Abstract

Globalization is the phenomenon that made a huge difference to the magnitude of an organizations reach. The fact that an organizations global aspirations are solely dependent on its leadership team is not to be undermined. Unfortunately, however, the demand for top quality leaders with exceptional global talent far exceeds supply. This is alarming to the organizations which are still neglecting to develop comprehensive systems for identifying, selecting and developing global leadership talent. The challenge for the organizations here is to allocate time, effort and a commitment to develop globally minded executives who have a thirst for global knowledge, both operational and functional. This has little to do with the expatriate assignments that few leadership teams come across their career span although it helps them to learn something in culturally diverse environments. Leading, Managing and Negotiating in cross-cultural teams is a dire necessity for those leadership groups who are part of the global leadership team in an organization. The correlation between an organizations global leadership capabilities and its financial performance may be very thin but those organizations which place greater emphasis on nurturing global leadership talent would ensure competitive advantage in this global environment. A Global leadership succession plan in this regard can make a difference to the organizations potential success in global markets. The factors that are bound to influence the performance of most global leadership teams are Cultural Sensitivity, Diversity Management, Adaptability and Innovation, Profitability and Productivity and Continuity. In order to gain a competitive advantage, all the above attributes should be the focus of the organizations leadership team. This research proposes to understand the intensity to which these can influence an organizations global business aspirations and consequential success. Aims To understand the attributes that influence the global leadership phenomenon in an organization. To propose a thematic approach of virtual leadership teams to organizations sustenance in the global environment.
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Objectives Analysis of global leadership from both the individual and the organizational perspective. Building a framework suggesting organizations sustainability in the global environment with its global leadership team.

Scope and Delimitation The scope of this research is mainly dependent on the things where global leadership teams play an active role viz.., Mergers and Acquisitions, Strategic partnerships, Alliances, Trade agreements and Boundary Integration. The individualistic and organizational perspectives of globalization phenomenon will both be taken into consideration while studying the effect of global leadership skills on an organization. However, this research is confined to an organization which already has a presence globally. Global leadership skills: a multiple perspective A global mindset and a holistic global strategy should create conditions to build the worldwide organization characterized by specialization, interdependency, and coordination(Kedia and Mukherji, 1999). This suggests the intense nature of global leadership which is the heart of a Multinational organization. Global leadership skills are deterministic of the organizational success. The traditional business patterns are now up or a change as globalism is spreading. Alliances, strategic partnerships and Boundary dissolution have created a demand for a global think-tank who can sustain the challenges of globalism and foster growth among their organizations. A shared leadership structure is being considered as a standard for achieving success as global leadership has many dimensions which may not be the characteristics that every individual in the organization possess.

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Competence is a pre-cursor to leadership but no seems to be able to agree on what a competency really is. It can be a skill, behaviour, knowledge or value. Developing competency is now a formidable challenge to the executive development programmes of many multinational organizations as it just doesnt come naturally but is a resultant of years of managerial experience. Managerial competencies(Lobel, 1990) are being suggested as a means of achieving global leadership skills which are not just limited to expatriate success, cross-cultural experiences and overseas assignments but well beyond that which lay emphasis on thinking globally and Managing diversity. This research focuses on few such competencies which are part of global leadership skill set. The current corporate executives in MNCs are being challenged by the intensity and the complexity of the global economy. So an organisation to sustain competition in this highly competitive global market, it needs to provide high quality goods and services to the customers (Petrick et al., 1999). This criterion is not enough to be competitive in the market place. The partners of the business need to be motivated at all times so that the organisation will not give itself up in the competition. The intangible assets could also be developed in this process. Choosing who can be the assets to gain the strategically critical experiences gives an opportunity to integrate development into line decisions. Global leadership can only be perpetuated if right talent is identified and specific roles are designated for specific people to keep track of the succession planning process. (Mc Call and Hollenbeck, 2002) In an individualistic perspective, repatriation has professional benefits for the individuals who go on global assignments and eventually the MNC has strategic benefits in this process(Caligiuri and Lazarova, 2001). The global assignees who are believed to be the are the core "critical" group of assignees hold the typical responsibilities of tasks on behalf of their organization which include assessing the feasibility of entering into new markets in different countries, developing a country base in a totally new field, entering into alliances, joint ventures with different partners etc.., This proves fruitful for the careers of the individuals who gain valuable experience from these assignments and advance their careers.

