When you descend for the 'royal visit': a few leadership tips for interacting with your global teams.

• Author: Khan, Omar
• Position: GLOBAL LEADERSHIP

BUSINESS LEADERS who oversee global enterprises often do not reflect adequately on what real value-addition would look and feel like from the perspective of their teams overseas.

For example, many businesses have placed a high percentage of their growth bets in Asia. That being the case, global leaders insist on convening numerous meetings with their overseas senior teams and/or making numerous visits themselves each year.

At the overseas end, all business grinds to a halt when senior directors or the global managing director descends for the "royal visit." Rather than concentrating on serving the market, engaging customers, or building a robust leadership pipeline, local leaders call a halt to important work and, instead, gear up for presentations, field trips, and staged interactions with employees. As one senior CEO said to me, "Given how pristine the paint jobs always are, how beautifully manicured the gardens, you'd think we spend all our time as interior decorators and landscape artists."

Although we can blame our local leaders for pandering in this way, the pandering implies adapting to someone else's expectations. If we weren't flattered by this almost whimsical attention, we'd send a clear message that such "ring kissing" and diffidence isn't what we're after.

Suppose you want to be different and to exercise the strategic influence that would be a positive catalyst for your worldwide leaders. How can you and I, as a member of a senior global team, make a meaningful impact? Here are some suggestions:

1. Minimize the number of command performances for your leaders. Plan two or three meetings that everyone attends. One should be strategic, another a business review, and the third a talent evaluation where real global career development is considered.

   All these meetings should have clear, expected outputs, and should encourage wide-scale interaction. If part of the purpose of these meetings isn't to build relationships, share diverse perspectives, and enlarge everyone's paradigms, we're wasting time.

2. When making trips, ask your local groups what you could do that would be most valuable. Minimize formal presentations and meetings and, instead, spend more time together. It's amazing what valuable ideas can flow when there is enough time for dialogue, exploration, and the sharing of imagination. Real time together very often produces real insights.

3. Use all your interactions as "coaching opportunities," not "audits." Make certain all...