The World is Flat...And so are Leadership Competencies

To succeed in today’s economy, organizations must possess global leaders with the right knowledge, experience, and competencies. However, many multinational companies resist identifying and developing talent globally largely because of the assumption that global leaders in different regions of the world possess and need significantly different skills.

 Korn/Ferry has been tracking leadership competencies or skills around the world for the past 10 years. A multi-rater assessment instrument – referred to as VOICES® – has been used to measure 67 different leadership competencies. In total, 7,575 managers and executives from six different regions were evaluated in this study. Our study found that the “world is flat” pertaining to leadership competencies. The relative strengths and weaknesses of leaders – and the relative importance of these strengths and weaknesses – were very similar across the six regions.