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Global-leadership competency models often emphasise a one-size-fits-all view of global leadership that is inconsistent with the reality of globalization and the diversity of work performed by global leaders, especially when considering the socio-economic and political landscape across Asia vs the West. A company may therefore find it useful to focus on a smaller set of key competencies across all of its global leaders, whilst allowing for customization to support the diversity of roles that fall under the broad category of global leadership. Generally global leaders need to be comfortable dealing with complexity and demonstrate stress & change tolerance, risk taking, openness & adaptability, catalytic learning agility and cultural awareness.

Cultural adaptability is a key competency, including the need to understand your own culture and lens and how you compare on a comparative cultural scale of competencies with other cultures impacting [….]

For any global business, there are few markets more critical than China. For anyone interested in business in China, there are few better events than the Hay Group International Conference held in Shanghai last November. The theme of the conference was “Leading Transformation” and it featured luminary speakers like Song Lin (Chairman, China Resources Company), Zhou Yun Jie (Vice Chairman, Haier), and Yu Liang (President, China Vanke). Hay Group has consulted closely with many leading companies in both the East and the West. HQ Asia sat down with Stephen Kaye – President and CEO of the Hay Group – to distil his insights on how the best companies in the world drive change and lead transformation.

Change before you need to

In contrast, Kaye argues that the best companies drive transformation – even at the heights of their success. As an example, he [….]

Unilever Thailand’s Talent & Organizational (T&O) Readiness Initiative was recognized as a winner of this year’s Asian Human Capital Awards, awarded by the Singapore Ministry of Manpower. Khun Nardrerdee, Vice President HR, Unilever Thailand and Indochina, was at the Singapore Human Capital Summit to receive the award. Catherine Mudford and Perez Loh spoke with her and Drew Fernandez, HR Director – Total Customer Development, Food Solutions & Indochina Region, to find about more about this award-winning people practice.

Khun Nardrerdee joined Unilever Thailand in 2010 and worked with the rest of the Company’s leadership team to develop and launch the T&O Project that same year. The T&O Project involves the designing of an inspiring and bold ambition to make Unilever Thailand into an ‘unbeatable’ organisation that excels in a highly competitive market place.

Khun Nardrerdee explained that “Unilever Thailand’s vision is to double [….]

Does leadership evolve? Fu Pingping, Xu Liguo, and Perez Loh argue that the changing personality traits of some of China’s most prominent business leaders have influenced both their leadership styles and business success. For decades, it was commonly believed that personality traits — be they motivations, abilities, or patterns of behavior — remained relatively stable. In the US, one of the largest and longest nationwide surveys followed thousands of people from the 1930s through to the 1980s. Researchers found that while habits may evolve, core personality traits generally did not change over time. However, research by Professors Fu Pingping, an Associate Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Xi Youmin, Executive President of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, and Xu Liguo, a doctoral candidate at Xi’an Jiaotong University, shows that some personality traits do evolve.