Managers Vs. Leaders: Tips for the Asian Executive

You can't request more than 20 challenges without solving them. Your previous challenges were flushed.

Managers Vs. Leaders: Tips for the Asian Executive

by Knowledge@SMU, 28 October 2011

topics:
Professional Development

tags:
leadership Professional Development

“There are plenty of good managers, but finding a real leader is not that easy,” Fabio Landazabal, vice president and regional director for Asia Pacific at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said at a CEO talk organised by Singapore Management University’s Wee Kim Wee Centre.

With some 3,800 (and growing) employees in the region alone, the world’s number three pharmaceutical player (by revenue) is paying greater attention than ever in building up its leadership capabilities for its future.

For the first half of 2011, the Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan), represented 6.7% of GSK’s US$20.9 billion total turnover. The numbers are climbing. “You are in an incredible growing place,” said Landazabal. “When I started at GlaxoSmithKline, the places to work were in the Western countries. But now, the market is turning to emerging countries.”

According to IMS Healthforecasts, emerging markets will account for 28% of global spending on pharmaceutical products by 2015, compared with 18% in 2010. By contrast, the share of developed markets is expected to decrease. Forecasts for the US, for example, suggest a decline to 31% in 2015 from 41% in 2005.

Breaking the Asian stereotype

In order to develop their business in Asian emerging countries, international companies need local talent. Yet they struggle to find it.

To some extent, Asian supervisors are seen by many Western corporations to be good managers, but poor leaders. It would be easy, for instance, for the assertive and expressive Western manager to interpret the modest behaviour of his or her Asian colleague as being too accommodating and submissive.

Another stereotype of the Asian manager is that he or she will often be too rule-abiding to be a leader – a perception that may lead some Western companies to cast Asian managers in roles that may be unnecessarily limiting. Landazabal noted that such perceptions point to a lack of intercultural understanding.

“Just look what the Singaporeans have done over 15 years,” he said. “They have turned an emerging market into a developed country.” There are many more examples of such visionary leadership in Asia that Western companies can learn from, he added.

But a local manager who succeeds in breaking out of the stereotypes to become a global leader – a ‘glocal’ leader, as Landazabal terms it – should retain an Asian character and think for the local market. “At the same time, he has to connect to the global company with its style of communication,” said Landazabal. Singapore might offer up examples of this, with its conjunction of openness to the world and its mix of cultures, he opined.

And beyond culture and communications, the difference between a leader and a manager is that a leader manages people while a manager manages tasks.

You can always improve

Submitted by James Loftcraft on 19 December 2011 - 3:29am

You can always improve yourself by enrolling for an executive leadership development program. The business market of today is a very dynamic environment where changes happen all the time. Who he manages to adapt fastest will always be on top.

Comment on this article

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Comment: *

Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <a> <p> <span> <div> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <img> <img /> <map> <area> <hr> <br> <br /> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <table> <tr> <td> <em> <b> <u> <i> <strong> <font> <del> <ins> <sub> <sup> <quote> <blockquote> <pre> <address> <code> <cite> <embed> <object> <strike> <caption>
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Use  to create page breaks.

More information about formatting options

Verification Code

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

What is the fifth word in the phrase "azemo qelut owoti ikoban ahun"?: *

Accounting and Regulations

CFO innovation Asia Accounting and Regulation the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Accounting Regulation, IFRS, US GAAP, Tax, investor relations, corporate governance, Corporate Law, Financial Regulators, Internal Audit, Audit, Corporate Law.

Auditing, Investor Relations, Law and Compliance, Tax

Finance and Banking

CFO innovation Asia, Finance and Banking the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Corporate Finance, trade finance, treasury and risk management, capital expenditure, Banking, mergers and acquisitions

Cash and Liquidity Management, Corporate Finance, Insurance, Treasury Management

Management

CFO innovation Asia the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Finance Management, Corporate Governance, Human Resource Management, Compensation and Benefits, Mergers and Acquisitions, Professional Development, Corporate Real Estate, Risk Management, Budgeting and Forecasting, Business Process Management, Business Process Reengineering, Outsourcing.

Budgeting and Planning, Business Expense Management, Human Capital Management, Outsourcing and Shared Services, Risk Management

Metrics

Corporates, Financial Services

Technology

CFO innovation Asia Technology the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Finance Systems, Business Intelligence, EPR, Accounting software, CRM, Cloud Computing, Telecommunications, Business Process Outsourcing, Business Process Management Software.

Business Intelligence, Enterprise Software and Systems, Financial Systems, Security

CFO innovation ASIA