Ray Leki is the director of the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Institute's Transition Center and has worked with thousands of travelers – students, workers, negotiators, soldiers, diplomats, plant managers, and tourists – helping to increase their chances for success in their missions.
Leki just released a book titled Travel Wise: How to be Safe, Savvy and Secure Abroad. In an age when an international voyage is as easy as it is unsettling, people need a variety of skills to cope with the unknown. Simple country information is not enough but cultural competence as well as a clear understanding of one’s tolerance for risk is critical.
Travel Wise combines insight and practical advice to guide individuals’ and organizations’ decision-making when going international and help develop the right attitude and the approach for a successful mission abroad.
Competencies for International Success
Leki’s book is an analysis and a guide to international success. Leki defines international success as business success or any general individual mission that leads one to travel abroad. Leki takes a closer look at the factors that help predict, diagnose, and plan for international success strategies. Usually books around this context center around cross-cultural competence, business savvy, and the “can-do” spirit.
Leki takes it a step further by integrating a series of competencies that are proven and empirically matter into model that is much more comprehensive and much more realistic. It guides readers to plan for success by incorporating cross-cultural and business competencies with security and interpersonal skills.
Furthermore, he encourages the reader to clearly define and understand the motivation that is driving the individual or organization to go overseas in the first place. What is it worth? With a basic risk assessment one can make an informed decision about being effective abroad. According to Leki, a lack of understanding of these competencies, the traveler will have a hit or miss experience overseas.
In a recent interview with Suite101 Ray Leki shared his leadership lessons emphasizing that leadership is primarily an emotional skill set. In his experience what separates great leaders from good leaders is not just to be a brilliant visionary and being able to communicate that vision but the capacity to connect emotionally. He emphasized that those are the leaders that can capture the hearts, the soul and spirit of people and in crisis they are the ones that can give hope. In Travel Wise he translates this emotional intelligence to being humble, aware and open to learning.
Confidence Building & Hope
Suite101 wanted to know what advice he would give to emerging global leaders in this new economic reality. In the age a worldwide economic crisis, characterized by bankruptcy, job losses and dips in the stock market, it’s not enough for leaders to just fix the problem but to assure the public that there is hope and this is not an insurmountable problem. It’s about giving hope and rebuilding confidence.
Through his work Leki has an opportunity to meet and talk with people that he considers real heroes and true leaders. Not all of them are in top positions. What fascinates him the most as he debriefs someone coming from high stress posts and assignments like Pakistan or Afghanistan is the response he gets when he asks about their experience overseas. He emphasized "what really means something to these folks is not the progress they made but the strong relationships they formed with each other and their leaders. Often under conditions against all odds, they never lose their spirit or hope."
Time again, Leki hears someone say that they couldn’t have done it without their boss and when asked what it was their boss did, it’s not always easy to articulate the support they received form their superiors. Leki ascribes this to the care and concern and spiritual bond their leaders are able to form with their teams. It continues to inspire Leki’s work because in his view those experiences is what truly captures the spirit of human beings.
Read more about Ray Leki and his interview in The Human Dynamic of Leadership – An Interview with Ray Leki.
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