Corporate Leadership in India

“The leaders of India’s biggest and fastest growing companies take an internally focused, long-term view and put motivating and developing employees higher on the priority list than short-term shareholder interests.” This according to Peter Cappelli, Harbir Singh, Jitendra V. Singh and Michael Useem in “Leadership Lessons from India,” (HBR, March 2010). With statements from HCL (an IT company) such as “employee first, customers second” it really seems like successful Indian companies are focusing on their Human Resources. 

Here’s how successful corporate leadership is achieved in India along with further comments (“et alors”):

Corporate Leadership in India 

The authors state that the companies in India “typically attributed the success of their companies to employees’ positive attitudes, persistence, and sense of reciprocity, which the executives inspire in four specific ways:”

Creating a sense of mission

“Indian leaders have long been involved in societal issues, preemptively investing in community services and infrastructure… being encircled by throngs of destitute people, seeing that needs are stark and government intervention is inadequate”. Further, “the social missions of Indian companies are integral to their strategy and often the route to profits. Indian companies often interweave strategy and social mission.”

Engaging through transparency and accountability

“Indian leaders also build employee commitment by encouraging openness and reciprocity. They look after the interests of employees and their families, and implicitly (or sometimes explicitly) ask employees to look after the company’s interests in return. HCL’s ‘Employee first, customer second’ policy, supported by initiatives designed to make employees feel more personally responsible for the company’s offerings and give them a voice with upper management, does exactly this.”

Empowering through communication

“So that engagement will translate into action, Indian leaders go to considerable lengths to empower employees, although this challenges the traditional Indian deference to hierarchy. At HCL, for example, an online system allows employees to create quality-control ‘tickets,’ much like those on an assembly line. Further, “empowering employees by helping them find their own solutions, Jagdish Khattar, the former managing director of the automaker Maruti Udyog, echoes a sentiment common among Indian leaders: ‘Throw issues to them, let them examine and come back to you with solutions…’”

Investing in training

“Indian companies invest heavily in employee development—often more so than Western companies. This is partly to ensure that employees have the tools to do their best work, but it’s also designed to strengthen their commitment to the company.” For human resources development, ‘managing and developing talent’ was the focus of the majority of companies: “by and large, [Indian executives] see no trade-off between recruiting and development, and they expect their firms to pay attention to both.” 

Et alors?

The article goes on to consider if any of these ‘approaches’ of leading are transferable outside India and concludes that there are two (of the four) that can be applied anywhere: 1/ investing in training – even in a high turnover environment, where training might seem ‘risky’, it can actually help retention; and 2/ strengthening the social mission – not just the feel-good ‘make the world a better place’ but ‘real’ social missions that actively engage the staff and are in line with the business.

The other two approaches are referenced as particularly contextual. The organizational culture most likely to evolve in Indian corporations according to the national culture is a ‘family’ organization where one key senior ‘boss’ serves like the head of a family. This can be easily managed in a small organization, but for larger organizations, this ‘strength’ becomes challenging to capitalize on: hence the engaging through transparency and communication. India scores very high on Hofstede’s ‘power-distance’ index – in other words, there is a very strong sense of hierarchy. This can result in employees relinquishing responsibility ‘up’ the hierarchy so that only person taking decisions and being accountable is the boss! By empowering through communication, this ‘challenge’ is addressed.

Global Organisations

The Economist recently reported that “companies in developed countries do themselves nothing but harm if they fail to think globally” (Schumpeter, “Bumpkin bosses,” 10 May 2014). The focus of the article was that despite the global credentials of many organisations, the C-Suite executives tend to remain not only local but parochial in perspective; and as a consequence, opportunities are often lost (from emerging markets worth $20 trillion by 2020 according to McKinsey). Citing a study by Bain & Co, Western companies with subsidiaries in emerging markets increased their profits there by an average of 15%; however comparable companies from those emerging markets were increasing their profits in the same period by 23%. So what seems to be the problem?

Only 12% of the CEOs from Fortune 500 companies hail “from a country other than the one in which the company is headquartered.” Those companies that do have a “foreign” CEO tend to have up to 50% of senior managers who are also “foreign”; those that don’t have only 10% equivalent. The relative parochialism can “impose huge costs in terms of reduced creativity, missed opportunities and cultural blundering.” Worse, things look bleak for the future: it is becoming more difficult to recruit high potentials abroad who tend to look at these statistics and hence prefer to work for local companies; and simultaneously the proportion of expats overseas in the biggest multinationals in the biggest emerging markets is reducing (56% to only 12% in the 10 years to 2008). So, what to do?

