We live in a world that is more connected than ever. Globalization at its peak with more and more companies going international and off-shores; the internalization of a company can be a window towards endless opportunities but everything comes at a certain price and with a lot of effort; companies find themselves facing many challenges while managing a multicultural entity.

In this article, we will attempt to demonstrate the elements that allow good and successful leadership within a multicultural environment.

In order to become a successful leader of  multinational corporation, you are constantly required to improve your circle of competence by enhancing your skills, and opting for a multicultural management approach , a multicultural environment in a business  context refers to  a group of participants from different countries or regions interacting and bringing different values to an economic entity.  We can define cross- cultural management as the study of the influence of societal cultures on managers and management practices as well as the study of the culture orientations of individual managers and organizations members.

One of the key elements that can be mentioned when it comes to leadership in a global context in the notion of “cross-cultural leadership” this term refers to leadership in which a leader endeavors to influence the activities and goals of a culturally diverse group by appealing to their systems of shared knowledge and meaning. Cross-cultural leadership recognizes the moderating effect that culture can have on leadership processes. It also seeks to discover the similarities and differences between cultures as to what is generally considered to constitute appropriate and inappropriate leader–follower relations. In order for a leader to have successful interactions within an international context, he/she will have to try to understand the culture, respect it,  abide by it and search for similarities in order to relate to it so that the business goes smoothly and with the least amount of difficulties. We like to think of the cross-cultural leadership as a gradual approach and one that takes time in order to develop and succeed. 

International companies need to understand the fundamentals of intercultural interactions and the culture in which they operate in order to have a successful leadership experience and opt for a multicultural management strategy that takes into consideration all the elements that a culture represents.

In today’s globalized reality, organizations have to benefit from the innovative and productive input from a culturally diverse team. The only way to achieve this is to assure a high quality communication, that every team member implements: one’s knowledge, motivation, skills, behavior and effectiveness to avoid cross-cultural misperceptions.
A leader has to develop his/her communication skills to coordinate the work of his/her team; without continuously improving communication techniques, the message will not reach its goal and so the work too will crash at the hand of confusion and misinterpretation. The fundamental key is to deal with a cross- cultural communication as you would with any and every managed activity: by determining a target, outlining what to do, and checking afterwards that you have attained that objective. With using, during each step, communicative resources, such as gestures, language, and voice, effectively. Only in this way, you can lead the team and build an efficient communication behavior. Intercultural communication competence is more than delivering, accepting and understanding a message, the message must also affectively achieve the communication purpose, punctual, situational, and on target.

The most effective metaphor is definitely to see leaders as sport coaches. At the beginning, they sit on the bench, observe, and read the different needs of their players, and then they integrate and simplify the complexity, indicating the strategy for the game. In doing so, they need to be flexible and adaptable to the context and to the players.
The key factor in being a successful leader is the combination of the person and the situation surrounding him/her, which can be also defined as situational leadership. In this framework, self-awareness, self-regulation and organizational awareness play a crucial role in understanding how to act and behave in a given context with a given group of people to achieve a certain objective. The key for great leadership is the ability to embody more than one style at a time and to alternate them. A great example of international leader is Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan and Renault, once declared in an interview “Leaders of the future will need to have a lot more sensitivity and global empathy, not just for people from their own countries, but also for people from different countries and cultures”.
In conclusion, if we bear in mind our coach, we can review our module on intercultural teals and leadership. Anytime we meet someone different from us, we need to start by looking at ourselves, being aware of our strength and recognizing them in others is the key to being a successful leader in every situation and, in particular, in an intercultural environment.

Authors : 
• ELMASKAOUI Nabila
• ELAASRI Inasse
• ELKADIRI Zayneb
• ELOUAZZANI Imane

Resources :
•Marturano Antonio and Gosling Jonathan (2007) “Leadership: the key concepts”, Taylor-Francis, 256 pages.
•https://www.cubiks.com/insights/what-does-it-take-lead-across-cultures?fbclid=IwAR1dW0BErDwHGPe_Njj7B2QR04PMk2kAw9LOgssSli3uoCPndiawypmmnno
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuHj3jsBdKE&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2IM6_r4hMCjOS4A-1-P7dgyucCFPxvANQacrqWwnKlyAfHO5pKkyYBIt8
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M78uLYYrePI&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3FK0pkexocKGQ15tjUNp6aByK2hq3qHrWGD53nzlvVm2ckJpYXgZAAmQE
•https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199846740/obo-9780199846740-0074.xml
•https://www.myaccountingcourse.com/accounting-dictionary/multinational-company