My Role as a Decision Leader in the Global Market Place Essay

Leadership by definition is the ability to inspire others to be the best that they can be. For some, this trait comes naturally while for most, it is a daily learning technique. Effective leadership is dependent on the decisions one makes and the solutions one provides when a problem arises. In the business world, quality of leadership one provides is directly correlated to the output (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). Although it is not always just about the money and profits, leaders who attract more profits for the company are perceived as effective while those who fail to meet their targets are branded ineffective.

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Leadership involves but is not limited to management. While a leader is expected to manage resources in his/her company, he/she must also provide motivation and inspiration to fellow colleagues so as to work in achieving the same goal. (5 Keys to Leadership for Small Business,) suggests that leadership is a combination of multiple characteristics of an individual and that individual's ability to act and think like a leader (Black, Morrison & Gregersen, 2013). Even though leadership is different and unique to everyone, there are key characteristics that an effective leader must possess. They include the ability to make decisions, accountability, undivided focus, empathy, self-confidence, overall awareness, humility and being optimistic.

The global market is a very competitive arena and one has to be very committed and efficient so as to survive and remain relevant. As a division leader in the global marketplace, my main objective would be to ensure a progressive market growth of my company as well as developing strategies for achieving and sustaining growth. International businesses operate in the global market and have partners and alliances representing different parts of the world. As a decision leader in the global market, I would strive and ensure to have the following; overseas experience, sensitivity to cultural diversity, humility, a deep self-awareness, a global strategic thinking, honesty, patience, among others (Caldwell & Hayes, 2010).

In the global market, traveling far and wide and getting to learn and understand cultural diversity is beneficial as one is able to learn how business in different parts of the world is conducted and one could even borrow some of the ways of doing business. As a decision leader in the global market, I would expose myself to as much diversity there is out there in order to understand different cultures and make it easier to trade and do business with them (Bazerman & Moore, 2012). Also, a good leader must be aware of his/her beliefs and those of others. Knowing this, I would ensure to have a working environment where all employees tolerate and understand other people's beliefs. Failing to understand or respect other people's beliefs could lead to the collapse of a company.

In addition, I would ensure my company learns and is up to date with different cultural practices and beliefs. I would ensure to include key cultural aspects of a particular people or race in branding and advertisement of products. Products with a cultural link to a certain people will sell more than products which people do not relate to. Furthermore, showing a level of interest in other cultures and how they run things, particularly business, in itself exhibits humility. As an international decision leader in the global market, I would have the willingness to listen and learn from different cultural backgrounds and also inspire my colleagues to do the same for the benefit of the company.

It is often said that the world never remains the same and change is the only thing that is constant. As a leader, therefore, one ought to be ever curious and have the desire and the drive to learn the trending topics so as not to be left behind. I would ensure this through leadership development program initiative to equip managers in my company with the necessary and updated skills and information. Honesty is also vital to building the reputation of a company. In the global market arena, information is omitted or told depending on its impact on a company. As a leader, I will learn to balance between transparency for the sake of the company's reputation and cautious honesty omitting information that could essentially harm the company.

As a leader one ought to think in a global perspective (Osland, 2013). Understand different regions and their preferences and place strategic people in strategic places to help you manage your empire. Also one must be able to comprehend and understand completely about how businesses operate on an international scale. Another plus to have is patience in the global market. Patience even in business is a virtue. As a leader, one must be patient enough to allow for the unfolding and growth of local and regional branches. In addition, the ability to articulate clearly and comprehensively in spoken word what you mean is a big plus in the business world. Proper communication in a company goes a long way in crediting a company's vision and could even help attract resource funding as most people tend to believe and relate more to you as a company.

Conducting business across ethnic, tribal, national and regional territories requires one to have efficient skills for negotiating. One also needs some form of charisma which is without a doubt a plus to have as a global leader and is embodied in self-confidence, motivation to succeed and see others succeed, energy level and dress among others. As a leader in the global business arena, one must respect affiliations of other people without prejudice. However, many organizations are met with the challenges of meeting their desired targets in terms of market growth. This is usually due to poor strategy development.

