is its own country, reflective of, but not limited to, the leadership norms of the country (and industry sector) in which it’s based. As Rosalind Hudnell, a global leader at Intel, puts it, “Corporate culture is defined by the people and norms of the organization, which continue to evolve. Our global employee base is made up of ambassadors for Intel around the world.”
Our dataset affirms this divide between the West and growth-hub geographies. If we aggregate data from our US and UK samples, where most multinational firms are headquartered (certainly most of CTI’s eighty-six Task Force members are headquartered in North America or Europe), a familiar array of boardroom behaviors emerges as salient. According to senior leaders in these markets (“the West”), demonstrating authority (after showing integrity) is what projects credibility. Demonstrating emotional intelligence is at the bottom of the list.
In growth-hub markets, however, the reverse is true: when we aggregate our data from Brazil, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, and Turkey, we see that gravitas derives from inspiring a following and demonstrating emotional intelligence. In essence, being authoritative makes you credible with Western top brass, whereas exercising emotional intelligence is likely to earn you the trust and respect of your team in local markets.
We heard countless stories to this effect. Nicolas Japy, who runs his division out of Singapore, arrived before Sodexo’s new office complex there was completed. The local manager, mortified that he had only a small room to offer to a member of the firm’s executive committee, insisted that Japy take over his own office. Japy wouldn’t allow it. “You’re a somebody here, and others should see that when they walk into your office,” he told the manager. “You’ve built this team, you’ve built this business, and it’s thanks to your success that we’re able to build a new facility in Singapore. When it’s ready, I’ll have a nice office. Until then, the small room is fine.” Though it cost him some credibility with Western visitors, Japy says that in the end it won him the undying loyalty of his new team in Singapore. “You’ve got to show your people that if everything goes right where they’re based, they have a future not just in their country, but in the company,” he remarks.
Gender Matters
Pivoting is further complicated by cultural expectations around gender—and by where the parent company is on the maturity curve of gender equity. In many markets (and in many corporate cultures), asserting authority and exercising emotional intelligence look very different for men and women.
Take, for example, one executive’s experience running a team in Bangalore from New York. Having created a standardized approach to pricing for the firm’s clients worldwide, this exec wanted his direct reports to abide by it. To ensure that they did, he created a new template. So it was with some annoyance that, during a pricing call with his Indian team, he discovered that the team hadn’t complied. “Use the template,” he implored the team manager. Six weeks passed, and still, the team used the old pricing model. So he called the team leader and, with the entire team on the phone, spelled out why the pricing philosophy had changed, why it would be adopted, and why he would tolerate zero deviations going forward.
He got through. In the wake of that call, the new philosophy took hold.
“Being direct, with no ambiguity, works in India; it cuts through the relatively nuanced nature of communication there,” explains this executive, who’s lived and worked throughout Asia. “It’s a chaotic country. Everybody does things differently. To get through, to develop consistency, you have to be incredibly direct. I made myself very clear, publicly. And now they’ve gotten it right.”
Contrast this approach with that of Sylvia Metayer, CEO worldwide of Sodexo’s Corporate Services Segment. Asserting authority in Eastern markets is not always the best way to get cooperation, she says. Metayer, who’s based in France, describes a recent meeting she had with important clients in China, who were accompanied by translators. The head of the Chinese delegation opened the meeting by addressing one of Metayer’s local managers, a man who barely spoke Chinese. Once the translator had finished and a response had to be given, Metayer leaped in to provide it—taking care to preface her remarks by stating that she spoke on behalf of Sodexo’s board. Made suddenly aware of her seniority, the head of the Chinese delegation, who was poised to present his gift to the local manager, froze with embarrassment. “Clearly he didn’t know who to give the present to,” Metayer explains. To help him save face, she took her local manager by the hand so that together they might accept the client’s gift. It was precisely the right gesture. “Everybody burst out laughing,” she recalls. The tension dissipated, allowing the meeting to culminate in a deal satisfactory to all parties. Metayer believes that handling the situation with any less emotional intelligence on her part would have cost her team its foothold in China with this client. “The client realized he had made a big mistake forgetting that these Westerners have women who are quite senior,” she explains. “My job at that moment was to prevent his mistake from becoming a business problem.”
Across all markets, we find, women are consistently expected to demonstrate emotional intelligence by being aware of others’ emotions, and acting accordingly—as Metayer did. For both men and women, of course, emotional intelligence is vital to projecting credibility in emerging markets, but it’s interesting that EQ for women is being attuned outwardly while for men, it’s being attuned inwardly. In China, for example, fully 67 percent of survey respondents thought women should be sensitive to other people’s feelings in conducting business, whereas only 36 percent believed that men should. Men are expected, rather, to act in accordance with their own emotions (as 64 percent of respondents in China agree).
Gender norms similarly dictate that in many markets—Brazil, China, India, Russia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan—female leaders demonstrate authority in a reserved way, whereas men are expected to flex it more assertively. In India, for example, a whopping 82 percent of our respondents thought it appropriate for men to be assertive in demonstrating their authority, whereas only 44 percent thought it appropriate for women to do the same. In Brazil, 79 percent agree that men should assert their authority, while only 46 percent believed women should do the same.
Gender matters somewhere in the practice of every single gravitas behavior. Take, for example, the imperative of demonstrating integrity, which lends credibility to men and women in all markets. How to do so varies: you can show integrity by conducting business in a way that is consistent with your own core values, or by conducting business in a way that is acceptable in the society where you find yourself. In China and Hong Kong, expectations of what projects integrity skew by gender. Fully 60 percent of respondents in China, and 54 percent in Hong Kong, feel that women should allow societal values to guide their business dealings; whereas 69 percent of respondents in China, and 72 percent in Hong Kong, feel that men should be guided by their own core values in any transaction.
Inspiring a following is another way for men and women to project credibility, particularly in India, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. One can inspire a following by setting a personal example, or by articulating a compelling vision: expectations on what works best vary by culture. However, in Turkey and South Africa, expectations also vary by gender. In these countries, women leaders are expected to inspire a following by setting a personal example. Men are too, but it’s more pronounced for women.
Generation Matters
Finally, pivoting among cultural norms around authority and emotional intelligence must take into account generational differences. After all, Gen X leaders can run aground of Boomer sensibilities and jeopardize credibility even when both share the same cultural background. Yet by the same token, younger leaders may have an easier time spanning vast cultural divides, as globalization continues to shrink those divides. Many of our interviewees in emerging markets point out that they and their colleagues who were born after 1980 have either completed their degrees in Western universities or worked at a multinational firm’s headquarters. That experience seems to inform greater acceptance
