Interpersonal Relationship and Global Leadership Mindset

Background

The concept of leadership have been comprehensively defined in literature to means the process of influencing the thinking, attitudes and behaviours of others by the led towards the attainment of common goals in politics, business, and organisation. In a study conducted by Genty (2014) among Nigeria trade unions, leadership was described as the art of directing and controlling the activities of a group who are willing and able to be led by one person. The study argued that all styles of leadership are suitable for the activities of trade unions in the context of Nigeria but emphasized on the situation at hand as a determinant of a particular leadership style to adopt.

Though, behaviour theories of leaders have been considered inadequate to fully explain effective leadership especially among global leaders but situations that match certain styles of leadership might change their mindset, which could be considered as a rationale determinant. Fielder in his earlier research on leadership has argued that contingency is a better determinant of a good leadership styles. Therefore, global leaders can also pick a clue from Fielder’s position in order to achieve predetermine organisational goals through global mindset or reorientation. This can be done by assessing three situational variables namely leader-member relations, task structure and position power (Silong, 2009). However, of these variables leader-member relations is apparently evidence as a parameter to measure effective leadership because it enhances interpersonal relationships and change the mindset of leaders.

Global mindset refers to the new skills and attributes that leaders use to meet the challenges of globalisation such as diversity, changes in technologies as well as changes in business framework problems. The concept of global mindset was forecast by Perlmutter to outline the orientations of managers in multinational firms. Perlmutter (1969) gave a typology of global leader’s orientations to include ethnocentric, polycentric and geocentric but argued that future managers need to be geocentric oriented. This is because; regardless of nationality “the best men” are required to solve the company’s problems anywhere in the world. Hence, many authors have posited that the orientation of managers has become a critical issue facing the multinational corporations.