Winning with Transglobal Leadership: How to Find and Develop Top Global Talent to Build World-Class Organizations
Linda Sharkey, Nazneen Razi, Robert Cooke, and Peter Barge
McGraw-Hill (2012)

A brilliant examination of the critical leadership dimensions for business success in an increasingly global world

I agree with Marshall Goldsmith (as I usually do) that, in this book, Linda Sharkey, Nazneen Razi, Robert Cooke, and Peter Barge “take leadership to the next level” by increasing the scope and depth of its impact. They provide an abundance of information, insights, and counsel that can be of substantial benefit to (a) those who aspire to become global leaders and (b) those now entrusted with global leadership responsibilities who are determined that their efforts will have much greater value.

In fact, I presume to suggest a third category of beneficiaries, (c) locals either associated with – or aspiring to be associated with — world-class organizations who also want to become global leaders and play an active, productive role in finding and developing others’ global talent.

Sharkey, Razi, Cooke, and Barge organize their material as follows: “Part I provides the background for the research, describes its design and analysis, and summarizes how we conducted our study. The co-authors also identify and explain the five behavioral dimensions of transglobal leaders and presents the Transglobal Leadership Matrix (Page 149-150. ”Part II of our book is designed to give you a complete picture of what it takes to be a transglobal leader. This part goes into detail about the new realm of diversity in which all of us will be immersed as globalization becomes more and more prevalent…Part III of this book is designed to help you assess how well your company and people are poised to do business globally and how much of a global mindset they really have. This part will help you look at the makeup of your company and assess where the weak points may be and what to do about them.”

These are among the dozens of passages I found to be of greatest interest and value, also listed to suggest the range of subjects covered during the course of the book’s narrative:

o The Interconnectivity of the New Business World Pages 11-15)
o The Complexity of the Global Environment (29-32)
o Business Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, and Global Intelligence (51-70)
o What We Learned [from Recent Research, including interviews] 98-108
o Table 5.1. Transglobal Versus Local Leaders (119-120)
o Mini-Case Study: Accenture (164-165)
o Talent Orientation: Achieving Through People (174-182)
o Transglobal Leaders’ Reactions to Each of These Megatrends (185-190)
o Assessing Your Current Organization at the Enterprise Level (200-208)
o Assessing Your Current Organization at the Individual Talent Level, and Building an Action Plan for Change (211-213)
o Assessing and Selecting Global Talent (221-225)
o How to Develop the Five Transglobal Leadership Dimensions, and, Accelerating Current Transglobal Leadership Growth and Capabilities (231-236)
o Table 9.1. Transglobal Leadership Survey: Self-Report Results (246-247)
o Steps for Achieving Transglobal Leadership Capability: The Recipe for Success (250-252)

When concluding their brilliant book, the co-authors make three very important points: “Above all, the most important strategy is to get personally involved in making your team and yourself true transglobal leaders! Get your transglobal leaders together, and ask them to share innovative [i.e. much better] approaches that would have helped them advance and that will help their successors succeed in the global world. Most importantly, enjoy the journey!” I join with them in offering a heartfelt “Bon voyage!”

No brief commentary such as mine can possibly do full justice to the scope of material that Linda Sharkey, Nazeen Razi, Robert Cooke, and Peter Barge provide in this volume but I hope that I have at least suggested why I think so highly of Winning with Global Leadership. Also, I hope that those who read this commentary will be better prepared to determine whether or not they wish to read the book and, in that event, will have at least some idea of how to find and develop top global talent that could perhaps be of substantial benefit to their professional development as well as to the success of their own organization.