Globalization and its Implications for Global Leadership

Abstract

Defining globalization and global leadership is a daunting task. Both are relatively new terms and phenomenon, yet were born out of the integration of diverse constructs. The challenge to global leaders is in properly contextualizing the meaning and expression of globalization in their organizational lives. The advent of rapid communication and knowledge transfer technologies has given rise to a tightly integrated global economy, which serves as a proxy definition of globalization. This global economy, however, must interface with more antiquated geopolitical infrastructures. Supranational institutions, such as the World Bank, World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, European Union, and North American Trade Organization (NATO) all represent attempts to resolve the discord between the economic and political realities of the global landscape. Analyzing contemporary literature on the matter identifies that global leadership must also straddle the political and economic realities of globalization to act as an interface mechanism to build sustainable and humanistic organizational lives for individuals who are experiencing a greater array of identities as social spaces close and cultures collide.