7LEAD027W.

2 Leading and Managing in a Global Context

ME AS A GLOBAL LEADER
A reflective essay

Achieved by Amélie THOMAS (W18477436)

Date: 21/04/2022

Word count: 3956

(Excluding Executive Summary and References)

In this reflective essay, I will aim for providing a general and contextual framework based both notions
of leader and leadership. More accurately, I will process to a critical and personal analysis related to
my insights on how the implementation of leadership has been and still will be subject to evolution
within a VUCA and post-pandemic environment.

The first part of this writing will mainly focus on introducing the main theoretical findings which are
directly related to the topic of leadership, both in general and in a VUCA and post-pandemic
environment, in order to support my essay with broader approaches and definitions. For that
purpose, I will rely on existing theories and invested cases that will summarize the most relevant
theories, that will exemplify my own insights of leadership, that I will develop in a second paragraph.

As previously mentioned, I will, in a second part, elaborate on my personal ideas and thoughts on
leadership while expanding on my aspirations, as a leader in the making, that will also encompasses
my perceptions based on my own experiences and my expectations, and that will besides, perfectly
illustrates my words. Although, I will expand this second part by underlining the problems and
challenges that also be met when implementing each given leadership strategy that we mentioned,
including mine.

The third part of this reflective essay will be a self-evaluation that will assess my perception of
leadership, that will also allow me to come up with solutions in order to become a better leader when
time comes. This piece of work will also give me the opportunity to develop my own definition of
what leadership is, in general, at a global scale, and in a unpredictable environment such as the
current post pandemic situation.

However, it is crucial to note that all these paragraphs will be approached with a global point of view,
which means that I will take into consideration the challenges implied by cultural differences within
international communities, as I aspire to evolve in a global environment myself, in my future
professional career.

Finally, the last part of this essay will be delivered as a summary and a conclusion.
It is also going to mention the different limitation in terms of comprehension and coherence that we
had to face during my researches and introspection

.
 As a controversial topic itself, leadership embodies a challenge as well as in its definition as in
its implementation. In its simpler definition, the Forbes described the leadership as the process of
social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others towards the achievement of one or several
goals. Although, it can also be exemplified different ways as leadership appeared to be of the most
developed themes over the last fifty years in the managerial literature. According to Bill Gates, leaders
are those who empower others as we look ahead into the next century, while both Warren Bennis
and John Maxwell defined it as a capacity to translate vision into reality and to influence others
(“Leadership is influence – nothing more nothing less”). In a more straightforward approach, Peter
Drucker added that the best definition of a leader involved a considerable amount of followers
influenced by an unique individual. Although, it is a rough task to develop a unique definition of
leadership as there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people in the
world who have tried to define it, as each of us knows its meaning by its essence over the years but
not by its proper nature. However, we will, as the purpose of this essay to provide a final personal
definition of what leadership is, try to critically assess the real meaning and purpose of a leader, as I
perceive it from my thoughts, my experiences and my expectations.

