Give International "Assignments" to People That Don't Want to Relocate

Yes, it sounds counter intuitive, but a recent analysis conducted by the Corporate Leadership Council called The Global Leader (subscription required) has found that the people that make the largest impact and thrive best in an international business leadership role are people that don't want to relocate overseas.  That's right, people that desire to live in a culture other than their home country are, in aggregate, not the most successful international leaders.  There will be exceptions, of course, but this finding flies in the face of conventional wisdom.

The report (based on a survey of more than 11,500 leaders at 35 organizations, mostly located outside the US, and more than 200 HR executives) doesn't mean that good global leaders should stay at home and administer via command-and-control management practices from headquarters.  Quite the opposite.  The same surprising, in some ways counter-intuitive, report found:

• Frequent travel (at least one week a month) to key international offices was critical.
• The ability to influence correlates lowly with successful leadership in a single geographical location but turns out to be the number one factor for success with international responsibility (ie, command and control undermines global leadership roles).  Related tid-bit:  International responsibility turns out to be one of the best ways to develop influencing skills.
• Leadership ambition, more than a desire for exposure to other cultures, is more important for a leader's success in the global arena.  Related:  Being successful has far more to do with understanding local markets than with understanding local cultures.

Other benefits of this travel-not-relocate prescription:

• Far lower personal cost for the employee.
• Far lower failure rates for the enterprise.
• Far lower business costs.

The strident take away:  Give international responsibility to people that don't want to move overseas, but who have a strong ambition (and potential) to increase their leadership responsibilities -- and keep them on the road.