Here’s what global organisations can do to make sure they really act global, along with further considerations (“et alors”):

Global Organisations

The Economist suggests three things an organisation should do to avoid the “evils” of parochialism:

Move Managerial Functions

By moving location, parochialism can be avoided. Proctor & Gamble relocated its global cosmetics and personal-care unit from Cincinnati to Singapore; General Electric moved its X-Ray business from Wisconsin to Beijing; and Schneider Electric moved its CEO from France to Hong Kong.

Move Managers to Headquarters

By increasing the proportion of “foreign” managers, parochialism can be reduced. The article refers to Bertelsmann as posting “successful local managers” to head office for a few years; and Daimler-Benz has “decreed that half the participants in its programmes for young high-flyers must come from outside Germany.”

Move Managers to Emerging Markets

By getting managers out to emerging markets, managers can become more cosmopolitan which will help the organisation be more multinational in outlook and behaviour. IBM and FedEx are cited as encouraging their executives to provide consulting services to emerging-world subsidiaries. 

Et alors

These are all good ideas and many multinational organisations already do all of the above; yet the corporation still might not be achieving its full global potential. It’s not what you do or where you do it, it’s also how you do it. Many “international” organisations with one principle headquarter tend to be “ethnocentric” in nature, viz: “centred on the culture of origin of the enterprise (head office) which keeps all the principal authority (centre of decisions) and distributes its values to the entirety of Group subsidiaries. Communication is principally by instruction from the head office to the subsidiaries and head-office management occupy key posts in the subsidiaries.” (O. Meier (2008, 3rd ed.), “Management Interculturel. Strategie, Organisation, Performance.”)

Moving managers out from head office to emerging markets can actually maintain the parochialism; as can moving foreign talent to head office and then simply returning them to their country of origin. To defeat parochialism and to truly benefit from being global, managers should not be thinking of a career centred on any one particular head office: instead all talent should be moved in all directions. If your head office is in the USA and there are worldwide subsidiaries including (say) China, the organisation needs to think beyond just sending Americans to China and vice versa; instead the Americans might go to China and then somewhere else – likewise the Chinese might go somewhere else first without passing by head office and or keep on rotating. Only then will the company start to be truly global both in outlook and behaviour!

Leadership Numbers

“Happy New Year!” A message that you might have sent to tens, hundreds or even thousands of colleagues or associates! What about followers? As a leader, how many followers did you reach out to personally (not just a broadcast mailshot)? On reflection, you might be wondering how many people you can lead and if the number you are targeting is large, what is the most effective way to organise for effective leadership? The answer might be found in “Dunbar’s number and other evolutionary quirks” (R. Dunbar, 2010, Faber). This evolutionary anthropologist asserts that there a maximum number of followers that you can “conceivably juggle”.

Here are the numbers relating to leadership along with further considerations (“et alors”):

Leadership Numbers

Drawing on the work of Dunbar and others, here are the key numbers:

One

You can’t lead anyone if you can’t lead yourself! If you do not know yourself, then you cannot expect that others will know you; and if they are confused, doubtful or distrusting, then they are not going to follow you. Potentially the most important number in leadership: 1!

Six

Your immediate “group” is what might be known as a team. Various definitions of “effective” teams put the number of participants between 4 and 12 persons; however many researchers assert that the optimal number is six. 6 should be your immediate group of followers.

Thirty

Dunbar cites military platoons of around thirty persons being similar to the size of an “extended family” and accordingly members of this group (if united by a leader) are “prepared to sacrifice themselves in defence of the group.” 30 should be your next circle of followers.

One-hundred-and-fifty

Dunbar’s research into friendship (those to whom you would lend a small amount of money and whom you contact at least once a year) highlights that if the group is cohesive and less than 150 persons, then everyone will be prepared to fight for everyone else. 150 is your “direct” limit.

Et alors?

