Global Leadership
akashaseeja
MGMT5006GLWk8LeadingGlobalTeams.pptxMGMT5006 Global Leadership Week 8: Leading Global Teams
Students can pick up a Unit Outline and a number card on the way into class
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Overview
Looking back to Week 7 – Leadership in socio-cultural context
Week 8 - Leading Global Teams:
What are the characteristics of global teams?
Are there specific challenges that global team encounter?
What are the implications for managers and leaders of global teams?
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Looking back to Week 7 Leadership in socio-cultural context
Last week we considered:
“What does leadership looks like in different cultures?
How do different cultures perceive ‘effective leadership’?
Are there alternatives to Western leadership thinking?
We recognised that leadership is culturally contingent:
“Leadership means different things to different people”
there are some ‘universal’ leadership attributes but most attributes and behaviours are culturally contingent
Our personal cultural context shapes how we perceive leadership: our leadership preferences
Questions for discussion (open)
Questions for discussion are:
1. What does the world in which I have to function as a leader look like?
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Linking to Week 8 Leading Global Teams
Given that expectations of leaders and their behaviours may vary according to where you are from and/or where you are working, what does this mean when you are leading a global team?
This week we ask:
What are the characteristics of global teams?
Are there issues or challenges that are particular to global teams?
What are the implications for managers/leaders?
Week 8 Leading Global Teams
Characteristics of Global Teams - Aspects of Multi-cultural and Virtual Teams -
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Diverse
Dispersed
Cultural diversity
Geographic dispersion
Team members represent different business units / part of organisation
Team members from different countries
Functional diversity
Different locations
Different time zones
Members may travel frequently
May reply on IT and communication technology to work together
Diverse and Dispersed Teams - Barriers and Opportunities -
The diverse and dispersed nature of global team presents both challenges and opportunities for team performance (Maznevski & Chui 2017, p.281)
Challenges of Global Teams - Team Inputs -
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Role Agreement
Task Complexity
Role agreement refers to how team roles are defined and managed
Dispersed teams
Manager/leader authority vs emergent or shared leadership
Individual vs collective cultures
Varies with culture
Eg: Hierarchical vs egalitarian cultures
Accountability for tasks and norms for reward
Less structure
High task interdependence
Leaders must
define task structure
enable bonding and communication
Complex tasks
Establish strong results orientation
Barriers to Effective Global Teams - Team Processes -
Some key areas of challenge for global teams are:
Communication
Conflict
Cohesion and Identity
Trust
Barriers to Effective Global Teams - Team Processes -
Language:
Different languages / different fluency of English or primary working language
Language barriers -> anxiety, frustration, resentment, unequal power dynamic
Communication norms
Accepted communication behaviours
How is meaning sent and received
Differ with culture (eg: expression vs silence)
Technology
Verbal vs non-verbal
Sharing of tacit knowledge
Communication
Barriers to Effective Global Teams - Team Processes -
Greater incidence of conflict in global teams
Detecting and addressing conflict is more difficult due to dispersion and cultural diversity
Power distance characteristics affect conflict resolution techniques
Direct vs indirect confrontation of issues
Conflict
Barriers to Effective Global Teams - Team Processes -
Trust is critical to the success of global teams
Establishing trust within a team is more difficult for global teams due to distance and difference
Global teams may experience “swift trust” at formation but then takes longer to develop deep trust
To build deep trust, reliability, predictability and personal contact is needed
Trust
Barriers to Effective Global Teams - Team Processes -
Global teams struggle with cohesion and identity
These elements impact team motivation and are important for team performance
In a diverse team, which norms are followed?
