All of your best plans for the creation of a global leadership development program may be meaningless if you do not obtain the buy in of key individuals or groups. Any organizational development program needs this buy in and approval, but a truly global program is probably going to require more work on your part; after all, your key individuals and groups are probably just as diverse as your program itself. Let’s look at the best process to use when looking for buy in from those key groups.

First, it is absolutely necessary to define the individuals and groups from whom you need to obtain buy in or approval. Before we move on, let’s look at the difference between buy in and approval. You’ll need to obtain buy in from any individual or group who can push your global leadership development program forward. This could include line managers, key organizational leaders, executives, and even various work groups. The concept of buy in also includes approval, but try not to forget the people who need to approve the program before it can move forward. Divide the key people and groups within your organization and determine which ones should “buy in” and which ones should “approve”. Tailor your presentation to each group, keeping in mind the cultural differences you may encounter within the organization and its regions. Most likely, you’ll come up with an executive group, a stakeholder group, managers and front line supervisors, and key business leaders throughout your system. And each group will require you to “sell” the global leadership program from a different perspective.

Many times, the executive group is more about the cost and benefits of a program. Of course, they want to have a general idea of the scope of the program, but overall they want to know how the program will impact the organization’s bottom line. And obviously they want to know how you’ll do this in a cost effective way. When you analyzed your budget and potential expenses, you created a matrix of methods, expenses, and overall program needs, as well as the cost of each category. Use this as a tool to present to the executive group. For each piece, know what the organization stands to receive, what benefits are going to come from each piece, and at what cost. Also be aware of how each piece of you program impacts the overall goals and mission of the organization-and of each region or geographic group the program will touch. As with any training program, a cost-benefits approach will get the attention of a group of executives, especially those that may control the flow of cash. If you’re asking for a budget for a global leadership development program for the first time, start with the most ideal program components and work from there.

For the purpose of our discussion, we will group managers, line supervisors, and key regional business leaders together as “stakeholders”. Each person in these groups has a stake in the program, from the cost in time and employee presence to the expected final benefits. Stakeholders may be a more difficult sell than your executive group. Some stakeholders may see a global leadership development program as a threat to their efficiency or even to their own control over the groups they manage. This may be caused by fear over what will happen if some of their employees devote time to the program, or even fear that the individual stakeholder may not get into the program. If your leadership development program includes a succession plan, these stakeholders may see the program as an “organized robbery” of their best and brightest employees.

Your reaction to these objections should be twofold. First, find a way to meet the individual objection with facts, costs, and expected benefits. Of course, one of the best ways to handle objections is to send out a gentle reminder that the purpose of the program is to further the overall mission of the organization, and that everyone involved stands to benefit from a global impact. Second, your response to objections should take into account the regional and cultural differences you’ve already uncovered in your research. No response to an objection should be “canned” or across the board in the case of a global leadership development program.

But once you obtain the buy in and approval of your key groups, you can put those groups to work for the program. Have them “plug” the program to anyone who may be a potential candidate, using the same benefits you used with the stakeholder groups. With buy in from important groups, you’ll see that potential leaders go through the program with much more ease, and possibly quicker. Your key stakeholders will realize the value of taking employees off of the line in order to attend training, coaching, and networking sessions. And those stakeholders will start to see the value of the program as the participants develop their leadership work styles.

The final challenge you may face when implementing a global leadership development program is the challenge of managing the program-and keeping it moving forward.

After dealing with the challenges of distance and culture, the next challenge for global leadership development is how to create a leadership bench or pool that is truly global in scope. When you took the time to define leadership across the cultures that exist within your organization, you may have also begun to see potential succession patterns developing. We will discuss making leaders mobile later, but we will confine this discussion to the overall creation of a global bench.

The first step is to create the pool or bench. From the definitions you’ve collected, you should be able to create profiles of existing leaders within the organization. Plus, existing leaders may be able to begin choosing those professionals who can fit the leadership definition after going through the development program. These people can begin to fill the leadership pool or bench. Obviously getting them through the program you will create is going to be the first, and biggest, step to preparation. But how are you going to plan for succession across a diverse workforce?

There are many ways to create a bench and plan for succession if your organization is geographically diverse. First, consider the feasibility of creating leaders within a country or region-and to have them “earmarked” for those countries or regions. If this isn’t quite where the organization wants to go, consider creating the leadership bench that will prepare for succession across all cultures within the organization. This may mean that part of the development program will be temporary rotations into the person’s area of expertise or interest, as long as that rotation is outside of his or her normal region or culture.