After 150, leadership becomes “indirect”. This is important to know in organisations as you will no longer have the direct impact on all the individuals and the group itself will be a “group of groups” with each subgroup subject to other forces or influences. So how can big organisations “unite” behind the one leader at the top? Can a New Year’s corporate broadcast really be effective when the numbers are greater than 150? Potentially not – more effort has to be made if the leader wants to unite the whole organisation. What is needed is essentially an engaging hierarchy (not just a bureaucratic hierarchy): the leader will have to inspire, motivate and engage the 6, the 30 and the 150 to such an extent that not only are they engaged themselves, but they can then further lead others. Senior leaders really have to be the “leader of leaders”!

American and French Leadership

Can American-style leadership work in France and vice versa? Hofstede considered this in some of his early work focusing exclusively on his review of “power distance” (the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally) and “uncertainty avoidance” (the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these). In “Motivation, Leadership and Organisation: Do American Theories Apply Abroad?” in Organisational Dynamics, Summer 1980, Hofstede surveyed and then plotted the power distance and uncertainty avoidance of 40 national cultures which resulted in 6 different clusters. If we further assume that leadership is related to organizational culture, then by cross-referencing Hofstede’s work with Mintzberg’s organizational cultural categories, we can address the question: can American-style leadership work in France and vice versa?

 

Here’s an overview of Hofstede’s and Mintzberg’s work focusing on American and French cultures before answering the question (in “et alors”).

 

American and French Leadership

 

The American and French national cultures (Hofstede) appear to relate to certain organizational cultures (Mintzberg) as follows:

 

American

 

With a low power distance (40%), hierarchy is only established for convenience, superiors are always accessible and managers rely on individual employees and teams for their expertise. Both managers and employees expect to be consulted and information is shared frequently. At the same time, communication is informal, direct and participative.

 

American culture is uncertainty accepting (46%). Consequently, there is a larger degree of acceptance for new ideas, innovative products and a willingness to try something new or different, whether it pertains to technology, business practices, or foodstuffs. Americans tend to be more tolerant of ideas or opinions from anyone and allow the freedom of expression.

 

Clustered with Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries (which all exhibit low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance), American culture tends to correspond with Mintzberg’s “Adhocracy” organizational configuration. The “key part” of this configuration rests with the managers and support staff who ensure there is a “mechanism” of mutual adjustment (i.e. continually adapting).

 

French

 

With a high power distance (68%) power is highly centralized and hierarchy is needed if not existential; the superiors may have privileges and are often inaccessible. In management, the attitude towards managers is more formal, the information flow is hierarchical. Even the way information is controlled is associated with power and therefore unequally distributed.

 

France exhibits one of the highest uncertainty avoiding cultures (86%). Certainty is often reached through academic work and concepts that can respond for the need of detail, context, and background. Teachings and trainings are more inductive. In management structure, rules and security are welcome and if lacking, can create stress. Therefore planning is favored and some level of expertise is welcome; however change is often considered stressful.

 

Clustered with Latin counties (which all exhibit high power distance and high uncertainty avoidance), French culture tends to correspond with Mintzberg’s “Simple Structure” organizational configuration. Like a “family”, the “key part” of this configuration rests with the “strategic apex” (top management) who ensure there is a “mechanism” of hierarchical supervision (and is generally conservative).

 

Et alors?

 

The reason Hofstede focused his early work on power distance and uncertainty avoidance was to answer the question, “do American theories apply abroad?” Given the above, it is clear that in France the answer is no and this equally applies to French theories (relating to motivation, leadership and organization) in the USA. Given the cultural context there is little, if any, compatibility meaning that it is unlikely that American-style leadership will work in France and vice versa.

 

In Mintzberg’s “adhocracy” American-style leaders will have full delegation to advance in a pragmatic manner with projects and will be rewarded for not only succeeding but learning from failure. In the “simple structure” the French-style leaders will revert all decisions to the strategic apex and constantly pass detailed information up the hierarchy (and failure is not tolerated). The differences between these two organizations suggest that is unlikely that the leadership-styles are transferrable!

 

With both Hofstede and Mintzbeg’s work there are some similarities and overlaps with other cultures. For example Latin cultures might find it easier to engage and work with Asian cultures which exhibit high power distance (even though they generally exhibit a different attitude towards uncertainty avoidance). Whilst there are overlaps with some cultures, there is no overlap with American and French cultures making it difficult for leaders of either culture to operate effectively in the other.

