Discover Your True North

12Global Leadership

The organization model of a global company by 2020 is going to be very different than the traditional Western model. The culture that comes with it must be entirely different.

—Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever

In this final chapter, we examine the challenges of leading in the global world. Corporate leaders recognize that today's interconnected and global world requires that they have new competencies. In global roles, you will be asked to demonstrate geopolitical savvy, reinvent business models for emerging markets, build diverse teams, and redesign organizational models. Thriving in this complex environment requires qualities above and beyond those of authentic leaders. To help you prepare for global leadership, we introduce the concept of global intelligence, or GQ, and explore how to develop the traits of GQ leadership.

Paul Polman: Transforming Unilever's Global Leadership

Under the leadership of CEO Paul Polman, Unilever has transformed itself into the leading global consumer products company. Polman was born and educated in the Netherlands. He spent 26 years with Unilever's archrival, Procter & Gamble, many of them in the United States and Europe, and then three years with Nestlé as CFO and head of the Americas. As the first Unilever chief executive recruited from outside the company, he faced a challenging turnaround when he became CEO in early 2009. For two decades, Unilever's revenues, profits, and market capitalization had been declining. In his interview ...