Washington Lawyer - July/August 2019 - 39

GLOBAL & DOMESTIC OUTLOOK
They also ranked self-organization, flexibility, and a
commitment to growth as important characteristics of a strong leader. Understanding such shared
values and priorities can help you build a rapport
with your counterparts and establish the basis for
further collaboration.

UNDERSTAND YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE
Knowing your own leadership style is an important first step to understanding how you can
best collaborate with others. Rieva Lesonsky of
SmallBizTrends.com describes three basic leadership styles - autocratic, delegative, and democratic - first identified by psychologist Kurt Lewin
in 1939. Autocratic leaders are task oriented and
used to making decisions themselves, while
delegative leaders leave almost all decision
making up to their colleagues and subordinates.
Democratic leadership lies somewhere in the
middle, with leaders basing their decisions on
substantial and ongoing feedback from their
subordinates.

DEVELOP YOUR OWN
CULTURAL FLUENCY
Jane Hyun, founder and president of the global
leadership consulting firm Hyun & Associates,
and Doug Conant, founder and CEO of
ConantLeadership and a bestselling author,
suggest three ways to improve your cultural
fluency as a leader. First, they recommend

consulting an assessment tool like the Intercultural
Development Inventory for an objective view
of your cultural fluency. Second, they suggest
remaining curious and open to alternative ways of
management. Finally, Hyun and Conant emphasize the need to remain nonjudgmental in the
event of conflict. Seeing things from your counterpart's perspective is the best way to avoid
misunderstandings.

BUILD TRUST WITH COLLEAGUES,
NO MATTER WHERE THEY ARE

model that relies on horizontal cooperation
among leaders and colleagues, as opposed to a
top-down, hierarchical approach. According to
Hurley, collaborative leadership positions firms for
success in a globalized, always-on economy. He
explains that a key part of collaborative leadership
is leading through conversations. In this model,
a leader's role is to facilitate dialogue rather than
relay orders. This leadership model has a greater
potential for flexibility and adaptation to the different cultural norms that might be reflected in
an international team or firm.

One of the perks of the modern information
economy is the ability to work from virtually
anywhere with an internet connection and to
collaborate with teammates and colleagues
located anywhere in the world. But there are
downsides to this decentralized model. Remote
work misses out on the face-to-face interaction
that, whether it happens in meetings or at the
water cooler, builds trust and cohesion among
coworkers. Tsedal Neeley, an associate professor
at Harvard Business School, recommends making
time in conference calls for small talk and introductions to help build trust among far-flung
teammates.

According McKinsey & Company's 2018 "Delivering
Through Diversity" report, there is a positive correlation between greater ethnic, racial, and gender
diversity in company workforces and their success
in the market. In particular, McKinsey found that
companies with more ethnically or culturally
diverse executive teams were 33 percent more
likely to outperform their peers in profitability. The
report suggests that companies that successfully
meet the challenge of working across cultures
internally are better equipped to reach out to
clients from diverse backgrounds.

RECRUIT A DIVERSE WORKFORCE

PROMOTE COLLABORATIVE
LEADERSHIP
In a white paper for Oxford Leadership, Thomas
Hurley describes collaborative leadership as a

Images: iStock

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http://www.SmallBizTrends.com

Washington Lawyer - July/August 2019

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