Week 5 discussion
Dq1
Global Leaders.
In the book Global Literacies (Simon & Schuster 2000),
Robert Rosen states :
“Leaders are kept awake at night by hard business
realities: the need to generate profitable growth, reach markets quickly,
protect their reputation, and anticipate the unexpected.
But their deeper sleeplessness comes from the human
challengers: How can they acquire and retain the best talent to lead their
companies through change? How can they promote teamwork across boundaries and
borders? How can they develop executives to lead in the world? ‘Our scarcest
resource is globally literate leaders,’ warns Alfred Zeien, chairman and CEO of
Gillette, one of the Unites States’ most global companies” (page 25).
Class, in this thread, let’s discuss key elements of leaders
operating within global organizations. What are some key skill sets and
personality traits of “globally literate leaders?”
Dq2
Meaningful Work
In the book The New
Global Leaders (Jossy-Bass 1999), Manfred F.R. de Vries (with Elizabeth
Florent-Treacy) states:
“Work in organizations, directed toward achieving
shared goals, also answers another human need: it allows us to feel useful.
Individuals need to commit themselves to something that is valuable, that has a
positive impact. Through usefulness is a highly subjective experience, it is
linked to the particular objectives and causes that drive individuals to
transcend their customary abilities. Because a search for usefulness–for
meaning–largely determines a person’s life course, it also influences life in
organizations. Once again, this poses a challenge for the global leader: how to
find a purpose or objective that employees from different cultures see as
meaningful, inspiring them to strive in ways that simplistic formulas of return
on investment and profit maximization cannot.”
Is there some truth to the author’s contention? What is it
that we would find meaningful to our life’s purpose in the midst of an
organization or work setting?
