What Defines Leadership in the Modern Corporate Arena?
Leadership is the fuel that drives organisational success and helps return profits and huge revenue turnovers for firms. Therefore, companies need to invest in leaders who have a proven track record of leading companies and doing so with integrity, loyalty, transparency, and utmost discipline. The ethos of outstanding leadership is built on non-judgemental communication between leaders and other associates of the corporation, looking after the welfare of the employees, inspiring those around them through their actions, policies and speeches.
Leadership: Working on the Basics and Moving Forward
Leaders are capable of leading, managing, mentoring and facilitating changes as and when required. They need to adopt flexible approaches, accept ideas and keep themselves updated about the latest developments in the market. Several leadership programs for experienced professionals designed by industry experts can help executives understand the significant developments in this field and move up the corporate ladder.
The certification courses housed by leading universities allow upcoming leaders to get a nod ahead of their peers in the recruitment stages and attract those high-paying roles. One such credible program is the online certification in leadership and management by XLRI that offers a comprehensive framework for enhancing the teaching-learning experiences and exposes learners to new concepts in this domain. Given the cross-cultural teams that leaders work with today, several challenges need to be successfully negotiated to implement strategies and introduce policies.
Leadership Challenges Faced by Managers with Multicultural Teams
Leadership is a field that requires hands-on experience and the ability to deal with people daily. More often than not, critical challenges need to be traversed for efficient movement of resources, personnel, and other particulars across the corporations. The primary differences between strategic thinking and planning lie in how leaders approach a given problem and the employees they deploy for assistance.
The modern workplace is a lively one with employees from different nationalities and ethnic backgrounds towards a shared company objective as per the roles assigned to them by top executives. Their management and leadership is a critical aspect for determining the outcome of business plans, overall corporational growth and other factors.
The leadership programs for experienced professionals designed in conjunction with proven leaders aim to shed light on the glaring challenges that lie while working in a diversified environment. A multicultural environment does offer different perspectives, problem-solving methods and active communication but their mismanagement can have harmful implications.
It’s the duty of leaders to intervene positively and render practical steps for overcoming those challenges. Here are some of the challenges that can arise in a multicultural working space:-
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Hindrance to Integration of Multicultural Teams in regards to Prejudice and Negative Stereotypes
Integration of multicultural individuals is vital for building cohesive teams and abiding isolation amongst team members. Isolation can lead to severe negative implications on the overall growth of the company. Therefore, the leaders must make it their top priority to take all their group members on board for achieving objectives. However, deterring isolation and fostering engagement can prove to be challenging for managers and leaders when there are prejudices and negative stereotypes involved.
Contrasting stereotypes can diffuse a company’s morale and negatively affect the organisational work culture. This could lead to conflicts amongst certain team members, lack of empathy towards one’s feelings and actions, no unity between colleagues and other work-related issues. Therefore, it’s the responsibility of leaders to manage their teams in an effective and non-judgemental manner.
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Misinterpretation of Professional Communication
In a diverse, multicultural environment, there could be a loss of communication while translation across channels. Since there’s a difference in languages, etiquettes, cultures, thinking patterns and other differences, they can be a major challenge while discussing ideas or conducting meetings. Even when speaking a single language such as English, comprehending different accents can cause worry for leading firms and picking on idioms used by a native speaker can come across as challenging for employees.
Apart from verbal and non-verbal communication, body language, personal space, eye contact, subtle gesturing, and non-spatial movements can come across as offensive if not used to such environments. Moreover, the usual greetings such as handshakes, hugs or others can take time for different multicultural colleagues to understand.
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Dissecting the HR Challenges
Hiring and recruiting talent from overseas can become a costly and tedious affair. Employees recruited from different countries have their visa requirements, accommodations, employment laws, workplace benefits and other rules and regulations.
The Human Resource Department’s role is critical for managing and maintaining the welfare of their overseas employees. However, allotting a quiet room for prayer, setting up weekly/monthly get-together sessions can help diversified colleagues mingle with their local workers and pick on the subtleties of that work culture.
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Difference in Working Styles
Different individuals bring forth their working styles and attitude towards completing their tasks. Leaders must welcome and recognise the variety of working styles and ensure that it doesn’t hamper productivity. Working styles can have a direct influence on teamwork and collaborative projects. For example, people from Asia and Central America work in cohesion whereas the workers from Germany prefer working by themselves.
The different styles and approaches should be identified, and teams should be developed accordingly.
As seen from the challenges mentioned above, leading a group of diversified individuals is a laborious process and requires a deep understanding of cultures, backgrounds and languages. The online certification in leadership and management by XLRI sheds light on the practical techniques that can help multicultural workers to gel well together.
Summing it Up!
The success of any organisation can be figured out by its leadership structure and the individuals that lead it at the helm. A thorough and rational leader will take decisions that favour the organisation’s greater good by overcoming the challenges described above by completely transforming the current workflows and scheme of things.
Several leadership programs for experienced professionals provide the pedigree for bringing different cultures together to achieve corporational goals. One can gain insightful perspectives about leading cross-cultural teams through the online certification in leadership and management by XLRI.
More Information:
How Do You Become a Better Leader?
How They Can Help Leadership Skills in Advance Your Career?
Top Leadership Skills You Need To Learn To Lead Your Team
Develop your Leadership & Management Skills with a range of Online Management Courses