There are three known strategies to increase probabilities of making it in the global market: Investing in safe avenues, initiation of proper global strategies and developing leaders at all levels of the organization. Investing in 'safe bets' helps to strengthen infrastructure. The growth strategy selected notwithstanding, the infrastructure of the firm must be in a position to support a successful execution. A commitment to creating an infrastructure such as that is what is referred to as a 'safe bet'. Secondly, one needs to initiate proper strategies that provide a high success probability (Hopen, 2010). They include ensuring continued growth of the core business, promoting growth via sub- segmenting customers and ensuring the growth of adjacent opportunities. These three strategies on Customer-Focused Growth as listed above often need support and proper backing so as to enhance their implementation. The lack of proper infrastructure is actually a major cause for most companies and organizations failing to achieve their set goals. A supportive infrastructure includes customer valued capabilities of the organization, management performance scorecard to grade leadership and effective leadership practices at all levels.

Identifying any profitable growth opportunity is a process that most often than not begins with the Core Business including the company's products, services, and customers. The core business is then evaluated on its overall performance. This process involves a number of activities such as measurement of growth of revenue, enhancing a good reputation among the company's esteemed customers and benchmarking to learn from others in the same field. Research has been conducted targeting more than one thousand senior experts across a number of business sectors in different countries like France, China, Germany, Nordics, Netherlands, UK, Spain and Japan. More than half of the companies targeted in the research have over 250 employees on their payroll. From this research, more than a third of professionals in the managerial position viewed business growth as one of their top three business challenges (35%), strategy development followed closely at (32%) and cyber security (30%) (Avenell, 2010). Despite the increasing uncertainty in the political world and regulatory requirements, geopolitical factors and exploiting the regulatory environment are only a challenge to issue 12% and 14% respectively according to the survey. Though corporate learning is not a major priority for most businesses, senior professionals in the field know and understand the importance and benefits of learning and developing leadership qualities. One out of every four senior professionals reported having included corporate learning as a priority in their organizations in the year 2017.

"Acklands-Grainger Inc.", a supply leader in the Canadian business world, introduced a process that saw it move from a 4% growth rate to a 20% growth rate in less than 12 months (Avenell, 2010). Then the question that pops into everyone's mind is, how did they pull that off? Prior to the 12 months, Acklands- Grainger was viewed by many as an inefficient company. Their starting point was to win the favor and commitment of critical workers at different heights of the company, employees who were more than willing to come out and provide leadership roles. Vital processes were then initiated so as to focus more on the primary business. Key elements included defining the market stages on which the central organization operates, shelving of products that failed to fit into the platforms of the organization, augmenting the core with new products, and strengthening their market coverage through adverts.

The other customer-focused development approach that works well is one founded on the existing consumers of a firm. A process can be generated to assist specialists and managers at the consumer interface so as to gain an understanding on the preferences and needs of the customers. It is an important step towards discovering groups of underserved customers so as to win them back by serving them better next time. Leaders who interact with customers can get this information and provide it to the company or firm to effect positive change, hence the importance of free communication between the employees and customers.

Conclusion

In summary, effective leadership is dependent on the decisions one makes and the solutions one provides when a problem arises and it involves but is not limited to management (Bazerman & Moore, 2012). As a leader one ought to think in a global perspective with an objective of ensuring a progressive market growth of my company as well as developing strategies for achieving and sustaining growth.

References

Avenell, K. (2010). Keys to leadership. EDUCATIONAL LEADER, 38.Bazerman, M. H., & Moore, D. A. (2012). Judgment in managerial decision making. Wiley Global Education.Black, J. S., Morrison, A. J., & Gregersen, H. B. (2013). Global explorers: The next generation of leaders. Routledge.Caldwell, C., & Hayes, L. A. (2010). Leadership, trustworthiness, and ethical stewardship. Journal of Business Ethics, 96(4), 497-512.

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Hopen, D. (2010). The changing role and practices of successful leaders. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 33(1), 4.Osland, J. S. (2013). An overview of the global leadership literature. In Global leadership (pp. 48-77). Routledge.