How global mobility can support the development of great leaders in your organization

While there may not be an exact recipe for "great leadership," there are some specific qualities (albeit in different quantities) that great leaders tend to possess. Here is a top 10 list from Kununu, which went out and asked leaders themselves to explain what they consider to be the top quality of a great leader:

1. Resilience
2. Transparency
3. Emotional Intelligence
4. Passion
5. Empathy
6. Empowerment
7. Open-mindedness
8. Patience
9. Diplomacy
10. Initiative for action

While there are a batch of additional qualities like humility, trust and accountability that also come into play, in the end, the measure of a great leader was said to have much less to do with how their role is defined and more about their actual impact on others.

But what's the best way to help someone become a great leader? Research shows that leaders are two-thirds made and one-third born. According to HR Zone:

"The ability to effectively lead, motivate and direct a group of people – whether it is in business, sport or politics – requires a very complex set of skills, mostly acquired through experiences, self development as well as access to subsequent training."

According to Harvard Business Review, companies spend heavily on executive education (leadership development was a $366 billion industry in 2019) but often get a meager return on their investment. They find that because business schools and other traditional educators aren’t adept at teaching the soft skills leaders need to be successful today, people don’t always stay with the organization that has paid for their training, and learners often can’t apply classroom lessons to their jobs. 

But the good news is that global mobility is here to support this high level and hugely important business need. Enter the global assignment! Many global companies have made international assignments a requirement for being promoted and feel it is an essential and significant step in the journey to becoming a great leader. 

This almost eight-minute podcast from AESC (there is a transcript if you prefer to read) goes into the details of how the expatriate experience allows developing leaders to flex those qualities listed above through real business and life experiences. In this particular podcast, AESC President and CEO Karen Greenbaum speaks with Stephen Dallamore, global chairman of AltoPartners, and discusses leadership mobility and the qualities of a successful leader in new geographies. Stephen provides insights on who should be considered, who is ready for this experience, how it should be managed, how long it should last minimally, and explains all of the various positive outcomes that lie at the center of an experience that provides the soil for developing a truly great leader. 

The assignment experience ultimately helps develop leadership character and this is why it is such a potent tool. Recent survey data shows that 84% of high-performing organizations provided development that focused on leaders' character. Character was clearly recognized as a pivotal element of leadership success.

Prior to COVID-19, was your mobility program helping to plant these leadership experiences and supporting the growth of great leaders in your company? There are a variety of global assignment options that can be such strategic and valuable tools to leverage within the talent management function. What do you anticipate with your global assignment volume post-COVID?