An analysis of core-competences of successful multinational team leaders

Abstract

Researchers have endeavoured to understand the factors that enable effective functioning of multinational teams (MNTs) but with few exceptions they have ignored studying the competences of MNT leaders. In this paper we present those competences leaders must possess in order to effectively lead MNTs. Our findings are based on 70 problem-centred interviews with MNT leaders and members from five multinational corporations. The competences our interviewees mentioned most frequently for effective leadership were knowledge management and transfer. Results further indicated that a leader must be cross-culturally competent and multilingual in order to motivate MNT members to fully explore, exploit and transfer valuable knowledge within the team and beyond.

Leading global teams

“…Not surprisingly Hajro and Pudelko (2010) emphasize that an inability to simultaneously work with people from different backgrounds together with a lack of insight into, sensitivity toward, and accommodation of different cultures are among the major reasons for MCT failure. Cross-cultural competence is essential for team leadership, and team leadership is critical for the functioning of the MCT.…”

“…Specifically, knowledge management and transfer were reported as the most important MCT leader competence, with cross-cultural awareness following closely. As is typical of bridge makers in MCTs, team leaders play an important role in facilitating interaction between team members and resolving conflicts (Hajro & Pudelko, 2010). Bridge makers are similar to boundary spanners, although boundary spanners span boundaries between the team and various other organizational units or groups while bridge makers bridge cultural and linguistic boundaries between people within multicultural groups (Liljegren & Zander, 2011).…”

“…What will change when a multicultural leader has to work virtually, and correspondingly when a virtual team leader faces a multicultural team? Hajro and Pudelko (2010) found that the multicultural team leaders they studied ranked virtual team leadership at the bottom of the list of team leader competences. Only a little more than half of the global virtual leaders (and only 5% of the team members) viewed managing cultural diversity as important in Joshi's and Lazarova's (2005) study.…”

“…Boundary spanning was identified as a leader competence important in virtual teams (Davis & Bryant, 2003;Joshi & Lazarova, 2005) and multicultural teams (Hajro & Pudelko, 2010). Wiesenfeld and Hewlin (2003) argue that boundary spanning is the most important role of managers.…”

“…To cast light on what competencies team leaders need to effectively lead MCTs, Hajro and Pudelko (2010) carried out 70 interviews with MCT leaders and members from five multinational firms. Interestingly they found that leadership was precisely what was perceived as critical to MCT performance.…”