Developing Global Positioning Leadership

Fieldwork Learning in Cuba

This book presents both an experiential pedagogy and a process of developing “global positioning leaders”  “intent on developing compassionate, culturally appropriate, and mutually beneficial relationships with their global south partners seeking sustainable development for the common good rather than seeking to score a financially profitable deal at the expense of their partners.”                                                                                             

My experience of teaching “Leadership in International Contexts” of a selected Global South country, led me to write this book. Since the initial offer of  “Leadership in the International Contexts of South Africa” in the summer of 2009, over 150 doctoral and MA students from a variety of departments throughout the University of St. Thomas and beyond have participated in this cross-cultural exposure in South Africa (2009-2011), Tanzania (2012-2014), Cuba (2015), and Brazil (2016-2017). This program proved so successful, as measured both by student satisfaction and by their becoming globally positioned leaders, encouraged me to put the approach into writing.  This approach which I have utilized for the purpose of this field experience program seems adoptable and   adaptable to engage other adult learners.

The purpose of this book is fourfold. First, the book makes a contribution to the field of leadership, particularly as it centers on the concept of “Global Positioning leadership.” This, I define as a capacity that makes leaders who are aware of the   socio-economic contexts of both the Global North and the Global South, position themselves globally by analyzing the contexts of global development/underdevelopment, and creating leadership responses to the challenges of sustainable development, thus transforming leadership practices both locally and globally.

            Second this work builds upon a qualitative analysis of how the students perceived their worldviews changing as a consequence of embarking on this program.  Using a form of grounded theory strategy (Charmaz, 2013), I compiled and analyzed various data from the student journals and their field experiences as they became available to me. The pedagogical approach I used for the course has led to a leadership model, which I will discuss later in this work and which I dubbed Global Positioning Leadership. This pedagogical and leadership model can also inspire colleagues teaching and training future leaders in Global Leadership or similar disciplines.

Third there is an instructional intention in presenting a book of this nature. I hope that colleagues and scholars searching for a methodological approach to their study abroad and eager to try an alternative delivery of their cross-cultural experiences overseas can also benefit from the guidelines this book proposes.

Finally, the book serves as record keeping because it documents some aspects of the exposure students and I had while analyzing the leadership intricacies of such an intriguing country as Cuba. I have been haunted, so to speak, by past unrecorded programs in South Africa and Tanzania, which constituted a loss of memory for students, parents, colleagues, and host communities. For example, students who have invested their time and learning in the global immersion program may wish to reminisce in a more vivid way the once-in-a-life time experience they lived as a cohort. Next, potential participants in similar abroad courses could benefit from past students’ experiences by debunking some of their preconceptions about the culture they intend to immerse themselves in. Additionally, college professors elsewhere, who actively engage their learners in cross-cultural teaching and traveling, could expose themselves and their students to positive insights as well as avoid eventual pitfalls. While the University of St. Thomas may include such a publication among similar scholarly literature which other colleagues have produced, it should point out the unique contribution this work makes in the field of global leadership as a whole.