Posted by Meena Thuraisingham on 7 Aug 2014 in Become Asia Capable, The Capable Leader | 0 comments
Calling out the culture of personality The case for global companies to rethink what to assess when determining promotability & assessing potential in Asia Written by Meena Thuraisingham, Business Psychologist, Consultant and Author, Aug 2014 In today’s business environment where one’s leadership brand or career brand is identified as important for success, personality driven traits such as style, poise, self-confidence and self-assurance are highly prized. In such a business culture, strong personalities thrive and the character-based strengths of humility, wisdom, discernment, patience, tolerance, fortitude, and courage are less valued. Personality strengths are not culturally neutral, whereas character strengths are. Herein lies the issue for global companies that want to strengthen and diversify their leadership pipelines and build an Asia capable workforce. Personality vs Character A quick review of most global companies’ leadership assessment methodologies will reveal the bias towards personality strengths. These methodologies are often normed on Anglo Saxon norm groups. Even when character strengths are listed as desirable traits, few of the current methodologies make a serious go at assessing for these. In a culturally diverse environment, relying heavily on personality and style related assessments/tests is not helpful because personality is not a culturally neutral construct. Despite this, promotability and talent identification is often decided on issues of personality: how outspoken one was, or how much one self promoted etc. Nowhere is this distinction more prominent than when providing leadership coaching to young emerging Asian leaders who are told by their multinational employers that they have to be more outspoken, more out there, more extrovert, if they wish to be promoted and progress in the company. This approach does not hold satisfactory answers for those who may have questions such as “what if I like to play with that idea in my head for a little longer” or “enjoy the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge sake” or “what if I like to reflect on the bigger questions of life” or “how can we be 100% sure of anything” and so on. How and where does this fit into current day assessment and development methodologies? How do these different thinking orientations find a place around our decision-making tables in Asia? Focus needs to shift to a more culturally neutral way of assessing strengths. The notion of considering universal strengths may be a good start in thinking about leadership effectiveness in a globally dispersed operation. However while assessing leadership assessment practices may be important, it is equally important to consider how day-to-day effectiveness is also judged by line managers who manage in a global context. This is where language bias and business interaction norms play a part. Leading linguistically diverse teams Language Bias is subtle and favours those who can communicate in English well. If this is not addressed then the company simply ends up only with people who speak English well, not necessarily with the best talent for a given role. One’s first language or language spoken at home is a weak criteria for success despite the fact that many of us will continue to justify why this is even more important in today’s globalized world or as is sometimes argued because our clients demand it. We would argue that the reverse is true: a truly global workplace is one where multiple languages are spoken with ease, not a...
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Posted by Meena Thuraisingham on 16 Apr 2013 in Become Asia Capable | 0 comments
Rethinking the ‘heroes & villains’ model of ethical leadership At the core of the ethical behaviour of leaders are values – the very personal values held by the leader and their advocacy of those values for the organisation they lead. We all advocate honesty as a value in all of our intentional dealings with others. However whether we face the ‘big’ or ‘small’ tests of leadership, there are moments we can all admit to when we were not completely honest in what we said or did. Of course we all had good reason – we did not want to lose the client, we did not want to worry the board, we did not want the analysts to over-react, we did not want to destabilise the company’s highest revenue generator. At an organisational level, these tests are more complex for example in valuing or prioritising shareholder value over stakeholder concerns. These bigger tests are more difficult to pin on a single leader and are often counted and rationalised away as structural or systemic values dilemmas. But all lead down the same path – unethical behaviour by one or more leaders. Unethical behaviour occurs when an individual is faced with a fork in the road and the consequent dilemma, and chooses one of 2 paths. The dilemma may be between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ (2 values come into direct conflict) or between ‘right’ and ‘right’ (when 2 values have to be assigned priorities and one take precedence over the other). What is deemed right or wrong however is rooted deeply in what one personally values or values more – one’s personal value