TO WHAT EXTENT ARE LEADERSHIP ATTRIBUTES CONSIDERED UNIVERSALLY Essay

TO WHAT EXTENT ARE LEADERSHIP ATTRIBUTES CONSIDERED UNIVERSALLY EFFECTIVE AND DESIRABLE - Essay Example Table of contents 1. Introduction 3 2. Requirements of international and domestic leadership in terms of leadership skills and competencies 4 2.1 Leader – characteristics 4 2.2 Environment that makes leadership international 5 2.3 Culture as related to domestic and international leadership 6 2.4 The influences of environment on domestic and international leadership 8 2.5 Challenges that international leaders face 10 2.6 Domestic vs global leader – differences and similarities 12 3. Conclusion 13 References 14 1. Introduction The performance of organizations in the global market is usually evaluated by referring to their leadership style. A leader is the individual who has the power to take all important decisions of each organization, including the design of its strategy and the control of all its activities (Grisham 2011). The behaviour of leaders is not standardized since each leader has his unique experiences, skills and perceptions. In fact, it has been proved that the development of an effective leadership strategy is depended on a series of factors. Most commonly, the socio-cultural and economic environment but also the objectives of the organization are the criteria on which leadership decisions are based. In addition, a leadership strategy needs to be feasible in terms of available resources. At this point, the following issue appears: can the effectiveness of a leader being influenced by the geographical region in which his decisions will be applied? In the literature, a distinction is made between domestic leaders and international leaders. The activities of the former are limited within a particular area; the leaders of organizations that operate only locally belong in this category. International leaders are those who can be involved in leadership decisions related to the global market (Marquardt 2000). In other words, a leadership is made international when referring to the global environment of an organization, meaning not only the n eeds of the organization in regard to its activities in a foreign country but also the challenges that the organization has to face in the global market; competition, cultural differences and regulatory framework are the most common challenges of this kind. The differences and similarities of domestic leaders and international leaders are analytically presented in this paper aiming to show that domestic leadership requires different skills and competencies than the international leadership. For this reason, the appropriateness of individuals to act as leaders domestically or internationally can be evaluated only if reviewing carefully their skills, as responding to the demands of each of these two leadership types. 2. Requirements of international and domestic leadership in terms of leadership skills and competencies 2.1 Leader - characteristics In order to be successful as a leader an individual needs to have certain qualities. In practice, the characteristics of leaders can be hig hly differentiated under the influence of their personal experiences and perceptions. Still, there are certain requirements that leaders need to meet (Maxwell 2005). A leader who meets all these requirements can be considered as fully successful in regard to his role (Maxwell 2005). It should be noted that leadership, as a role, can incorporate many phases. In each of these phases a leader should meet different requirements. These phases can be set in a hierarchy, and would be the following, starting from the lower level: a) Position;, b) Permission, c) Production, d) People development (Maxwell 2005). Each of these phases has different requirements; for example, in the first phase followers simply execute the orders given to them because they are obliged to; the autocratic leadership style