUCA world with inspiring others and developing employees following closely behind.
In Spain, team leadership and in guiding change in UK are one of the main concerns.
Different characteristics of responsible leadership
Many people believe that leadership is an in-born quality rather than an acquired skill.
This has created a practice of choosing people with leadership qualities and placing them in
the top management without proper training and coaching. This has led to long-term adverse
effect for the companies (Alabi and Alabi 2014). This method has become obsolete now
though many organizations follow this method. While people might think that, the leaders of
different country face different sets of challenges it is not completely true. While culture and
social practices affects how people behave largely, the basic challenges remain the same. The
leaders nowadays need positive response and transformational qualities in order to lead in a
global world (Gentry et al. 2014). The leaders first need to change their thinking and
approach in order to guide the organization and its people through change. Responsible
leaders have the characteristics such as influencing the workforce and drive people to
perform better. They are also great orators and innovators that inspires other people to follow
them.

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Responsible leaders also need key abilities such as time management, prioritization
and decision making abilities. The leaders need to set goals and milestones along with
timelines to develop this capability. Task delegation and distribution is also key skill for
leaders. Responsible leaders delegate tasks depending on the skills and abilities of the people
that they work with. They are able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals.
Responsible leaders also ensure that the organizational interest and objectives are served and
thus the strategies that they create align with the organizational goals and visions (Anuradha
and Sujatha 2019). A responsible leader is also able to motivate the employees and develop
their skills. Managing change and leading the organization through the process of change is
one of the most necessary characteristics that makes a successful leader in the VUCA world.
Importance of responsible leadership for change process
Change in organization has become one of the most important prerogatives. The
organizations are becoming global and thus they need to change their model and approach as
they enter new markets or face shifts in their earlier situation. Change also increases
productivity of the organization and increases the competitive edge in the global market. The
leaders of the organizations have the responsibility of leading the people in the organization
during the process of change (Gleeson 2018). The change model devised by Lewin describes
the three different stages that organizations go through during a change process. The first
phase is unfreeze, change and refreeze. In all the three phases, the role of the leader is
indisputable. In the first phase, the leader needs to gather support from the management for
the change and determine what changes are needed in the organization. They also need to
address all the doubts and concerns that arise regarding the change.
In the second phase where the actual change take place, the leaders need to show their
motivational and people management skills. In this phase, the workforce becomes restless

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and fearful of the changes and their consequences. Responsible leaders are able to include
people into the process by seeking their input and views. The employees need to feel that
they are still parts of the organization. They also need assurances of the security that they
have experienced (Caulfield and Senger 2017). The main responsibility of leaders in this
phase is to instill confidence into the workers. In the last phase, the leaders need to integrate
the changes into the organizational culture. Responsible leaders understand each organization
individually and respond to them differently. In the last phase, the leaders must ensure that
people do not fall back to their old habits and make the change redundant. The motivational
and people management skills are also needed in this phase.
Transparency is also a key characteristic of responsible leaders. During change
process and management, the leader has the responsibility to communicate everything
transparently with the whole organization. This creates a sense of trust and dependency on
the leaders. Effective leaders change constantly themselves. They realize that large changes
can only be brought after people see small changes happening and running successfully
(Bolden et al. 2019). Bringing changes in their attitudes and approach shows them that
leaders too are evolving themselves, which gives them a positive implication to changes.
Transparency with the management on the other had ensures that the organization provides
complete investment and support for the process of change. The management is able to trust
the leader completely and the leader can focus their attention on the work force and the
process itself. Leaders also need to emotional connection with the employees in order to
manage them properly.
Responsible leadership is important in modern organizations as responsible leaders
are equipped with emotional and culture intelligence (Chawla and Lenka 2018). Changes in
organizations might take place when a merger and acquisition happens or the company
expands theory boundary. There could several other reasons for bringing change. Due to the

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global nature of the present organizations, and culturally intelligent leaders are able to
manage people coming from different cultural backgrounds effectively. Cultural intelligence
enables the leaders to understand the differences among the cultural beliefs and practices and
respect them. They have the ability to see people from a humanistic point of view rather than
their cultural backgrounds (Osman-Gani and Hassan 2018). Cultural intelligence gives them
the ability to manage multicultural teams. Emotional intelligence allows them to be
empathetic and understanding which is valued by employees all cultures greatly. An
empathetic leader is able to connect with the people easily and invokes their trust.
Communication is the key characteristics that makes an individual a great leader.
Communicating with the employees and being able to change their view and resistance to
change is one of the most challenging role that leaders have to play. Along with this, being
able to incorporate the whole of the workforce into the decision making process indicates the
qualities of a good leadership (Solomon and Steyn 2017). In an ever-changing world, even
these expectations are increasing and leaders now have to innovate continuously in order to
be able to guide the organization effectively.

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