Study Reveals Global Leader Competencies Required for Competitive Market Advantage

Genpact One of Key Sponsors of New Study by the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI)

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Oct 29, 2015, 07:00 ET

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NEW YORK, Oct. 29, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Findings released today by the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) suggest that global employees need to master a pivot, prioritizing certain behaviors with superiors and global stakeholders, to project credibility. Projecting credibility puts rising leaders on the radar for sponsorship at headquarters. The findings, published in Growing Global Executives: The New Competencies, are based on multi-market interviews, focus groups, and survey data from employees in Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, the US and the UK. Genpact (NYSE: G), the architect of the Lean Digital^SM enterprise, is one of ten sponsors of the study.

Across all markets, six behaviors help rising leaders project credibility. Yet the data reveals that each market weights these behaviors differently. Sixty-two percent of senior leaders in the US and the UK say that demonstrating authority projects credibility. The reverse is true in growth-hub markets: fifty-seven percent of global stakeholders in Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, and Turkey say that demonstrating emotional intelligence wins the trust and respect of teams in local markets.

"It is crucial for rising leaders to learn to flex or pivot their leadership style as they work to both build trust across local markets and credibility and buy in from senior leaders at headquarters," says Sylvia Ann Hewlett, founder and CEO of the Center for Talent Innovation. "Companies need to ensure that rising leaders in local markets develop the skills they need to win in this global marketplace."

Gender further complicates the prioritization of certain behaviors with senior leaders and global stakeholders. Asserting authority and exercising emotional intelligence look different for men and women. In Brazil, China, India, Russia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan, respondents believe that female leaders should demonstrate authority in a reserved way, whereas men are expected to flex it more assertively. In India, for example, 82 percent of respondents say men should be assertive in demonstrating their authority, whereas only 44 percent say that women should do the same.

A survey of six key markets (Brazil, China, HK, India, the UK, and the US) reveals that multinational employees who succeed in earning the advocacy of a senior leader at headquarters – a sponsor –are more likely to be satisfied with their career progression than employees with local sponsors (83 percent versus 68 percent). Multinational employees with sponsors, moreover, are more likely than employees without sponsors to have asked for and received a promotion (76 percent versus 47 percent).

Additional key areas that employees must master to become effective global leaders include developing inclusive leadership behaviors and becoming proficient at virtual communication. Leaders who behave inclusively are more likely than leaders who do not to foster collaboration across cultural divides. Global team members with inclusive leaders are four times as likely as global team members with non-inclusive leaders to say they embrace the input of team members whose background/experience differs from their own (88 percent versus 22 percent). According to the study, leaders who listen carefully, maintain regular contact with team members, facilitate constructive arguments, give actionable feedback, take feedback and act on it, and share credit for team success unlock the innovative potential of team members.

Further, rising leaders must project credibility and drive value virtually, a reality that demands the technical mastery of virtual meeting platforms and mobile communication applications. Virtual collaboration can also be optimized by implementing strategies that are effective in eliciting feedback/response. Fifty-seven percent of respondents say that distributing pre-reads that communicate key talking points and allow for careful reading before the meeting will ensure team objectives are met when meeting virtually. Forty-six percent say that sharing an explicit agenda prior to the meeting and sticking to it will also ensure that objectives are met.

The report features best-practice examples from multinational companies like Genpact that have extensive programs to develop their rising global executives.

"I realized early on in my career that great leaders are great learners, and what makes someone a great leader is curiosity," said Tiger Tyagarajan, president and CEO of Genpact. "We have always moved young leaders across businesses and functions, knowing that if they were hungry enough to learn, they'd acquire what they needed to know in order to succeed. Genpact's approach to global expansion involves sourcing talent locally for our delivery centers and then grooming these men and women for leadership roles beyond their borders after a few years."

Growing Global Executives: The New Competencies will be launched today via three livestream sessions (London, New York, San Jose) co-hosted by Pearson and Cisco. Panelists include Tiger Tyagarajan, CEO of Genpact; Trevor Phillips, Deputy Chair of the National Equality Standard; and Karyn Twaronite, Global Diversity & Inclusiveness Officer at Ernst & Young LLP. The book is available for purchase on Amazon.

Research Sponsors
American Express, Bloomberg, Cisco, Ernst & Young LLP, Genpact, Goldman Sachs, Intel, The Moody's Foundation, Pearson, Sodexo

Research Authors
Sylvia Ann Hewlett is the founder and CEO of the Center for Talent Innovation and Hewlett Consulting Partners LLC. A Cambridge-trained economist, her research focuses on global talent management and the retention and acceleration of highly qualified women and other previously excluded groups. She is the author of twelve critically acclaimed books, including Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013) and Executive Presence (Harper Business, 2014). Hewlett has taught at Columbia and Princeton universities. In 2014, the European Diversity Awards honored her with its Global Diversity Award.

Ripa Rashid, managing partner at Hewlett Consulting Partners LLC and senior vice president at the Center for Talent Innovation, specializes in global talent strategies and has spent over a decade as a management consultant. She has held senior positions at MetLife and Time Warner. A graduate of Harvard University and INSEAD's MBA program, she has lived and worked in North America, Europe, Asia, and South America, and speaks four languages. She is coauthor, with Hewlett, of Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets: Why Women Are the Solution (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011).

About the Research
This research consists of a survey, Insights in-Depth® sessions (a proprietary web-based tool used to conduct voice-facilitated virtual focus groups) involving more than 54 people from our Task Force organizations, and one-on-one interviews with 48 men and women in Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, and the US. Survey data comes from two large-scale samples of college educated respondents over the age of 21 currently employed full-time. Survey 1, conducted online between November 2014 and April 2015, includes 12,029 men and women (1,005 in Brazil, 1,005 in China, 1,001 in Hong Kong, 1,004 in India, 1,004 in Japan, 1,001 in Russia, 1,001 in Singapore, 1,002 in South Africa, 1,003 in Turkey, 1,003 in the UK, and 2,000 in the US). Survey 2, conducted online in May 2015, includes 6,014 men and women (1,007 in Brazil, 1,001 in China, 1,001 in Hong Kong, 1,000 in India, 1,004 in the UK, and 1,001 in the US). Data were weighted on gender, age, income, and ethnicity in the US, and gender and age in all other countries. The entire multinational sample had an additional weight to be balanced across all countries. The base used for statistical testing was the effective base.

About the Center for Talent Innovation
The Center for Talent Innovation is a non-profit think tank based in New York City. CTI's flagship project is the Task Force for Talent Innovation - a private sector consortium focused on helping organizations leverage their talent across the divides of gender, generation, geography, and culture. The 83 global corporations and organizations that constitute the Task Force, representing nearly six million employees and operating in 192 countries around the world, are united by an understanding that the full realization of the talent pool is at the heart of competitive advantage and economic success.

About Genpact
Genpact (NYSE: G) stands for "generating business impact." We architect the Lean Digital^SM enterprise through a unique approach based on our patented Smart Enterprise Processes (SEP^SM) framework that reimagines our clients' middle and back offices to generate growth, cost efficiency, and business agility. Our hundreds of long-term clients include more than one-fourth of the Fortune Global 500. We have grown to over 70,000 people in 25 countries, with key management and a corporate office in New York City. We believe we are able to generate impact quickly and power Intelligent Operations^SM for our clients because of our business domain expertise and experience running complex operations, driving our unbiased focus on what works and making technology-enabled transformation sustainable. Behind our passion for technology, process, and operational excellence is the heritage of a former General Electric division that has served GE businesses since 1998. For additional information, visit www.genpact.com. Follow Genpact on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.