Learning to lead: A comparison of developmental events and learning among managers in China, India and the United States

Abstract

In rapidly growing Asian economies, the need to recruit and train additional leadership talent is particularly problematic, as the demand for talent continues to outstrip available indigenous human capital. Yet most leadership development research to date has focused on US samples. The current study extends our knowledge about how managers develop as leaders by analyzing and comparing qualitative data on key developmental events and lessons from senior executives in China and India, and including a comparison to similar recent US data.

Strategies That Male Allies Use to Advance Women in the Workplace

“…This approach has been widely championed and embraced by both private and public sectors (Johnson, Blackman, & Buick, 2018). The framework is helpful for male allies' research as it compares the experience of both men and women, is based on leaders' retrospectives, and has been utilized and validated across cultures and generations (McCall, Lombardo, & Morrison, 1988;Van Velsor, Wilson, Criswell, & Chandrasekar, 2013;Yip & Wilson, 2010). It also provides insight into the most important experiences needed to advance in workplace settings and offers a framework for data analysis, as we will discuss later.…”

“…Personal experiences comprise the final component of the LOE model. These experiences encompass happenings early in life, family situations, early job experiences, leadership opportunities, spiritual encounters, and more that influence a person's values and behaviors (Van Velsor et al, 2013). Key personal experiences are times when values are formed and life direction shifts, and they are influenced by gender.…”

Leadership development and global talent management in the Asian context: An introduction

“…Returning to the convergence and divergence debate, as a group, the authors in this Special Issue present evidence in favor of a convergence trend driven by education and international work experience (Boermans and Roelfsema), the pursuit of alignment in MNCs (Pudelko and Tenzer, 2013;Schmidt et al, 2013;Van Velsor et al, 2013) and basic competencies valued and shared across cultural contexts (Bosch et al, 2013). There is some evidence of simultaneous divergence, for example, more weight on certain managerial competencies (Bosch et al, 2013), minimal cultural differences in control and alignment strategies in organizations (Pudelko and Tenzer, 2013), leadership development strategies (Van Velsor et al, 2013) and hierarchical differences in the adoption of standardized approaches to leadership talent management (Schmidt et al, 2013); however, the overall message is one of similarity rather than large differences in what is valued as leadership competencies, how leaders are selected and trained, and the alignment processes in multinational organizations.…”

“…Identification of competencies that are generalizable across countries provides a convergent focus for firm management of the development of leadership expertise, which also substantiates the findings of Schmidt et al (2013) that Swedish firms did not find a need to tailor their leadership development strategies to different contexts. Van Velsor et al (2013) focus on key learning events of managers in China and India, compared with the United States. Again, convergent observations are most common -the main sources of learning about leadership among Chinese and Indians are similar to reports from managers in the United States.…”

“…There is some evidence of simultaneous divergence, for example, more weight on certain managerial competencies (Bosch et al, 2013), minimal cultural differences in control and alignment strategies in organizations (Pudelko and Tenzer, 2013), leadership development strategies (Van Velsor et al, 2013) and hierarchical differences in the adoption of standardized approaches to leadership talent management (Schmidt et al, 2013); however, the overall message is one of similarity rather than large differences in what is valued as leadership competencies, how leaders are selected and trained, and the alignment processes in multinational organizations. These findings are, by and large, consistent with those found in the Conference Board Report (2013).…”