Reflective Essay on Skills for Managing in the Global Environment

This essay reflects on the skills necessary for succeeding as a global manager in today's dynamic business environment. It emphasizes the importance of effective communication, understanding and navigating cultural differences, and adapting to the global market through strategies like 'glocal' a...Read More

Running Head: Managing the Global Environment
Managing the Global Environment
Reflective Essay

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Introduction
In the present day scenario understanding what it takes to succeed in the global
business environment in the capacity of the manager is extremely important. It takes
a dynamic and a flexible leader to adapt to the changing situation, assess the global
business environment, formulate a team of motivated employees and create a
strategy to succeed in the highly competitive business environment. The above
introduction serves as the preamble of the essay and will describe my learning
relating to my role in becoming a future global manager by analysing my experience
from the unit and learning about myself as a future manager in the global business
environment.
Body of the Essay
Leadership is the art and application of skills to practically lead the organization and
individuals to the path of sustained development by motivating and influencing them
to achieve the organizational objectives (Johnson, 2016). My learning in the module
has been focussed on what it takes to be a successful global manager and a leader,
the necessary skill sets in order to succeed in the role of global manager.
The first and foremost thing I learnt was the importance of effective communication
in the business environment, it not only helps in building a relationship of trust with
the employees but it helps in the overall sustainability of the business. Openness in
communication ensures that employees are free to give their views, opinion or share
their concerns with their manager, as the working environment is conducive for open
communication. It also helps in empowering employees which translates into a
feeling of motivation for them, thus leading to enhanced productivity (Goleman,
2017).
Assessing the global business environment is another tricky thing at hand, I realized
in order to succeed in the global market as a global manager one has to master the
art of doing away with the cultural differences. The manager is required to use his
tacit and cogency to overcome the challenges faced due to workforce diversity and
cultural differences, as culture has a very strong role to play in the global business

Managing the Global Environment P a g e | 2
environment. The manager has to ensure he takes all the preventive action to not let
cultural differences come in the way of enhanced productivity (Seto & Sarros, 2016).
Assessing the global business environment before being sent to lead the team has
its own critical advantage. A beforehand knowledge of the domestic market and the
political situation helps in formulating strategies to succeed in the market. Another
important thing I learnt to succeed in the Global market is deploying the strategy of
GLOCAL-Go Global and Think local (Erisman, 2016). This is the comprehensive
strategy which focuses on the importance of assessing and working with the local
authorities to encounter any challenges posed by the foreign country and its
population. Plethora of managers have ignored this in the past and have faced
failures, Uber in China is the most recent example in this area (Luthans & Doh,
2018)
Customers are the most important element to study in succeeding as a global
business manager. It is pivotal for the manager to understand the perception,
behaviour, needs and the purchasing power parity of the consumers to better market
or position the company’s product offering. Hence, customer is the most important
wheel in the success cart of a global manager (Bird & Mendenhall, 2016)
I believe that I would be a good global business manager, and my belief is based on
my skills and my understanding in depth of the topic. I have great communication
skill, and I am a people’s person, this makes me easily acceptable and likes by
people around me. Another important aspect of leadership which I believe in is
ensuring positive synergies from team work. Team work is able to derive results
which are unrealistically possible; I have understood the concept and importance of
team work, which would help me in extracting work out of my team members. I
understood the importance of motivation from the module, how motivation is the
enabling factor behind pushing people to achieve the impossible in the simplest of
manner. I have an understanding that every person has different needs, thus
requires different motivation techniques to push them towards enhanced productivity,
I am of the opinion that I would be able to motivate my team members by their need
assessment.
Conclusion

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Globalization has made it possible for companies to work across borders and
improve the lives of people. There has been a tremendous shift in the power of
economies, companies are now moving from saturated market to emerging
economies to leverage on the first movers advantage and to create a competitive
dominance. In order to succeed as a global manager in such competing and evolving
markets, one always has to be spot on with the current trend in the global business
environment and has to use all the arrows from his quiver to master the art of global
business manager. Communication, motivation, assessing the global business
environment and coherent understanding of the customers are the primary skills to
succeed in the role of global business manager.

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References
Bird, A. and Mendenhall, M.E., 2016. From cross-cultural management to global
leadership: Evolution and adaptation. Journal of World Business, 51(1), pp.115-126.
Erisman, P., 2016. Alibaba's World: How a Remarkable Chinese Company is
Changing the Face of Global Business. Pan Macmillan.
Goleman, D., 2017. Leadership That Gets Results (Harvard Business Review
Classics). Harvard Business Press.
Johnson, G., 2016. Exploring strategy: text and cases. Pearson Education.
Luthans, F. and Doh, J.P., 2018. International management: Culture, strategy, and
behavior. McGraw-Hill.
Seto, S. and Sarros, J.C., 2016. Servant Leadership Influence on Trust and Quality
Relationship in Organizational Settings. International Leadership Journal, 8(3).