However, the precise perception and definition that has been given over years and that has
been adopted by a majority of us will be subject to evolution, notably in the five coming years.
Indeed, according to Jim Collins, American consultant specialized in Leadership in the University of
Colorado has been the first one, with his team, to emphasize this evolution and classify classical
leadership in five different levels (Good to Great, Random House Business, 2011). Besides, his theory
has been supported by the American pastor, John Calvin Maxwell. This these is verified and adapted
from day to day. For instance, the threes first level of leadership refer to three characters: an
individual who is particularly competent, an active collaborator and a competent manager. Although,
their action appeared to be more and more obsolete as their fundamental objective rarely exceeds
the velleity of their ego and as followers were fully committed to them because they wanted to, the
needed to, or because they believed that their leader achieved considerable changes within the
organization. Actually, leaders of today and tomorrow have to evolve towards the two last levels of
leadership which refer to leaders that are followed for their actions, their degree of commitment to
their followers and for what they embody (Morton, 2012). They have a willingness to overcome
challenges that can go from an evolving world to a higher and different leadership demand. The
fundamental object of the modern leader appears to be the greater good. Then, they all went to the
conclusion that millennials had an inclination towards the last types of leadership, as they would be
more likely to follow inspiring leaders, who are representative of both common and personal values
and who leave the choice to their followers when it is needed. Indeed, as this generation has been
raised within the new digital era, drastic changes have been operated in leadership choices. It is not
anymore about incurring consequences of leadership but opting for the most suitable kind of
leadership which appeals the followers, as both their relationship with work and hierarchy has
considerably evolved. It is now the whole purpose of leadership to accommodate to the followers and
not the other way round. In this case, I believe that this is effectively the way that leadership should
evolve: placing the individuals and their expectations first in order to institute a sound framework
which enables them to evolve in correlation with the leader’s purposes (Farmer and Foley, 2009).
More accurately, I consider that this new approach of leadership goes along with what we call “the
followership approach”, which implies that followers plays an essential role in the leadership process.
In other words, as leadership also involves a process of following, this approach relies on the fact that
any leadership relationship would be efficient or even possible without a total apprehension of the
following concept, which allows a total understanding of leadership ( Shamir, 2007; Uhl-Bien, Riggio,
Lowe & Carsten, 2014). Indeed, collaborating implies five levels of efficiency: the followers get the job
done, they work in the best interests of the organization’s mission and they challenge the leaders,
they support the leaders and they finally learn from them. Although, as the main purpose of this essay
remains to assess what kind of leader I am, we shouldn’t spend too much time on this part, even if I
believe that apprehending what kind of leader I am involves a perfect understanding of the indivuals I
am working with. For that purpose, I think that it is crucial to qualify properly what kind of leadership
approach entails all of these aspects. Then, by further inquiring, I noticed that some aspects of the
“laissez faire” leadership approach was coinciding with the ideas that I previously mentioned. Indeed,
it results in an effective delegation to the most qualified employees/followers, a freedom of choice,
sufficient resources and tools, a constructive criticism directly provided by the leader/manager
himself and a possibility for him to take control if necessary. As a creative thinking myself, that
encompasses my ability to come up with innovative solutions to problems from different angles, I
believe that it is one of the best approach to ensure followers’ efficiency while being able to
overcome challenges. Nonetheless, I am aware that “laissez faire” leadership can be risky as it give a
considerable scope of freedom to the followers. Consequently, I believe that participative
management can be a coherent alternative as it implies the development of long-term relationships
between both manager and managee to set a dialog in which each of the participants are fully
involved in the decision making process, in order to rely on collective intelligence.

Anyhow, this is the leadership approach that appears to be the most similar to the behavior I have
adopted during the totality of my university groupworks, as the main threat in conducting these
projects were to deal with people’s willingness to get involved in the group, the quality of the work
provided by each individuals and the organization required by a high volume of group members.
Although dealing with six other persons to achieve a unique and qualitative piece of work appeared to
be challenging at some points. First of all, as it is totally understandable, working in group also means
working with people from different backgrounds, with different insights, beliefs, opinions, a different
organization and sometimes a different way to apprehend a task. Then, going along with the
achievement of this work, I realized that the best way to meet our finale objectives would be to: first,
divide the task efficiently (set the objectives and the tasks that need to be fulfilled as a guideline and
work basis for the followers), secondly, allowing each of us to work freely in order to come up with
genuine outcomes while sharing together our findings, data or insights related to the project
(providing support and the necessary tools) and finally, once everyone has achieved his defined task,
providing constructive feedbacks, advices and sometimes take control if ever a decision made by one
of the group member doesn’t correlate with the final purposes. To illustrate my words, I sometimes
had to, without qualifying myself as the leader of the group, take charge of the groupwork to ensure
its total achievement, considering that I had to deal with delays issues, data verification issues, work
quality issues or even issues concerning the commitment of some group members. Although the first
issues mostly needed to be corrected via a stronger control over the work done and via important
feedbacks, the most challenging one was certainly to tackle people’s lack of commitment to the
groupwork. Being honest with myself, this is certainly a leader skill I still need to work on as I believe
that one of the most crucial role that a leader should assume is his ability to motivate and cheer his
followers up, even though they show an obvious lack of interest. Consequently, from my previous
experiences, I believe that this leadership approach is more adapted, at least to the situations I have
already been confronted to, than the autocratic approach. Indeed, going in the extremes is, in my
opinion, an option which rarely works and this this probably why I believe that the “laissez-faire”
approach is adapted to most of the situations, since it is halfway between both servant and autocratic
leaderships. Indeed, working together as a team is an asset and efficiently starts when the leader truly
cares about his followers.

