Reaching into the global leader’s toolbox

The collection of tools in this handbook does not pretend to offer a comprehensive guide, where you start on page 1 and finish on the last page, ending up with a big roadmap for global leadership. Rather, the collection of tools should be seen as a reflection of the process that people with a knowledge of and interest in global leadership from their own practice and/or research have created in the Global Leadership Academy. The first chapter provides a general introduction to global leadership and the work of the Academy in this area, and can be taken as an appetizer and ”user’s manual” for the rest of the handbook, which covers these 12 tools:

Tool 1:
The five key elements of global leadership – ”global warm-up” and icebreaker

Tool 2:
Your global mindset – clarification tool

Tool 3:
The four obstructions in global leadership – your ”global leadership manifesto”

Tool 4:
Four leadership roles in a global context

Tool 5:
Paradox navigation in global leadership

Tool 6:
Your global leadership style – alignment or diversity-oriented

Tool 7:
Virtual collaboration and distance leadership

Tool 8:
Trust and conflict in global collaboration

Tool 9:
Your global leadership GPS – the seven dualities

Tool 10:
Strategic global mindset – the keyhole model

Tool 11:
Global activation – maintaining the global readiness to learn

Tool 12:
Fact or fiction – nine myths about global mindset competence

DIt is a matter of taste whether you prefer five golden rules that can be adapted to the context or many different tools that fit many different situations. In this book we have opted for the ”Swiss army knife model” with lots of tools gathered together, as our experience is that it can be easier to get a grasp of global leadership if you take it piece by piece. You start where you feel the shoe pinching or where you are on the lookout for fresh ideas, then work forward from there.

For example, someone who uses the individual global mindset tool (tool 3), may become curious about the crucial role of building trust in distance leadership and be encouraged to move on to the tool that helps with conflict and trust in global leadership (tool 8), which leads into a third tool, and so on. In this sense, the tools do not compete among themselves; on the contrary, our hope is that they can complement each other and that they can be used individually without you having read the rest of the book.

The choice of tool has thus been governed by an ambition to capture what have struck us in the lifetime of the Academy as the most challenging, usable, thought-provoking and inspiring ideas. There is both harmony and dissonance between these covers, in the expectation that other companies and practitioners outside the Academy will be able to identify with them and adapt them to their own practice. We have also given pride of place to new insights, including new knowledge produced specifically on behalf of the Global Leadership Academy.

Each tool is introduced with a fact box which explains why it is worth using the tool (what situation or problem does it address?), what the tool consists of (content information), and who should use the tool and how (is it to be used alone or together with other people?). In many cases there is a direct link to further material on the Global Leadership Academy website, which can be downloaded and used free of charge.

The primary target group for the tools are global leaders. HR professionals and others concerned with global competence development also contributed to the work of the Academy, took part in our workshops and provided input to the research projects that we conducted. HR professionals play an essential role in global competence development, particularly where their activities are designed together with global leaders – which also requires the leaders to see themselves as frontrunners in these efforts. Several of the tools therefore directly address how they can be used by leaders in collaboration with HR professionals.