PURPOSE – This paper seeks to answer the question: How can leaders be developed on global scale while simultaneously considering local relevance and applicability? It does so by investigate what implications culture and context have on global development of leaders and by trying give some clarifications into what considerations a leader would benefit of making when developing leaders internationally. It does not investigate the term known as “global leadership” (i.e., leadership across cultures) as the focus in on how to develop leaders across cultures and context while ensure that the teachings are relevant and applicable in the leader’s local situation.
DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH – Based on an iterative process global development of leaders is investigated and a new model is created to explain and give a practical approach to work with the phenomenon. The research is based on 4 main theories within culture, communication, leadership, and leadership development. The case used for the project is considered the world’s largest yearly leadership conference. It is called the Global Leadership Summit and takes place in 125 countries in over 1500 locations. The empirical data consists of several documents from the Global Leadership Summit and 3 interviews of leaders from different countries who work with the conferences across the world.
FINDINGS – The project revealed that there are key elements to developing leaders globally. These are cultural and contextual awareness and understanding, the development of leadership content that is relevant to and applicable in the developed leaders culture and context, appropriate communication, and lastly the facilitation of a discussion on cultural and contextual adaptation of the leadership content through reflection and conversation. These principles are applied in the Global Leadership Summit in several ways throughout the development and execution of the conference.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS – The project will be able to help global developers of leaders navigate cultural and contextual influences and heighten the likelihood of a successful development. Through the considerations I propose in the model the reader will have a better understanding of how to avoid cultural and contextual pitfalls that can hinder the outcome of the leadership development. Instead, the reader can use the global knowledge as a resource to tailor their leadership development better to their target group.
ORIGINALITY/VALUE – The study provides a new theory “the model for global development of leadership” that directly addresses the issues related to global development of leaders for an easier approach to global development of leaders.