 

Leading across Cultures

In Singapore this week I attended a very interesting lecture by Prof. Yee of Nanyang Technologicial University regarding Cultural Intelligence. In essence, in order to lead across cultures it is not only “local” cultural knowledge which is required but “global” cultural intelligence. Comprised of “drive”, “motivation” and “action” (as well as “knowledge”), cultural intelligence is particularly pertinent for global leaders who may have to adapt to many different and varied cultures, by either location and/or by team composition. In this context, Prof. Yee further referenced an article from Rockstuchl et al, “Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) and Culture: a Meta-Analysis of Correlates of LMX across 23 Countries”, 2012, American Psychological Association.

Rockstuchl et al. performed a meta-analysis of the quality of leadership (low, medium or high) as per various LMX studies according to the national cultural values of where the study had been conducted. The results were further synthesized according to “horizontal-individualistic” cultures (low power-distance acceptance and individualistic, read “Western”) and “vertical-collectivist” cultures (high power-distance acceptance and collectivist, read “Asian”). In summary, the quality of the leadership has a higher impact in Western rather than Asian cultures regarding the followers’ sense of justice, leader trust, job satisfaction and turnover intention (being mainly attributed to collectivist tendencies in Asian cultures). Moreover, focusing on cultural intelligence, there were some further observations…

Here’s a summary of leadership quality assessment which was NOT different according to culture, followed by further implications (“et alors”):

Leading across Cultures

The research showed “three intriguing” findings which highlighted that “the way in which cultural values affect the leader-member relationship is very complex.” The findings were that the relationship between LMX and the following three items were NOT different in Western and Asian cultures:

1.       Task Performance

The results showed that members of both cultural configurations appear to require the necessary work-related information and resources afforded by higher quality leadership to perform well.

2.       Commitment

It appears that followers from both cultures perceive their leaders to be acting as agents of their organizations, thus commitment appears to be inspired by the quality of the leadership.

3.       Transformational Leadership

The conjecture is that because of their “appeal”, transformational rather than “transactional” leaders are more effective across cultures. Accordingly, leader-member relations are good in both cultures.

Et alors?

The central tenet of the LMX is that leaders do not treat each subordinate the same. This is the very essence of leadership both by and with diversity. Cultural intelligence is therefore very important even if it is to be aware that good quality leadership does NOT necessarily increase the sense of justice, leader trust, job satisfaction and turnover intention amongst all followers in collectivist cultures. This in itself is useful information for global leaders to know so that they can adapt accordingly! When it comes to task performance, building commitment and making transformations, the leadership has to be of good quality in all cultures. The challenges for the global leader are therefore twofold: having to be both a good leader and culturally intelligent!

Leading Across Borders

Asia’s top companies are now looking to become regional and global players and yet the biggest constraint to their internationalisation efforts could be a lack of cross-border leadership talent. A recent study by Egon Zehnder International and Singapore’s Human Capital Leadership Institute (HCLI) indicated that building a pipeline of leaders capable of succeeding across borders was one of the top priorities for Asia-based CEOs. HCLI explored further with a seminar as to how companies can better identify and develop global leaders from Asia. The results of that review have been published in HQ Asia, Issue 4, 2012, “Leading across borders: Playing global, staying Asian”.

Here’s how to lead across borders along with further implications (“et alors”).

Leading Across Borders

In describing the DNA of “successful leaders across borders”, despite the high-level of seminar participant diversity (with representatives from many countries and industries), there was a high-level of consensus that there are three key cross-border leadership characteristics, viz:

Comfort with Discomfort

Successful cross-border leaders seem to not just tolerate discomfort and ambiguity, they seem to “embrace it.” They recognise the need to act decisively without possessing complete knowledge of the situation (realising that learning from a poor decision is better than no decision at all).

Competences required: curiosity, positivity and perseverance.

Judicious Relationship Building

Successful cross-border leaders appear to be able to not only overcome cultural misunderstandings but establish trust and build alliances across cultures. Good relations are nurtured but with prudence so that they are the right relations with the right people.

Competencies required: observation, listening and learning agility.

Authentic Adaptation

Successful cross-border leaders stay true to their own cultural roots: they adapt their behaviours according to the environment but also stay authentic realising that total assimilation into another culture would rob them of their unique value-adding differentiators.

Competencies required: strong self-awareness and inter-cultural sensitivity.

Et alors?