Nevertheless, this “laissez-faire” approach cannot be implemented on its own. Although, this part will
mainly focus on the leader I aim for becoming and not only the leader I already am. Currently being
an international student myself and planning to start an international product manager career
afterwards, it is crucial, not to say inevitable not to mention the fact that today’s leaders have to
include a global dimension in their leadership approach. In fact, there are several principles that, in
my mind, need to be taken into consideration when addressing leadership at a global scale, and it is
also important to note that considering the current globalization trends, it would be thoughtless from
leaders not to apply them, no matter the nature of their leadership. Nonetheless, as a future global
leader myself, I am perfectly aware that it is impossible to be prepared for every scenario, situations,
cultural settings, challenges or every situation in general. For that reason, I strongly believe that the
best way for a leader to be efficient, never mind the environment he is working in or the indivuals he
is working with, remains to manage to think “outside of the box”, to be able to both think and act in
new ways while maintaining sensitivity of cultural differences. Then, there are also challenges that
need to be handled. As we previously mentioned, a global leader had to deal with cultural conflicts
(notably according to lesechos.fr), he has to adapt his behavior by going beyond his own social
identity and read people and situations, that is to say by adjusting his behavior according to his
followers’ culture and insights. Another dimension is to create, despite the cultural and behavioral
differences, shared goals after implementing a shared work. In other words, I believe that the most
meticulous task for a leader is to shape a common goal while honoring differences and making a
strength out of these disparities. Finally, there is no international leader who cannot communicate
across barriers, from a virtual to a bilingual collaboration while being perfectly aware of the
surrounding environment (internal and external forces that might be out of his control). Besides,
these are concept I had to apply in my professional life in London, especially during an internship
within the communication department of KPMG, where I had to deal with a considerable amount of
people from different backgrounds and most of the time, of different, not to say diametrically
opposite, cultures. In that situation, I had the opportunity to develop new hard and soft skills, and
sometimes to assess pre-existing ones. For instance, I remember having to sometimes adapt the way I
was communicating or delivering an information to the other stakeholders, as I noticed that verbal
and professional habits were differing from a culture to another. Did you know that for example
French people were more sensitive to a direct speech and do not tergiversate when they have
something to say, when Asian and especially Indian cultures tends to hide their feelings (or show
them in a private environment) or the true meaning of their thoughts as it is considers as humiliating
and offending to criticize or disagree on someone’s work in public. Then, another aspect I have
noticed during this experience is the difficulty to meet one unique objective when the member of a
team do not agree or have partially different expectations when it comes to the finale outcome.
From my experience, I consider that the best way to achieve a common goal in that situation is to
implement a strong control afterwards to ensure that each of the followers meet the mission’s
objectives and that each task has been fulfilled the proper way, according to the leader’s
expectations. Also, it is important to provide a strong feedback system that can be possible if the
leader keep supervising his team when needed, which could be carried out by setting up regular
meetings between the managers in order to scroll the information up at the top of the hierarchy.

