Apr. 30 – Development Dimensions International, a global executive talent resource firm, have issued a research report on the differences between managers in China and India, titled “Finding the Global First Rung”. Surveying 1,373 front-line leaders in both China and India, the report found that compared to their Chinese counterparts, Indian managers were more self-confident.
“Leaders in India were significantly more confident with 41 percent confident from the start itself. Overall, 81 percent of leaders in India and 63 percent of leaders in China felt confident to lead within the first six months,” according to the report’s authors, Bradford Thomas, Amogh Deshmukh and Louis Liu.
Why don’t companies have enough “ready-now” frontline leaders in China and India? questioned the report.
In answer, the report showed that the trend in both countries was that companies were relying too heavily on promoting technical experts, and these tend to have more significant leadership skill gaps than leaders of other backgrounds. 42 percent of Chinese managers surveyed were promoted due to technical expertise; the same was true for 26 percent of Indian leaders.
China also stood out for companies’ use of internal mechanisms to elevate managerial potential, with 36 percent of leaders gaining their position through their organizations formal development programs. In contrast, only 12 percent of Indian leaders and 10 percent of American leaders arrived through this route.
A complimentary copy of the report can be downloaded here.