Developing a “hybrid” team culture or shared identity that combines the norms of team members and their cultures can help
Cohesion / Identity
Implications for Managers and Leaders
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Global leaders as connectors
Using people-oriented leadership
Leveraging team diversity
Leveraging team dispersion
Implications for Managers and Leaders - Global leaders as connectors -
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Boundary spanners: connecting organisational units
Enable communication, interaction and conflict resolution
Bridge makers: connecting team members
Bridge cultural and language barriers between team members
Blenders: uniting subgroups, splits, repairing faultlines
Develop synergies between groups within team
Need to be seen as a leader by multiple groups: legitimacy, trust
Demonstrate commitment to all groups within team
Enable understanding of cultural differences within the team
Ability to move between sub-groups within the team
Belonging to the team, while respecting uniqueness of subgroups
Development of an overarching team identity
Implications for Managers and Leaders - People-oriented leadership -
Research suggests a direct link between leadership style and team effectiveness
Focus on using leadership approaches that are simulating, encouraging, supporting, eg:
Transformational leadership
Inspirational leadership
Servant leadership
BUT there is a need for cross-cultural awareness because (from last week) leadership preferences differ significantly across countries & cultures
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Implications for Managers and Leaders - Leveraging Team Diversity -
Leaders of global teams have an opportunity to capture the positive aspects and benefits of diverse teams
Increased creativity and satisfaction
Deeper interaction and communication
Keys are:
Recognising similarities and differences of team members
Finding a balance between individual differences and team cohesion
Establishing task-related alignment - defining tasks and objectives
Allowing flexibility in how tasks are completed / objectives achieved
Effective communication
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Implications for Managers and Leaders - Leveraging Team Dispersion -
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Focus and discipline around tasks and processes
Meeting face to face regularly to share tacit knowledge and build relationships
Structured communication tools
Conference calls, emails, web meetings
Technology
Identify roles
Develop project plans
Use a range of technology to match team tasks
Consider what all team members can use and what can be supported by location
Monitor progress
What do you think?
Have you worked in a global team?
What challenges did you experience?
What opportunities did working in a global team provide?
Leading Global Teams • 281
output. The barriers are unfortunately mainly related to the mediators—both processes and emergent states—for turning inputs into performance. Below, each of these characteristics will be described and their implications for other inputs, processes, emergent states, and outcomes will be discussed.
Diverse Composition
Global teams, on average, have much more diverse composition than teams in general do (Schneider & Barsoux, 2003). This diverse composition has substantial implications: it provides great potential for higher performance by promoting creativity and innovation (Albrecht & Hall, 1991; Payne, 1990) and by bringing in new perspectives and a broader set of external stakeholders; at the same time, it makes smooth team interactions much more difficult. Empirical research has shown that while work team diversity influences communication behaviors that can have negative effects on internal team dynamics, it is also beneficial to team performance (see Jackson & Joshi, 2011 for a review). Diverse teams therefore tend to perform either better or worse than homogeneous teams, depending on how they are managed (DiStefano & Maznevski, 2000; Earley & Mosakowski, 2000; Staples & Zhao, 2006; Thomas, 1999). Interestingly, the most common reaction to diversity is to suppress it (Richard & Johnson, 2001; Tsui & O’Reilly, 1989), that is, to focus only on similarities. This moves a team from low-performing or value- destroying, to the medium performance of homogeneous teams—an improvement, but still misses the potential offered from diversity. In a meta-analysis, Stahl and colleagues found no direct impact of cultural diversity on team performance; however, they found several significant mediators and moderators such that cultural diversity had both a positive and a negative impact on mediators and therefore outputs (Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt, & Jonsen, 2010).
The Profound Effect of Cultural Diversity
Although all types of individual differences affect teams, cultural diversity has a profound impact on many different aspects of teamwork (Thatcher & Patel, 2011). We learn about our culture through years of experiences in families, schools,
Barriers Opportunities Diversity Tendency towards:
• Less effective communication • Increased conflict • Lower alignment on task
Potential for: • Increased creativity and innovation • More complete and comprehensive perspectives,
stakeholder coverage Dispersion Difficult to achieve and maintain
basic team conditions, due to: • Limited communication • Invisible relationships • Logistical challenges
Potential for: • More complete and comprehensive perspectives,
stakeholder coverage • Focused, objective, balanced communication
Figure 9.2 Diversity and Dispersion: Overcome Barriers to Take Advantage of Opportunities
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