The Global Competency Index (GCI) is critical for organizations preparing any staff or student for assignments overseas by providing insights into an individual’s suitability for intercultural work or education. By identifying an individual’s strengths and weaknesses, the GCI allows individuals to understand the areas that need work so they can improve their global fluency skills and enhance their productivity. Without leaders who can operate successfully internationally, businesses and organizations may not be successful in their global endeavors.
During global work assignments, organizational leaders come into contact with different beliefs, values, and customs and need to be able to manage the challenges and stress that come with such differences and immersion into a new culture. In order for organizations to effectively train their leaders to be globally fluent, they must first understand which areas, or competencies, they need to improve.
The GCI is used as an instrumental tool to equip individuals for overseas assignments and/or a global leadership role. The report and tools provided post-assessment contain in-depth actionable data that make it easy to guide people through their own personal development plan. Assessment takers can readily identify their global competency strengths and weaknesses and learn ways to improve in any of the competency areas. The ability to understand areas of strengths and weaknesses identified by the GCI helps leaders prepare and/or get placed in overseas assignments.
Key Traits of Successful Leaders
So, what makes a good leader? Regardless of where a leader is working, specific characteristics are shared by successful leaders, even when there may be differing dynamics of power, cultural values, or any other myriad of differences from one international situation to another. Many of the traits of a good leader naturally carry over into being an understanding, globally-minded individual, and are assessed by the GCI, such as:
- a strong drive for responsibility and completion of tasks
- vigor and persistence in the pursuit of goals
- venturesomeness and originality in problem-solving
- the drive to exercise initiative in social situations
- self-confidence and a sense of personal identity
- willingness to accept the consequences of their decisions and actions
- readiness to absorb interpersonal stress
- willingness to tolerate frustration and delay
- ability to influence other people’s behavior
- capacity to structure social interaction systems to the purpose at hand
Many of these traits are directly related to having strong interpersonal and social skills. Indeed, in a global landscape, with different cultural norms and values, achieving these high-level social interactions would be nearly impossible without skilled global competencies. For instance, a leader without the ability to adequately culturally communicate in their new environment would have very little success in influencing other people’s behavior. Additionally, without being able to understand social interactions and their systems, a leader will have a difficult time operating within their sphere of influence to enact change or obtain meaningful work from staff.
The key to being successful in a global sphere with these traits will depend upon the dynamics of power in the global country or situation. However, regardless of the leadership structures, knowledge of how leaders will respond to various situations as discovered through the GCI will provide key insights into their global leadership capabilities.
The Global Competencies Index as a Toolbox
The GCI provides a significant return on investment by acting as a tool to aid in selecting, developing, coaching, and managing leaders. It provides personalized development plans for expanding global competencies and determining an individual’s suitability for employment or overseas assignment. Within the GCI, the assessment structures the results in a triad of each test taker’s management capabilities:
- Perception Management: How the individual mentally approaches cultural differences.
- Relationship Management: How the individual develops and maintains relationships, especially with people from different cultures or ethnic groups, as well as assessing these relationships’ level of importance to that individual.
- Self Management: How the assessment taker copes when faced with the challenges of living or working in a foreign culture.
These results outline an individual’s specific management capabilities. The GCI provides actionable strategies for the assessment taker and their organizations to move forward with data and tools for a leader to successfully navigate their global position.
Successful Global Leadership Through Strategic Information
Leadership is a highly complex and nuanced endeavor, especially in a diverse or culturally unfamiliar environment. By learning how a leader or potential leader responds to cultural differences and work relationships, especially unfamiliar cultural situations, a global leader can become more effective. Employing strategic information ultimately educates individuals on how to become the most successful global leader. This is the goal of the Global Competency Index.