The study concludes that “as companies are beginning to realise, cultural differences should not be managed away. Rather they should be recognised, celebrated and leveraged.” In this respect, Asian companies are not unlike companies anywhere else in the world. For organisations who happen to have a regional or global agenda, various anti-discrimination laws might mean that that cultural differences are at least “recognised” (to some extent); however there is still some work to be done to both “celebrate” and “leverage” cultural diversity.

In the wider context, this relates back to one of the three key characteristics: authentic adaptation. If an organisation is global-but-centralised, with one predominant culture, then it is likely that there will be a corporate culture of assimilation. Diversity might be recognised but at the same time expected to adapt fully to conform with the dominant culture. If that mind-set persists, then leaders will find it very hard to successfully lead across borders because they will be unable to retain their authenticity and with it their “unique value-adding differences.”

The conclusions of the review are particular pertinent when it comes to leadership development: whilst the three key characteristics are noted as essential for successful cross-border leadership, how does an organisation identify and develop such talent? The key “tips” collected from the seminar were 1/ Avoid confirmation bias by extending your selection beyond those who are immediately visible; 2/ Use intercultural diagnostics (e.g. “Cultural Intelligence Scale”, “Intercultural Awareness Profiler” and “Global Mindset Inventory”); and finally 3/ Be objective in your talent selection process – have assessment centres to determine potential and then develop accordingly.

Leadership and Decision Making

Decision-making is fundamental to leadership: coming up with ideas, exchanging information, reviewing proposals and directing resources are all aspects of leadership and decision making. So how do you best make decisions as a leader? The answer depends on where you are in your career in terms of leadership: “senior”, “mid” or “entry” level and whether those decisions are made in public or in private. This is according to Brousseau, Driver, Hourihan and Larsson in their 2006 article, “The Seasoned Executive’s Decision-Making Style”, Harvard Business Review.

According to their research, approaches to decision making differ in two ways: the use of information (“satisficing” with little information or “maximizing” with more information); and the number of options generated (“single focus” with one option and “multifocus” with many options). Mapping these two axes yields four decision-making styles. Further, people appear to use different styles in public (the “leadership style”) than they do in private (the “thinking style”) and the most appropriate styles to use evolve according to leadership seniority.

Here’s a summary of the four styles and the evolution followed by further implications (“et alors”).

Leadership and Decision Making

There are four styles of decision-making:

1.       Decisive (little information, one option)

·         The private thinking style is direct, efficient, fast and firm

·         The public leadership style is action-focused and comes across as task-orientated

2.       Flexible (little information, many options)

·         The private thinking style is about speed and adaptability

·         The public leadership style comes across as social and responsive

 

3.       Hierarchic (more information, one option)

·         The private thinking style is highly analytical and considered “final”

·         The public leadership style is complex and highly intellectual

4.       Integrative (more information, many options)

·         The private thinking style is broad and uses many inputs for many solutions

·         The public leadership style is creative and highly participative

These styles show a particular evolution over the course of a leader’s development:

For public leadership, the most appropriate decision-making style at “entry” level is “decisive” whereas the least applicable is “flexible”. At the “mid” level these start to inverse and temporarily equate with the other two styles. At “senior” level, the most appropriate decision-making style is “flexible” (whereas “decisive” is relegated to last place).

For private thinking, the most appropriate decision-making style at “entry” level is “flexible” whereas the least applicable is “integrative”. At the “mid” level these start to inverse and temporarily equate with the other two styles. At “senior” level, the most appropriate decision-making style is “integrative” (whereas “flexible” is relegated to last place).

Et alors?

How you decide in public and private appear to be diametrically opposed; however this is not irrational. For a first-line supervisor, minimal information and a single option is appropriate for “decisively” leading task-orientated decisions “on the shop floor”. Nevertheless, in private, the “entry” level leader is actually “flexibly” thinking about various different options, even though reviewing lots of information might not be possible. For a “senior” leader, the accent is on flexibility in public – leading with options from little information. At the same time, the leader needs to think in an “integrative” manner to consider both more options and obtain as much information as possible.

According to the research of 120,000 individuals the hierarchical style never appears to be the most or least appropriate leading or thinking style. For both public and private decision making, the hierarchical style has mid-range prevalence at the “entry” level which then dips at the “mid” level before recovering to a higher prevalence at the “senior” level. Only amongst Europeans and only in private for thinking decisions did the hierarchical style prove successful at a “senior” level (above “integration”). What is interesting is that otherwise, having reviewed the results regionally, (Asia, North America, Latin America and Europe), these evolutions in both leadership and thinking decision-making styles “follow the same trajectory across all four continents”.