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In a organizational perspective, there bound to be certain concerns about the global leadership management which is responsible for the overseas operations of the organization. The leadership teams capabilities should not be undermined and building a comprehensive framework that re-defines the skillset of the leadership group at regular intervals will prove beneficial to the organization. Due to the rise of e-commerce, the leaders should think themselves as the citizens of the world instead of being restricted to a particular region. In order to achieve this, the leader needs to be capable of understanding the global regions (Khan, 2007). The global leader needs to have a good insight of the operations and the working cultures of the global operations so that the organisation can be run competitively. The technology also needs to be adopted in such a way that the organisation will gain a competitive advantage. The leader needs to step out of the shoes of his region and adapt the various cultures and diversities across the world in order to lead the organisation to the top list in the world (Prahalad and Hamel 2005). The leader then can achieve the ability of using the social, racial, and religious cadres of the society towards his advantage. A leader can even undergo a diversity training in case he requires. Adaptability and Innovation is considered a big step of having a huge competitive advantage. A leader needs to be comfortable in adopting the latest technologies that change rapidly. The leader should have quite an amount of intelligence to maintain the pace regarding the use of appropriate technologies (Jokinen, 2004). The required alliances and partnerships needs to done so that the image of the organisation will be highlighted throughout the world. The alliances should be made properly so that the organisation should not make a downturn in the long run or as soon after a merge has been undertaken. The alliance should profit the organisation at any point of time and in no case defame the organisation and the leader should have the intelligence to choose the right alliance at the right time (Prahalad and Hamel 2005).

The organisation needs to continue to exist under any circumstance even when the leader
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leaves the current organisation. Hence the skills of the leader and his works needs to be followed by every individual working in the organisation and the knowledge of the leader should be shared on a continuous basis so that the organisation does not end up dead when the leader leaves the organisation at any point of time (Ishaq, 2005). While the global leadership phenomenon is like two sides of a coin, where the MNCs nurture the leadership talent and the individuals acquire the skillset only to leave the MNC for greener pastures, there should be trade-off between these two. Caligiuri and Lazarova(2001) suggest some recommendations of practice which would be to retain global leaders through internal career motivation. Meanwhile, professional experts are designing and delivering leadership training and development programs so that MNCs can be a platform for nurturing global talent and yield fruitful leaders. These professional experts devised a common language to discuss leadership which they expect to be articulated by the leadership group to demonstrate leadership during their course of responsibilities and activities in the organization. This is an effective means of making a start to build the leadership pool and skills of the leadership group. It infact is being found in a variety of work contexts. The virtual teams that this research aims to study will substantiate this fact as physically dispersed teams in certain environments like software development have been benefitting from it. There are associated challenges but the leadership team has some enhanced benefits within the organizational framework that encompasses the virtual teams who are the ambassadors of leadership internal to their organization. Having said that Global leadership is critical to a multinational organizations survival, this theory proposes the need for the global leaders to be ever vigilant in realizing the importance of adaptations to culture, structure both internal and external to the organization. Multinational organizations with multicultural workforce is a typical scenario where global leadership skills come to fore which proponents believe would be beneficial for the organization. Social maturity, intelligence, human relations, a motivational approach to tackling problems are the innate qualities that a global leader is assumed to possess. All the underlying aspects of such characteristics and contingency aspects in the global environment would be the subject of this study.

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There are also certain arguments that global leadership has been rated high and only the top management is the source for global leaders. This in principle assumes more meaning as the organizations top brass is normally involved in the endeavours that require leadership skills to negotiate. This research intends to prove this wrong by taking the example of virtual leadership teams and their effectiveness in the global scenario to face challenges associated with cohesion. A critical understanding of all the above perspectives with case study based scenarios is what this research intends to achieve by giving insights of global leadership skills in a global environment. Type of Research The types of research that will be used in this project are both the Qualitative and the Quantitative types. The Quantitative type of research will be used to maximise the objectivity of the project. The measurements and the numbers can be statistically analysed so that the difference if any can be seen if any. This type of research helps us to tell the relationship and the differences in the form of numbers so that the reader can best understanding the analysis once they see the numbers. The Qualitative type of research will be used so as to understand the peoples behavioural patterns and their response to specific situations. The topic under research can be best understood descriptively upon which the summary can be presented in the form of numbers in order to aid the researcher grasp the underlying concept behind the results of the survey of the literature or the observational and the case studies. As this project is based on the grounded theory of quality, and the generic theories that are related to providing a descriptive analysis of the topic under consideration we shall be using the Qualitative type of research in addition to the Quantitative type. By using both these methods, the data will be presented descriptively and numerically which helps the reader understand the insight of the project clearly.

