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Global leadership assessment for a world with no boundaries

A global mindset is critical for leadership success in today’s cross-border and cross-cultural work environment. Mercer’s global leadership assessment identifies leaders who have the openness and skillset to navigate these unique challenges.
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Businesses operate in a globally connected world. But do your leaders?

The established rules of business are changing every day, reflected in evolving trade partners, complex supply chains, and rising political and economic tensions. As digital and dispersed workforces allow businesses to work around the clock and rapidly expand, opportunity beckons — but so do known and unknown risks.

In pursuit of growth and/or to protect their bottom line, organizations are:

  • Expanding into new territories
  • Offshoring capacity
  • Diversifying supply chains
  • Mobilizing leaders in new locations

As a result, effective leaders are responding to four key shifts:

  • Country
    Understand and anticipate legal, security, data, compliance, and regulation implications as teams work across borders and jurisdictions.
  • Cultural
    Display cultural sensitivity and inclusive behavior when engaging with larger, dispersed, and diverse teams from different cultural backgrounds and values.
  • Collaborative
    Drive collaboration across temporal, generational, and digital boundaries to nurture relevant workforce skills and unlock innovation.
  • Contractual
    Bring together blended teams of full-time employees, contingent workers, consultants, and AI agents to leverage diverse skills to stay competitive.

The new rules of global leadership

As businesses expand across geographies, draw from a borderless workforce and seek out new customers, they need global leaders who can navigate challenges, see ahead and keep their workforces motivated and resilient. These qualities are no longer exclusive to expats or senior leaders. At its simplest, all leaders need global leadership skills – they are critical for anyone in the organization who needs to work across geographic and cultural boundaries to deliver results.

What differentiates leaders with a global mindset?

  • Motivated and equipped for success in an ambiguous world
  • Able to balance multiple leadership paradoxes
  • Demonstrate broad business thinking
  • Able to sense future challenges and opportunities
  • Work effectively across boundaries and cultures
  • Aware of cultural nuances and their leadership impact

Leaders today face a complex, unpredictable reality. To navigate global challenges, they must build trust, nurture future-ready skills, drive innovation and get comfortable with risk.

Yet many leadership assessments fail to pinpoint the new success factors that define effective global leaders. Organizations are often hampered by outdated views of what makes an effective leader, narrow talent pipelines, a limited idea of what constitutes potential, and a lack of focus on supporting leaders once in role –  especially for those with a global remit. No wonder 40% of executives fail within 18 months of transitioning into an international role. 

The cost of getting it wrong? Ten times the executive’s salary.

Global leadership assessment for hiring, development and readiness

Mercer helps our clients identify their leaders’ global mindset with a holistic and predictive assessment that measures five success factors:

Our clients depend on Mercer’s global leadership assessment to select leaders who are equipped for global success and ready to deliver value in critical leadership roles.

Our clients leverage insights from Mercer’s global leadership assessment to equip their leaders with targeted feedback to optimize impact in today’s global and complex world.

Our clients use Mercer’s global leadership assessment to objectively understand and accelerate leadership potential to build a strong pipeline of future global leaders. 

Why Mercer is the right partner for your global leadership assessment

  • Insight into the modern leadership reality
    Leverage our extensive skills research to learn what it takes to be an effective leader in a complex and inter-connected world.
  • Transformative experiences
    Offer an insightful and enjoyable assessment experience – whether for external selection or internal development – that benefits both the individual and the business.
  • Tailored solutions
    Work with us to customize the approach, communication & roll-out plan, and platform experience to ensure it aligns with your specific needs.
  • Cutting-edge research
    Take advantage of our proprietary tools and frameworks, including leadership paradoxes and breadth of business thinking, that are continually updated to keep pace with a changing business landscape.
  • Global capability
    Draw on our network of assessment experts to create the ideal team with diverse perspectives.
  • Lasting impact
    Change management is integrated into every project to address stakeholder needs for lasting change and ROI.
Investing in globally minded leaders who can lead where and when it matters most is the differentiator in today’s complex environment. Partner with Mercer to get it right.
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