Six Major Challenges Facing Global Leaders - and How to Overcome Them

Leo Rajapakse, Technology Director Cloud IaaS Center of Excellence, Bimbo Bakeries USA

Leo Rajapakse, Technology Director Cloud IaaS Center of Excellence, Bimbo Bakeries USA

In this digital age, we are living in an increasingly interconnected world. As a result, the global leadership landscape is changing rapidly. To remain successful in this dynamic environment and continue to thrive as leaders, organizations need to continuously adapt and evolve. To help you tackle challenges facing your organization and develop new skills, I have identified the six major challenges that global leaders face today combined with their solutions. These will give you insights into the most common pitfalls of global leaders, as well as ways to overcome them.

Change Management and Organizational Transformation

Organizational transformation is a change management process focused on improving productivity and engagement through changing business processes and company culture. This process is especially important when facing rapid technological change, corporate social responsibility, or shifting customer expectations. To manage change successfully, you need to identify the reasons for the change, engage the organization in the decision-making process, and create the change.

Responding to a Constantly-evolving Business Landscape

Business leaders must remain open to new ideas, be able to pivot quickly, and manage uncertainty. For example, the gig economy has made it easier for organizations to hire independent contractors or consultants to handle projects that were handled by full-time employees in the past. Organizations have to be willing to change their ways of doing business in response to the evolving landscape.

Establishing a Global Corporate Culture

Creating a strong corporate culture is a challenge when your organization is made up of employees from varying cultural backgrounds. You should first identify the key components of your existing corporate culture, understand how different cultures will mix, and create a plan to foster an environment where all employees feel like they belong. This plan should include identifying key components and understanding the current state of your culture, creating a plan with consistent cultural messaging across the organization, and considering factors such as policies, practices, programs, and language.

Developing Effective Strategies

Strategy development is a crucial skill of global leaders. These leaders must be able to identify opportunities and threats, create long-term goals, and facilitate change. This can be challenging if you are unfamiliar with the process or unsure about how to approach the situation. To develop effective strategies, identify your current situation, choose the right approach, define your long-term goals, and identify key issues.

Rapid Evolution of Technology

Technology is constantly evolving, whether it is social media, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, or virtual reality. With the rapid advancement of technology, organizations are facing a dilemma: whether to adopt or ignore it. Global leaders should be aware of the latest trends in technology but must also focus on what the organization needs, such as ROI on investment and ease of use for customers. At the same time, they need to manage the risks and challenges associated with the adoption of new technologies. To effectively deal with the rapid evolution of technology, you have to be open to change, willing to experiment, and have the patience to adopt new technologies at the right pace.

Hiring and Retaining Top Talent

As the global marketplace becomes increasingly competitive, organizations are facing the challenge of hiring and retaining top talent. This means finding ways to engage and retain the best employees, especially in the face of high turnover rates. To better prepare your organization to hire and retain top talent, you need to first understand the core reasons why employees leave. This will help you develop effective ways to reduce turnovers, such as creating a strong corporate culture, providing engaging work, and offering competitive benefits and perks.

Developing Next-generation Leaders

As you bring new leaders onto your team, you have to make sure that they are prepared to lead and effectively deal with the challenges they will face. This will help ensure that your organization continues to grow and remains successful. One of the best ways to ensure that your organization has strong, next-generation leaders is to implement a formal leadership development program. This program should include a variety of different approaches, such as coaching, mentoring, training, and career development. Doing so will help you develop the skills of your leaders and ensure that they are prepared to face the challenges they will encounter.

Organizational transformation is a change management process focused on improving productivity and engagement through changing business processes and company culture

Conclusion

As you can see, each of these six challenges is significant in its own right. But, when you consider them collectively, they provide a comprehensive overview of the types of challenges that confront global leaders today.

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect any group or organization. Any content provided by the author is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, country, individual, or anyone or anything.