However, the world is considerably changing and decision makers have to take into
consideration the uncertainty implied by current events (post pandemic and war situations) in
determining their strategy (Diateino, 2021). It is now about rethinking leadership, as we live in a world
where both of our personal and professional life became unpredictable (Bolden, Witzel and Linacre,
2016). Nevertheless, the nature of, for instance, the Covid-19 situation, being an unprecedented
situation, the lack of necessary information prevents from making decisions. Besides, this is one of the
reason why the American Army War College developed in 1998, in a publication called “Strategic
Leadership Primer” the concept of VUCA (for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity), which
references to the geopolitics uncertainty faced at the end of the Cold War. In fact, the Covid-19
outbreak has created a widespread uncertainty wave which prevents each of us from planning and
anticipating the future. Indeed, according to Philippe Villemus, French professor in leadership, the
pandemic crippled the totality of the classic forecast systems and forced the countries, the
governments and the organizations to rethink their risk management as well as their confrontation to
uncertainty (The Conversation, June 2020). However, this crisis has also been the opportunity to
highlight a specific skill within modern leaders which consists in managing complexity and uncertainty
while boarding stakeholders in a crisis which is of its time, in a new world, without knowing exactly
which world it will lead into (Lacan, 2011). Although, as a future leader myself I am aware that being
confident or at least staying calm in an impredicative and uncertain situation remains a difficult task,
especially if I take my personality into account, as I am not inevitably comfortable in situation I have
never been confronted to. This is a point I will need to work on, but that can still be explained since I
am of French nationality and that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions underlined that French culture had a
high inclination to reduce or control uncertainty whenever it is possible, as it is perceived as stress
factor. However, by achieving further researches, I noticed that on a individual point of view, French
people had a tendency to perceive unforeseen situations as an opportunity and a source of
motivation, especially when these situations are a source of stress. That might also explain my habit
of always opting for last minutes works, which allows me to reach higher peaks of motivation and
efficiency. However, I also believe that in such situations, one of the most needed skill for a leader is
his ability to listen to his collaborators and to opt for a collegial collaboration. Indeed, I think that it is
always better to consider several options and scenarios when it is possible, while taking into account
the different levels of uncertainty within the company or organization. I also believe that being
dedicated to the collaborators, especially in crisis times, is a leadership that could be more effective.
Besides, researches achieved in the 90s revealed that a “servant leadership” focused on its
collaborators was efficient to come out a crisis and create more shock-resistant organizations (The
Conversation, February 2021). Then, as a future leader, I would assume that a good manager should
always develop his ability to overcome failures and encouraging a reflexive proofreading in order to
learn lessons from the past difficulties, correct their causes and progress. Then, a leader should also
rely on management methods that enhance the organization’s flexibility and the progressive iteration,
such as agile methods or Design-Thinking. Although I did not get the chance to test my leadership
capacities in such a situation yet, I draw my inspiration from one of the leader I know the most, my
father, C.E.O of his own company in France. Indeed, while having a strong conversation on this topic,
he strongly advised me that the best way to manage an organization in uncertain times, as it was the
case during the Covid-19 outbreak, is to ensure a permanent access to the data, as it is more difficult
to anticipate and them more crucial to be able to have a larger access to information anywhere and at
any time. Then, he mentioned the importance of setting executive committees (which includes the N-
1 and N-2 of the company) on a daily basis, to which can be added the implementation of executive
boards (including shareholders, CEO, managers and all important representants of the company)
which purpose is to define the strategic orientation of the company, delegating special and
transversal missions while ensuring the equal representation of each parts during the collective
decision making process.

