Developing Global Leaders in Place

Alumni Spotlight Article

Developing Global Leaders in Place

by alumna Louise Korver, MA

Louise Korver, MA

The Business Case: Developing globally competent leaders is in the forefront of executive development topics and yet it is one of the most daunting developmental issues for leaders. The vast majority of companies – no matter their size – have global business issues within their supply chain, their customer relationships, and their employee base. The changing demographics across the United States labor force, for example, places great demands on U.S. domestic leaders to understand how to lead, coach, and motivate employees from many different nations. “Succeeding in a global context will require companies to cultivate a team of executives who have the capabilities of global leaders.” (Discoveryourtruenorth.org, 2016)

The Challenge: Most companies are struggling with two parallel leadership dilemmas: (1) an insufficient number of adequately developed global leaders for selection into global leadership roles; and (2) a method for accelerating the development of their in-role leaders currently in global roles within their home countries. As more companies expand internationally, a new developmental model is required. We suggest that model includes education, executive self-directed development, and coaching by an experienced global executive coach.

How Leaders Develop Global Leadership Skill: For most leaders, global leadership capabilities are acquired through intensive pre-expatriate immersion sessions followed by in-country experience as an expatriate executive seconded to a host country. How does an executive improve the chances of commercial success with foreigners without leaving their home country for an expat assignment? What if their company cannot afford to send them overseas, and what if an assignment out of country is not personally desirable for family reasons? This set of challenges faced a Fielding alum.

Challenges for the Leadership Provider: Time bound client requirements often challenge us to produce work in a new way. This was the situation of a Fielding alumni’s coaching client: an American executive with significant competency gaps in general management, cross-cultural negotiation skills, and inexperience in managing multinational joint ventures. As a practicing executive development professional for over 30 years, alumna Louise Korver, MA (HOD 2008) presents a case study for peer review and comment in the hopes that it not only will offer scholarship, but also demonstrate best practice while advancing the techniques of executive development through coaching.

Key Developmental Questions: The key questions that we raise in our research and will address in our workshop at the Fielding Summer Session Alumni Track are:

• Do we have to send everyone overseas to get these global leadership skills?
• Isn’t there a better way to develop global competence right now?

Our answers are a resounding, “no” to the first question and “yes” to the second. This Alumni workshop will define the developmental journey for global leaders who need to develop these global competencies right now and describe a way for global leaders to learn how to be more effective in their global roles while they are still in their home country in their current job.

Assess to the Latest Research & Tools: Our session in Rosemont, IL, on July 15 will present an update on global leadership theory for those who may not follow this literature closely, supply the latest research on new global leadership models, and discuss the best-in-practice global leadership competency assessments. The core value of this session is learning how to apply a new set of tools in a coaching process to accelerate global leadership skills development.

One of the most innovative global leadership competency models and assessments is the “HV model of global leadership development which combines a horizontal approach (traditional competencies) with a vertical one (self-transformation). The vertical aspect is based on the work of Kegan and Lahey (2009) in which self-transformation can be attained by overcoming an “immunity to change” and engaging in behaviors measured by the horizontal assessment.” (Tucker, 2016). The Global Tucker Assessment Process (G-TAP) (Tucker, 2016) is based in part on Robert Kegan’s constructive developmental theory (1982, 1994), which builds on the work of Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, William Perry, and others (Tucker, 2016). Kegan’s theory of adult cognitive development defines five stages of mental complexity or “orders of mind” that represent five successive levels of more complex ways of thinking (Pruyn 2010).

During the Alumni Track session, we will explore the way the this new model defines global leadership developmental work in the “vertical” and “horizontal” way as framed by Kegan and Lahey and how it is juxtaposed to the traditional global leadership competencies that leave out the critically important adult development aspect of consciousness. We believe the combination of the traditional models of global leadership with the elevation of human consciousness allows for a faster uptake in development of skills so necessary for global success.

This workshop will include a discussion of cognitive behavioral therapy techniques and how they can be applied within a coaching practice along with the HV model and assessment. Participants will receive citations for those interested in learning more about CBT, G-TAP, and Kegan and Lahey’s work, and how to apply it as a learning and coaching strategy. A live case study will allow the workshop participants to learn together with a common focus, gain hands-on experience in designing experiments for global leadership learning and applying the CBT tools to a set of developmental objectives for a real global leader.

At the conclusion of this session, we hope more of our Fielding alumni and students will consider following this literature and begin applying these tools in their own consulting and coaching practices to broaden Fielding’s reach in executive leadership development.

About Louise Korver, MA

After a successful 15-year consulting career, Louise returned to progressive leadership roles in Fortune 100 companies, beginning in 2002 with Ingersoll-Rand, where she founded the corporate university with three other colleagues. As talent Group Leader responsible for World Headquarters and North American talent management at the H. J. Heinz Company, Louise helped with the privatization of the company in 2013 before joining AT&T. Louise brings experience across multiple industries and has worked globally for over 25 years. Her views are informed by her distinguished career as the head of global enterprise Executive Development functions at Bank of America, EMC Corporation, and AT&T. These companies are known as best practice; and, especially at EMC and AT&T, are award winning universities recognized globally. Louise also received the elite Gold Award from Chief Learning Officer Magazine in 2009 for the Executive Coaching practice she developed at EMC.

Louise has a passion for leadership and executive development. She is a private coach to C-suite executives and their successors, leads our practice in Talent Management & Executive Development, and sets our Research Agenda. In 2015, our benchmarking study on the trends for developing high potential women leaders identified the competencies and development trends looking multiple industries. Louise is a frequent speaker to Chief Learning Officers, as well as keynoting for client executive programs.

Louise is a graduate of the executive programs at both Harvard Business School and Wharton, and has a Masters of Arts in Human & Organizational Development from Fielding Graduate University. She has served on the Boards of Aresty Institute, chaired program committees of the Conference Board, and served on the advisory board of the Human Capital Institute.