client, who ultimately hired her away from Landor to work for him as his chief marketing officer in Dubai. Part of his ready acceptance of her was attributable, she feels, to her Lebanese surname and Mediterranean appearance. Her cultural intelligence served her well (“I know not to walk up and touch a man in traditional dress”); it helped, too, that she was conversant in geopolitical affairs and attuned to religious customs. But what made all the difference, she concedes, was that her boss was under the age of forty-five, “because men his age in the UAE have all had serious exposure outside the Emirates.” He had in fact been educated in Geneva before becoming a top hedge fund trader with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, “so he was quite modern in his approach,” she explains. “He could accept pushback; he wasn’t put off by my directness.” Even though, in the end, she says, it was his way or the highway, “he did trust my opinion.” That wasn’t the case, she stresses, with his board of directors, who were a generation older. “With them, at our annual general meeting, I was persona non grata,” she says. “At that age level in the Middle East, all eyes go to the Arab male in the room.”
The Pivot Payoff
Rising leaders who alter their leadership style—their gravitas—as they pivot among stakeholders are rewarded for their cultural sensitivity and contextual intelligence: they are more likely to advance in their careers. Our data show that leaders who pivot well horizontally, earning the trust and respect of their team, are more likely to be satisfied with their career progression than team leaders who haven’t (74 percent vs. 61 percent); that trend holds with leaders who pivot well vertically, and have won the attention and support of senior leaders: they’re more likely to be satisfied with their advancement than leaders who haven’t (75 percent vs. 65 percent).
Projecting credibility is a critical competency, as it earns trust and respect among various stakeholders across the divides of distance and difference. Yet it’s only half the journey that emerging leaders must make to be candidates for global roles. Global leaders leverage the trust they’ve built to drive market success. In the next chapter, we’ll look at how they do that: how they unlock value across distance and difference, and how they win the buy-in of senior stakeholders to ensure that market-worthy ideas and cost-cutting solutions get implemented.
2
Driving Value: Unlocking Ideation, Winning Endorsement
As president of Intel India, Kumud Srinivasan is tasked with more than just oversight of the chipmaker’s operations in Bangalore. India is Intel’s third-most important R&D site, delivering on commitments across servers, clients, PCs, and phones. To grow Intel India, Srinivasan must ensure that her subsidiary applies its talent and infrastructure to grow both the global and the local market—by innovating wherever the market is leading (for example, mobile health and transportation solutions) or coming up with ways to drive up server, PC, and tablet use. “We’ve achieved a solid reputation for execution,” she says of her team. “The next battle is for us to go beyond that, to build our reputation as innovators.”
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