system. But more importantly, when the chosen path is unethical, values held either by the individual, the company or the business community have been distorted in some way. Distorted because a leader ultimately accountable did not show the moral courage (or was unwilling) to endure the hardship that results from the ‘tougher’ of the 2 paths. An example of a scenario where a choice is made between the right and wrong is when an individual or company operates with a ‘win at all costs’ mentality. Whole competitive systems are distorted – as true of drug cheats in sports who want to win at all costs as it is of principal dancers in the Russian Ballet as it is of large listed companies who choose to use their monopolistic power to squeeze out other competitors. This of course is true anywhere in the world. Any culture in the world can grow the ‘win at all costs’ mentality. These kinds of dilemmas are easy to spot. The choice between right and right, although tougher to navigate through is now easier to spot than before. As the Agency Theory of Corporations comes under greater scrutiny (following the GFC) and the language of ‘stakeholder’ enters the business lexicon (multiple stakeholders always existed, it’s just that some organisations chose not to prioritise them), some progressive companies are beginning to systematically consider the different priorities and value systems that different stakeholder groups come to the table with. These companies find a way to ensure and preserve the very fine and on-going balance between the priorities and values of all, preserving the delicate ‘systems’ equilibrium in that broader community of stakeholders. Ethical behaviour demands a fine balance...
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Posted by Meena Thuraisingham on 26 Mar 2013 in Become Asia Capable | 0 comments
There are many obvious and not so obvious differences between the nature of Asian markets and Western markets that pose challenges at multiple levels for companies and leaders deciding how they will approach their growth ambitions into Asia. Framing the economic as well as cultural challenges we face using a home country lens is an ever present danger for cross border investment and can frustrate and even derail growth plans in host countries. Some of these distinctions are structural and lie in the respective economic histories, while other distinctions are more cultural in nature and lie in the respective social histories. Leaving aside the informal unregulated economies of Asia aside, in the formal economies of Asia there are 3 key characteristics that shape the nature and feel of these markets and the business models used to thrive and prosper there. Keeping in mind that Asia is an extremely diverse region where generalised rules are dangerous, these characteristics are in effect strategic distinctions shaped by the historical and cultural realities of the Asian region: The distinction between focus and opportunity – the developed economy mantra of focus as a strategy, stands in sharp contrast with opportunity as a strategy, evidenced by the number of large Chinese and Korean (chaebols) conglomerates that are a collection of often completely unrelated businesses that have no apparent synergy but driven by the commercial opportunity that presented itself. GE, Siemens and LMVH are some of the exceptions to this in the west. Most western companies are driven by the reductionist principle – ‘this is what we do well, we will stick with that and deepen our capability, build scale and dominance’. Of course there are dangers in generalising about this given there is evidence that the emergence of the Asian conglomerate in some cases was a consequence of the lack of reliability of essential links in the supply chain rather than opportunistic reasons. The distinction between business and family – in Asia many businesses are owned by family members primarily because of the absence of enforceable regulatory frameworks and somewhat opaque rules that govern the relationship between state and business. When you can’t rely on your business associates, you turn to family members whom you know you can trust. Historically many family companies thrived for generations in Europe but with the fragmentation of family structures in many western countries (in sharp contrast with the continued primacy of the family in Asia), this has dwindled in scale and size. In Asia these family owned enterprises are held together by family traditions operating on rules of trust and intimacy rather than transactional or contractual in nature as they are in the west. Even in the regulated economies of Asia the impact of relationship trust (as opposed to contractual trust) in commercial undertakings remains strong. The distinctions in funding and capital structures – The maturity of capital markets in developed economies has meant that larger more dispassionate entities have emerged characterised by an arm’s length approach by investors to the operation of the entities they fund. In contrast, in Asia where capital markets have not had the levels of sophistication found in the west (although this is changing now), and where either state or private funding is more the norm, the day to day pressure and struggle for...
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