This has some implications for the development of global leaders: 1. If all leaders start their career thinking flexibly, they should develop and adapt this style into the public space to lead flexibly (more options even with little information). 2. Decisiveness has its moment early in a leader’s career but becomes less significant (both privately and publically) later. 3. Unless in Europe and in private and then only at senior level, the hierarchical style should be used with care! 4. For private decision making, the art of the “integrative” decision style should be developed: at senior level, seek more information to make more options – look outside and beyond your normal frame of reference.

Leadership in a Global Context

One article and one survey result, both coming from McKinsey Quarterly, highlight the need for diversity and leadership particularly when operating globally. In the article “Is there a payoff from top team diversity” April 2012, Barta et al., conclude from their studies that between 2008 and 2010, companies with more diverse teams were also top financial performers. Studying return on equity (RoE) and the earnings (EBIT) of 180 companies from France, Germany, the UK and the USA and comparing them with the number of women and foreign nationals on senior teams, they found that companies in the top quartile of executive-board diversity had an average of 53% greater RoE and 14% higher EBIT than those of the least diverse companies.

In the survey of 4,666 executives at global companies, Acquila et al., conclude in “Managing at global scale” June 2012, that the respondents are “satisfied with their organisation’s overall capabilities but see room to improve in innovation and motivation. Better leaders are key.” Regardless of the company type or current performance, respondents indicated that “developing leaders who are culturally and functionally proficient across regions is a key to more effective multiregional operations.” Whilst reviewing the survey results for local strengths, organic growth advantages, and operational scale, the survey also focused on how executives thought that operations could be improved.

Here’s a summary of ways to improve operations followed by further implications (“et alors”):

Leadership in a Global Context

The top six suggestions by percentage of respondents who selected each statement as a way to make their organisation’s operations more effective are:

1.       Develop leaders who are culturally and functionally proficient across regions

2.       Improve formal and informal networks to maximise use of expertise across divisions and/or regions

3.       Drive innovation more effectively across regions and divisions

4.       Adapt organisational structure to improve balance between global standardisation and local responsiveness

5.       Strengthen performance culture and performance-management practices

6.       Build capabilities in a few key value creating processes and roll them out globally

Et alors?

Some of these are easier said than done (such as “driving” innovation); some are classic global/local dilemmas which are always a challenge (such as points number four and six); and some are more visionary than concrete (such as points two and five). However, they all come under the context of “global” leadership and the first point clearly summarises it with a feasible objective. As the authors state, better “leaders” are key when operating globally. What the respondents appear to want is more culturally “proficient” leaders who can effectively work across different national and corporate cultures. This desired improvement appeared to apply to all companies including those who were already succeeding with a global strategy. For a global company, besides education, exposure and experience, cultural proficiency amongst leaders might be more easily achieved by having a diverse talent pool from which to identify, select and develop leaders. Leadership and diversity appear to go hand-in-hand in a global context.

As the authors of the first article mention themselves, even though they have highlighted the correlation between diversity and performance, they cannot be certain of a causal link. For example, it might be that successful companies have more time and resources to dedicate to ensuring they are diverse rather than diversity being the cause of greater success. There is also the interesting case of France where contrary to the other countries in the study, for the more diverse companies the RoE was 6% less (whereas, like the other countries, the EBIT was still greater)! How could that be? Perhaps it is the French corporate focus on savoir-faire rather than savoir-etre whereas many other cultures rely on a mix of the two to ensure enhanced business performance with greater diversity mainly contributing to the latter rather than the former.

The other hypothesis is that the French culture is so strong that it is “immune” to diversity! The assumption in France is that non-French nationals arriving to work in France will have to “adapt” to the local culture in order to integrate. However, in cultural terms, a better interpretation of the word “adaptation” is most probably “assimilation”. The real expectation is that the foreigner will become completely assimilated into the French culture. Notwithstanding the relative merits (or not) of this philosophy, the end result is that by the time the non-French national is assimilated, all the possible benefits of diversity in terms of performance (for example, different and broader perspectives) are completely neutralised. Better leadership might be the solution! Not only might the operational performance of French companies operating globally be improved, but so too might the benefits of diversity be leveraged. Leadership and diversity appear to go hand-in-hand in a global context!