When you analyze the populations that exist within the organization, the next step is to figure out if any patterns exist. For example, is there a high concentration of high-potential leaders in any one area? Or, on the other hand, is there a high concentration of high-professional leaders in any one area? How can you prepare these groups for the mobility of a global bench? Is part of the leadership program at your organization the acceptance of the fact that a leadership position could take a person anywhere in the organization’s entire system?

With these factors in play, you should also consider how you’ll give the leadership pool a “local” feel even though it’s not a local group. For example, you may determine that actual cultural, business, and even language training may be necessary before a particular candidate can take a position in the leadership bench. With this type of training, in addition to the development program, a potential leader can take on “local” characteristics.

Another issue that comes along with the global leadership bench is the idea of how to label your leadership benches or pools. We are all familiar with high professional and high potential leaders, but do those labels “translate” to other cultures? Plus, if you’ve chosen to go business unit by business unit, do you truly want to label your leaders or do you just want to place them as people who will eventually take over management, executive, or other leadership roles within the organization?

Another challenge related to the leadership bench is how to coach from a global perspective, which we have touched on and will touch on again. Coaching or mentoring are very important aspects of a leadership development program. But these aspects can be made more difficult by the challenges of a global organization. Are you going to create a coaching network within the geographic locations, or are you going to use technology to extend coaching to all corners of your organization?

The challenge with creating a global leadership bench is making leaders mobile-or at least preparing them for mobility. If leaders are aware of the mobility requirement, you may be able to weed out those who are truly not interested in succession. On the other hand, and this goes back to labeling your benches, you may find that high professional leaders who are content staying where they are can be great contributors to the organization and its succession plan.

The next challenge in global leadership development is the creation of training and coaching, as well as the methods of design and delivery.

Leadership development, like traditional training and development, faces traditional challenges such as distance, culture, diversity, design and delivery methods, along with budgets and workforces. We are going to take a look at the challenges you may face when implementing a global leadership development program, starting with one of the most obvious challenges: distance. If you are a local organization, you probably wonÕt deal with distance. But consider those organizations that have members spread out over a wide geography, and even across international boarders. Developing their leadership program may be a little more difficult, starting with the distance that separates them.

Any leadership development program is going to require regular meetings and training, not to mention networking and coaching. So what can you do to truly train leaders ‘at a distance’? We will discuss the development and design of global leadership development training in an upcoming installment. But before you get to that point, you must think about how you’ll bring that group together. In today’s environment, training can be delivered in many different ways, including online and via web conference. The first challenge is creating a program that lends itself to a distance format. If your organization is spread out in different countries or geographic areas, think about the budget strain that may occur if you try to bring your leadership pool together on a regular basis. Also consider the differences in time-the pool in the U.S. may be at work when the pool in Europe or the Middle East is heading home for the day. One way to bridge distance is to offer your informational training online and then have the pool meet to discuss via a web conference. Blogs and discussion boards are also helpful to groups who are separated by distance or time.

Along those same lines, consider how you’ll bring the pool together for meetings, networking, and coaching. Coaching is probably the easiest distance challenge: coaches can be chosen based on their proximity to the pool, making one-on-one, face-to-face sessions possible. Even networking meetings can be scheduled to occur between group members who are in the same geographic areas. But to make the program truly global, you must figure out a way to mix the entire pool at various points during the program. Web conferencing is a good way to do this. If the pool is small enough, the discussion can occur via webcam. If not, a web conference with interactive features will work. The idea here is to be prepared for the distance challenge before you even start the program.

Distance can also create a gap in culture. This is most obvious between groups in different countries. Obviously the way the organization does business in the U.S. is going to be different than the way it operates in Asia or the Middle East. Your program has to bridge this cultural difference, in both education and network. When you develop your program, be sure to include pieces that explain the difference between the business and organizational cultures. Even if leaders don’t move across the cultures, each person in the pool will benefit from knowing how the rest of the organization functions.

Also related to cultural distance is distance in coaching. You may be able to provide coaches in the same geographic areas, but does this make your program truly global? For example, after the leadership pool progresses, you may want to assign a coach in Japan to a high-potential leader in the U.S. How can you bring the two together without paying for the airfare and accommodation that would come with that meeting? Again, phone, web conference, and webcam can be just as effective. In a day and age when even preliminary job interviews are being held over the phone or via webcam, certainly a coaching session can occur this way, as well.

A global leadership development program will require your skill and thought in several areas. Distance is only the first, but most obvious challenge. Before you embark on the program, analyze the distance between the members of your organization on the high level. This way, you’ll be prepared to move forward with your program ready for the challenge of distance. Next, we will discuss another aspect of distance: the concept of leadership across cultures.