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Data Types The primary and the secondary data will be used in our research. The primary data provides us the up to date information regarding our topic which can be used to judge the secondary data that has been collected from various sources. This allows us to understand the differences between the current trends in comparison to the previous trends. We can even know the differences between the predictions of the past authors to the current trends that are taking place. This helps us analyse the quality of the predictions that have already took place so that appropriate recommendations can be proposed in our project based on this. Though the secondary data is not up to date, we will be using to perform the literature review and the primary data will then be used to support this data. Data Collection Tools The data will be collected from three categories which are in-person observations, secondary participation and case studies. The in-person observation which includes interviews or direct observation will be used so that the previously unexplained and the unspoken observations of the participants can be made in relation to the topic so that appropriate data can be acquired though not accurate. The secondary participation which consists of collecting the data from web based surveys, postal mail and electronic mail will be used to gather the data from a definite group of participants who are distributed globally. The electronic mail and the web based surveys will be used as they have no geographical barriers and the other advantage is that it is very fast to acquire the data from these methods. Finally, the analysis and the case studies will be performed so as to gather the data from the previously recorded information and this will help filling the blank spaces if any that have not been filled from the rest of the data collection methods.

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Data Analysis Techniques The descriptive statistics and the inferential statistics will be used to analyse the data of our research. First we shall provide simple summaries regarding the sample and this is normally equal to the quantitative analysis of the data. The inferential statistics will be used to investigate the questions that have been answered by the sample taken in to consideration. We will be using the descriptive statistics to describe the data that have been acquired. The questionnaire and the case studies will aid the analysis of the research topic. A deep analysis will be performed so that the readers can rely on this research to satisfy their requirement of understanding the role of global leadership skills in a multinational organisation. The readers can make use of the percentages and the share of every aspect taken on a global scale as the information that provided will be up to date helping the reader go nowhere to find the related information or statistics related to such a topic. Presenting the Data The data will be presented in various forms so that the reader will get a deep insight of the project. The data will be provided in the descriptive format, tables, and charts. The descriptive format helps the reader gain the description of the topic that will help gain a much deeper insight. The tabulations and the graphs will help us analyse the differences or the comparison of various analytics that have been taken in to consideration while performing the literature review, when the questionnaire is answered by the sample and the primary data collected while performing the literature review or analysis of the research. The pie charts will also be used to show the percentage globally and this will help us get a better understanding of the market share or understanding the market on a global basis. Ethical Issues Involved Considerably a few ethical issues are involved in this research. The names, qualification, ethnicity, age, and origin of the participants of the survey, questionnaires and interviews will be taken while performing this research. These are taken to support the topic of research as the research needs to meet the requirements that state to understand the global leadership skills. As the analysis of the global leadership needs to be done, we have to know the origin and the ethnicity of the participants. However, the participants will be informed prior to performing this research so that they feel comfortable thereafter. The participants will be informed that this information is taken only for the study purpose in the university and will
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not be shared with any other individual except the supervisor and when the interviews and the questionnaires will be done only when the participant feels comfortable with the above stated issue.

References Goldsmith, M., Greenberg, C. L., Robertson, A., and Chan, M. H., 2003, Global Leadership: The Next Generation, Prentice Hall: USA Ishaq, A., 2005, International Education and Global Leadership, The state Education Standard Jokinen, T., 2004, Global Leadership Competencies: A Review and Discussion, Global Leadership Qualities Prahalad, C. K., and Hamel, G., 2005, The Core Competence of the Corporation, Harvard Business Review Khan, A., 2007, Global Leadership Skills Petrick, J. A., Ainina, M. F., Scherer, R. F., Brodzinski, J. D., and Quinn, J. F., 1999, Global Leadership skills and Reputational Capital: Intangible Resources for Sustainable Competitive Advantage, Academy of Management
McCall, M. W., Jr. & Hollenbeck, G. P. (2002). Developing Global Executives: The Lessons of International Experience. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Lazarova, M. and Caligiuri, P. (2001) Retaining Repatriates: the role of organizational support practices, Journal of World Business, 36, 389-402. Bill J. Bonnstetter, .The DNA of Global Leadership Competencies,. Thunderbird International Business Review 42 (Mar./Apr. 2000): 131.44. Kedia, B. and Mukherji, A. (1999), ``Global managers: developing a mindset for global competitiveness, Journal of World Business, Fall, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 230-47.
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