Strengthening Global Leadership Studies

Leadership is contextual and the global context is the macro-context that shapes and defines the other leadership contexts. As an area of inquiry, the study of globalization or global studies focuses on providing knowledge on the global context. However, the field of leadership studies is mostly disconnected from the studies of globalization. This chapter highlights the four disconnections between globalization and leadership (with a focus on global leadership), which hinder the healthy and timely development of leadership studies. First, globalization theories include three themes, convergence, divergence, and hybridization, and they are inadequately reflected in leadership studies. Second, globalization goes hand in hand with localization, but most of the leadership literature falls into either universalism or particularism. Third, the literature in globalization informs us that colonialism/postcolonialism, Western imperialism, and Americanization are heavily involved in the process of globalization and accelerate the global inequality, which leads to scholarly ethnocentrism permeating the studies of leadership. Fourth, globalization provides new opportunities and problems, but leadership studies have not produced enough insights for leaders and followers to seize global opportunities and confront global problems. This chapter examines these four disconnections and proposes remedies and a way forward to strengthen leadership studies, particularly the study of global leadership.