Finally, this last paragraph will adopt a more personal and subjective approach as I will give
you my own definition of what I call leadership, from the meaning I draw from my experiences, to the
inspiration I got from model leaders while giving you a final insight on how I would do to become a
better leader in both my personal and professional life. In my opinion and in a simple way, a leader is
someone who initiate individuals, in the broadest sense of the term, to progress in a same direction.
Being a leader is not only a vocation but also a way of being and inspiring others to reach an ideal, a
common goal. It is more a process or a state of mind than a simple function among a society and does
not necessary involves a management position, although I strongly believe that an efficient leadership
implies the mobilization of keys competences among the managers, especially when the first purpose
of the leader is to reach a maximum potential. However, I think that these competences can be learnt
over time and are more a matter of experience and comprehension of others than something innate
that comes naturally, even if that is sometimes the case. In my opinion, there are four main skill areas
that should be gathered by a leader. First of all, he should be aware of himself and of the possibilities
he could offer around him, he should have interpersonal capacities allowing him to go towards his
followers, which can be coupled to an ability to easily communicate and express his ideas, he should
have a sense of business and a strong organizational strategy. However, it may well be that one of the
chore asset of a good leader was transcribe in his values, his respect towards ethics, his reputation
and the trust that he has been granted to. Peter Senge, an American professor and author and
director of the Center for Organizational Learning of the MIT Sloan School of Management added a
new dimension to the leadership dimension that I particularly agree with, as he said “ Leadership is
the capacity for a human community to shape its future”. He made a point as I do not believe that
leadership is about heroes or overmen, but about indivuals and collectives, and that actually make
sense if we imagine the totally productivity that could be achieved by takin into account each human
being’s capacity which inherently creates a global collective efficiency. To that aspect, we could also
mention the fact that each of these individuals are an active part of leadership when they play a
major role in its finale purpose: shaping the future towards a or several purposes, that appear to be a
common goal, that matters to everyone. Leadership is not about selfishness or individual success
(even if it can, at some points, be a part of it) but about collective achievements. As I previously
explained, leadership is not a position but a choice and a way of thinking. It is about our feelings, our
expectations, our forgiveness and patience towards others, about our creativity, our compassion that
we set up for ourselves and for others and sometimes about judgement when it is needed. Also,
leadership is everywhere as it has been democratized in all the aspects of our professional our private
lives. Then, as I previously mentioned, a leader is able to judge a situation and comes up with the
necessary solutions, as he sees the changes required in his environment and brings the needed
resources to achieve that change (Conor Neill, 2018). A leader needs to visualize and use his
imagination and be relentless to encourage evolution in a positive way (this is what we also call the
“ant philosophy”), never mind the ways or the time it takes to reach the final point (Kahneman,
2011). Considering his followers, a leader needs to communicate persuasively to get the best out of
the other stakeholders and to make them using their competencies and skills a way that will
beneficiate to everyone (Nair, 2012). Besides, this is a skill that I admire and that I noticed while
listening to great leaders such as Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela, who both managed to raised
their voice to implement a global revolution and inspire several generations through their advocacy
for peace, their high level of forgiveness, their positive thinking, their ability to see the big picture and
focus on goals beyond themselves, through their determination, their humility, their hopefulness,
their patience and finally though their endurance. However, I am perfectly aware that despite a great
set of theories related to the topic, leadership appears to be harder to put into practice than it seems
(Hidalgo, 2015) as it requires a deep introspection and an inner work, that cannot be achieved by
everyone.

All in all, the whole concept of leadership has known a fresh thought over the past years due
to the modern crisis we had to and that we are still facing. In fact, the leadership topic has always
been complex to define, as it is both a constantly evolving and tend to be an almost undefinable
concept. Indeed, it particularly difficult to measure its intensity or its efficiency as it also embraces
uncertainty, interactions and traits, such as the diversity or the flexibility that cannot be measured.
Furthermore, we went to the conclusion that the leadership process was more than a continuity of
concepts and rules but a real connexion between individuals within a determined environment.
Also, complexity of leadership sometimes prevent managers from truly understanding or
apprehension a situation and has a tendency to skew their performance, as leadership goes beyond
the application of models and actually focus on making sense as individuals. Then, we noticed that
nowadays leaders still have challenges to overcome as the world keeps evolving in way that is not
always predictable and they sometimes have to face environmental or cultural disparities. For that
purpose, leaders needs to meet internal and external expectations that go from his ability to be
creative, to squarely face conflict, to provide relevant feedbacks, to look for opportunities to
collaborate while ensuring the common good. It indeed encompasses both cognitive and emotional
capacities between which authority power have a least significant importance than before.
On the other hand, implementing a strong leadership implies a total metamorphosis of the leadership
we have known for decades, not to say centuries.
These changes have been necessary considering today’s new ways of working, the rise in importance
of new requirements and an environmental framework which is constantly evolving, as nowadays
leaders’ most challenging task is to perpetually reinvent themselves.
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