Global Leadership

• Ability to convince stake holders: With the expansion of businesses, number of stakeholders and their involvement is increasing. This has become really tough for the leaders to convince the internal and the external stakeholders of the company (Global Health Leadership and Management 2013).
• To enhance the department position: Shortage of potential succession of the employees in different regions has lead to the situation that it has become tough for the leaders to understand the eligible person suitable for a particular post.
• Employee engagement: Due to huge diversity, engaging the employees in the regular activities of the business has become really tough for the leaders.

In case of Uber, the company operates in almost every country. Regular issues have come to limelight related to issues with the stakeholders, mostly who take franchise of the Uber cabs.

Approaches made by a global leader in multi-culture environment:

            Reading MacPhee et al. (2013), it has been found that contemporary organizations exist in a VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) world. Multi cultural leadership calls for deep immersion within the different cultures and the values. Certain approaches might be made by the global leaders:

• Engaged and committed to teams: The leader has to engage and be committed to the teams or other people related to the expansion of the business.
• Willingness to take risks: Global operation is bound to come up with various risks and a person can only achieve the title of global leader when the person is willing to take dynamic risks (Mobley et al. 2013).
• Different approaches in different countries: Geo-political situations are different in different countries. For the same reason, approaches towards business activities should be different.

It has to be noted, the approaches made by the leaders of Uber is not similar in the multi-cultural environment. A clear indication of the same is visible in their CSR and Public Relation activities in different countries.

Impact of global issues:

            At certain instances, the challenges faced by the global leaders create huge impact on the working condition of the global leaders. This automatically impacts the growth and other activities of the business. Some of the impacts can be discussed here:

• Gap in talent: Due to complicated situations, the leaders are facing great issues in formulating easy and convenient ways of fighting the situations. The actual talent of the leaders are getting disappeared in many cases (Mobley et al. 2013). This automatically creates a gap in the talent of the global leaders.
• Lack of innovative ideas: With lesser approach towards creating a good communication network, the leaders are losing the innovative and fruitful ideas from the stakeholders of the company. This has impacted the global issues (Mobley and Dorfman 2013).
• Blend organizational structure: Since, the business operation becomes global; following a particular culture becomes a great issue and for the same reason the organization has to form different organizational culture. This at major instances creates problematic issues for the leaders to undertake the organizational operations (Nirenberg and John 2012).

It might be said that Uber does face certain issues in the organizational structure and culture. Operating in a diverse culture often becomes a challenge for the leaders.

Best practices to be followed by a leader:

There are certain factors that distinguish a leader from a global leader. A global leader follows certain practices that help their organization to achieve their target and operate successfully in a diverse world. As recommended by Safty and Adel (2014), certain factors might improve the leadership practices of a global leader.

• Mingle with the people: In order to understand the contemporary situation of the business, a relationship with the people operating in the business is very important (Nirenberg and John 2012).
• Reading the situation: Analyzing the situation and acting on the best proposed solution is what makes an individual a global leader (Wiseman and Alexander 2013).
• Stay politically savvy: It is expected that a leader must not be biased towards any person. If a healthy relationship is kept with the internal stakeholders, the company is bound to prosper in its operation (Segal‐Horn and Susan 2016).
• Being boundary less and to go virtual: It is not possible for a leader to present in every possible region and thus it is expected that the leader should approach such practices that they would be able to operate virtually without any concern of territorial boundary.

Uber takes active advantage of the technological advancement. With the help of video calls and other technological methods, the leaders are able to connect with the other managers of the countries of operation. This keeps the flow of their business.

Common mistakes made by leaders:

In spite of basic practices and leadership approaches made by the global leader, some common mistakes happen to take place among the leaders. These can be discussed here:

• Micro managing: It is expected that the leaders should rely on the people who have been appointed by the team of management. However, the ability of some employees is not taken into consideration and they are not given the possible opportunity as they should be given. It results in micro managing of the organization and to some extent affect the working of the organization (Wiseman and Alexander 2013).
• Failure to dig into data: Failing to measure the result of the performance or other outputs from various operational centres results in a kind of deficit from the end of leadership. This fails to produce the result of actual working scenario and in turn results in declination of the business.
• Poor communication: Sometimes, unwillingness to listen to others results in undermining the mindset of the legitimate people (Segal‐Horn and Susan 2016). This happens due to poor communication with the employees and other people related to the organization.

Several issues have been faced by Uber Technologies in India and South Africa. These problems could be easily categorised under the faults of the leadership quality. However, it is expected that the leaders have to take into account these faults and mistakes and take initiatives to overcome these mistakes.

Conclusion:

No doubt that work in the recent scenario is complicated and there is a clear need of global leader as well. The challenges faced by the leaders are diverse in nature depending upon the location of operation. Even though each of them feel alone in the situation but the problem is universal. Developmental initiatives are to be undertaken by to face the fundamental challenges faced by the leaders. Various approaches have been made to understand the different kinds of issues and challenges faced by globally operating companies.

Reference list:

Brzezinski, Zbigniew. 2014. The Choice. New York: Basic Books.

Global Conference Advert. 2012. The Leadership Quarterly 19 (5): III. doi:10.1016/s1048-9843(08)00131-8.

Global Health Leadership And Management. 2013. Global Public Health 2 (3): 313-315. doi:10.1080/17441690600968266.

Longo, Nicholas V. and Janice McMillan. 2015. "Educating For Global Leadership: A North-South Collaboration". New Directions For Student Leadership 2015 (148): 73-86. doi:10.1002/yd.20154.

MacPhee, Maura, Chang, Lee, and Spiri. 2013. "Global Health Care Leadership Development: Trends To Consider". Journal Of Healthcare Leadership, 21. doi:10.2147/jhl.s23010.

Mobley, William H and Peter W Dorfman. 2013. Advances In Global Leadership. Amsterdam: JAI.

Nirenberg, John. 2012. Global Leadership. Oxford: Capstone.

Safty, Adel. 2013. "A View On Global Leadership". Leadership In Action 19 (1): 1-5. doi:10.1002/lia.4070190101.

Segal‐Horn, Susan. 2016. "The Limits Of Global Strategy". Strategy & Leadership 24 (6): 12-17. doi:10.1108/eb054570.

Wiseman, Alexander W. 2012. Educational Leadership. Bingley, UK: Emerald.