Mapping Global Talent: Essays and Insights - Heidrick & Struggles

From a search consultant’s point of view these are
the essential characteristics to look for in the new
global leader.
International literacy
• Operating in different geographic regions.
• Understanding the cultural differences of employees
and customers.
• Dealing with ambiguity – those executives who
demand an excessive amount of certainty and rigid
frameworks do not generally adapt well to the
complex cultural patterns of working in foreign
countries and with different sensibilities.
• Enjoying diversity in a psychological sense.
Managing paradoxes
• Taking a helicopter-view and think strategically
whilst keeping the focus on operational results.
• Switching easily between different modes: from
long-term thinking to short-term, and from cost-
saving to expansion and growth.
• The flexibility to handle these potential paradoxes is
the key characteristic of future top executives.
The ability to build successful teams
The emphasis on the CEO as the ‘hero’ is waning.
Business success at the top (and farther down the
organization) depends on the leader pulling effective
teams together. Our research shows that very few
companies have highly effective teams at the top and a
common complaint is that while there are individual
strengths, “the team is not working together”.
Companies are already beginning to address this issue,
and we are seeing much more active intervention at the
top level as CEOs engage external help in aligning the
team with business strategy.
The new development program
Large companies are increasingly creating their own
universities to train staff from around the world.
There has also been a rise in the provision of in-house
and bespoke programs from international business
schools. Samsung, for example, has created its own
talent pipeline by first recruiting people of different
nationalities from leading business schools and
universities around the world, and then putting them
through its in-house training and development center.
The coaching industry, a largely unregulated area,
is also exploding, answering a growing demand for
the development of ‘softer’ skills such as teaching,
“The answer is a better
analysis and understanding
of their motivational
make-up …”
negotiating and listening. In the future, to give
executives the support they require, we would expect
the provision of such skills to be provided by business
school programmes and follow-up coaching.
Retention and career
management of the best
The best are constantly offered jobs by your competitors
– how can you retain them over longer periods of
time? The answer is a better analysis and understanding
of their motivational make-up so that you can offer
productive career support and development.
Employer anxiety about top executives leaving can
prevent sensible career discussions from taking place.
Bosses often completely avoid the subject with their
employees, leaving the employee feeling under-valued
and unfulfilled, resulting in turnover at the most senior
level. Having an internal or external career development
function helps executives clarify what they want and
what they would like the next step of their career to be.
The company is then able to construct a scenario where
this can be achieved. The companies that will grow
in this new talent geography are those which coach,
motivate and develop their own talent in tandem with
an inclusive, global recruitment process.
Global Talent Index, developed in co-operation with the Economist Intelligence Unit