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Although managing global change is one of the key competencies demanded of global leaders, it is one of the most under-researched topics in the field (Lane, Spector, Osland, & Taylor, 2014). This chapter shares findings from a recent qualitative study that examined how global business leaders navigate complex global changes. Data were collected from 23 global business executives working for 20 unique global enterprises, in 12 different functions, through a pre-interview participant qualifying profile, an in-depth semi-structured interview, and follow-up verification. Findings reveal that global business executives are contextual leaders who juggle both global task and global relationship complexities. The paradox is the process they employ to navigate continuous change, enabled by sensemaking. Finally, as agile learners, they prove that the global leadership capabilities required to navigate paradox can be learned.

This chapter examines the complexity of global leaders themselves. As global leadership research has begun to move beyond a limiting overemphasis on skills and competencies, we merge one focus on the deep structure of leader cognition with a focus on cultural identity that has matured largely independently. In so doing, we seek to push the field toward answering the broader question of what makes a global leader sufficiently complex to handle the vast complexities of the role. We place the construct of self-concept complexity as central to the performance of global leaders in ways ranging from organizational performance to social and community responsibility. By advancing our understanding of the role of self-concept complexity in driving global leadership outcomes, this research seeks to spur further theoretical development and practical application toward a deeper comprehension of the complexity of truly global leaders.

Based on the tasks and responsibilities of global leaders, the benefits of a holistic view in global leadership talent acquisition are identified. The main areas of this integrating process, such as succession planning, attracting, and mobilizing talents, selection, training and development, and retaining global leadership talents, are described. The success factors and principles of a global talent acquisition process are presented and explained. Furthermore, this chapter shows that a proactive step for global organizations is to build an in-house global leadership talent pool to ensure having the right global leaders in the right places at the right time.

This study compares multi-rater leadership evaluations of 1,748 executives in 10 national clusters to determine whether leaders in the East and West display different global leadership behavioral patterns. Data were collected via the Global Executive Leadership Inventory (GELI), which measures 12 dimensions of global leadership behaviors. The 360-degree GELI also provided feedback data from the executives’ 13,166 superiors, peers, and subordinates. Based on multilevel modeling analysis of self-ratings and observer ratings, findings indicated that the executives generally display similar patterns of global leadership behavior, but there are significant cultural differences on some leadership dimensions.

In this concluding chapter, we discuss insights and reflections from our invited contributions on the COVID-19 pandemic and derive areas of meaningful future research to advance the global leadership domain. Specifically, we call for (1) strengthening the link of the global leadership domain with related research fields, (2) expanding our view on what are necessary global leadership competencies, (3) moving beyond individual global leadership toward a more collective and collaborative understanding of the phenomenon, (4) further enhancing the growing field of responsible global leadership, (5) examining the various competing tensions that global leaders need to balance, and (6) engaging in greater reflexivity among global leadership scholars ourselves.

Despite its central role in the influence process, power has largely been overlooked by scholars seeking to understand global leaders' influence over their constituents. As a consequence, we currently have limited understanding of the varieties of power that global leaders hold, how power is exercised in global contexts, and what impact exercising power has in global organizations. The intended purpose of this chapter is to mobilize research on this important topic through systematic review. The review is organized around the following guiding questions: (i) how is power defined in global leadership research? (ii) what power bases do global leaders possess? (iii) how do global leaders exercise power? (iv) what factors influence global leaders' exercise of power? and (v) what are the outcomes of global leaders' exercise of power? Based on a synthesis of extant insights, this chapter develops a foundation for future research on power in global leadership by mapping critical knowledge gaps and outlining paths for further inquiry.

We review academic journal articles, chapters in scholarly books, and dissertations that were published in the global leadership domain in 2018 and compare our findings with those of Mendenhall, Li, and Osland’s (2016) earlier review of the 2010–2014 period. Specifically, we trace and discuss relevant changes over time in the number of authors, nature of employed methodologies, linkages of global leadership to related phenomena, and the prevalence of drawing on other conceptual approaches compared to those previously used to study global leadership. We conclude by discussing implications for advancing (1) an integrated body of global leadership theory, (2) novel forms of empirical research, and (3) collaborative global leadership research.

It is commonly believed that the complexities of different languages, cultures, histories, time zones, locations, governments, financial and legal systems contribute to the difficulty of leading global change. And yet, there is surprisingly little research at the intersection of global change and global leadership to guide practitioners. To fill this crucial gap, we provide a helpful framework for global leadership practitioners and scholars that emerged from a qualitative study of success factors in leading effective global change initiatives. We employed a comparative case study methodology to examine strategies and processes used by leaders of successful corporate and NGO global change projects. After comparing multiple cases of successful and unsuccessful global change initiatives in four organizations, we concluded that effective global change requires leaders to pay attention to 14 success factors categorized into three key design imperatives: (1) participatory process, (2) representative leadership, and (3) nested implementation. Participatory process consists of these success factors: (1) establish a clear vision, (2) ensure a collaborative start, (3) invite to the table as equals, (4) seek ideas from outside headquarters, (5) recognize and celebrate others, and (6) build systems for interdependence and accountability. Representative leadership includes: (7) create local leadership, (8) enable knowledgeable leadership, (9) empower willing leadership, and (10) develop bridge people. Nested implementation is composed of: (11) leverage formal communication channels, (12) attend to individual needs via interpersonal communication, (13) set global standards with local flexibility, and (14) test for regional credibility. We discuss these factors in light of existing literature and identify the implications and new horizons for global leadership theory and practice with respect to leading global change.

This chapter reflects on the challenges of connecting global leadership practice and theory through an academia-practitioner research project focused on global/international managers in Danish businesses in and outside Denmark. Based on research and dissemination activities conducted (in part by the authors) as part of the project and the associated cocreative forum, Global Leadership Academy (GLA), four learning points for global leadership development practice will be presented. Considerations for engaging global managers, particularly from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), are discussed and implications for educational practice are provided. Specifically, issues concerning the challenges of self-identification of global managers, differentiation of types of global leadership roles and the contextualization of global leadership are discussed. This chapter is targeted toward faculty, consultants, trainers, and program designers (full-time or postexperience learning) seeking to design, recruit participants, and foster a meaningful global leadership learning experience for postexperience learners and global practitioners.

While there is strong agreement that globalization is spreading rapidly, there is no agreement on what globalization actually means and how it is measured. Giddens (1999) defines globalization as “the worldwide interconnection at the cultural, political, and economic level resulting from the elimination of communication and trade barriers.” He further defines it as “…a process of convergence of cultural, political, and economic aspects of life” (reported in Inkpen & Ramaswamy, 2006, p. 13). Govindarajan and Gupta (2001) define globalization as “growing economic interdependence among countries as reflected in increasing cross-border flows of three types of entities: goods and services, capital, and know-how” (p. 4).