Compares leadership and supervision training in American multinational and consulting companies; and Russian consulting, new and established companies. Current obstacles in providing leadership and supervision training in Russia and United States and Russia through foreigners’ eyes are also analyzed.

1. A Comparison of Leadership
and Supervision Training
Between the United States and
Russia
Adelina Womack

2. Current economic
conditions in Russia
 Recession
 Jobs have been reduced
 The unemployment rate in Russia reached 8.5% as of
February.
 High inflation and turnover
 Most companies have stopped hiring
 Unpaid vacation or fire employees
 No raises and bonuses
 Big layoffs in retail, construction and heavy industry
sectors

3. Current economic conditions’
influence on training
Cut their training
expenditures
entirely
Restrict their
training budgets

4. The Russian government’s influence
on training.
 No interference into the creation and execution of training programs in
companies
 Between 1997 and 2007- a nine-month program for training midlevel
managers and executives
 Five thousand participants annually took part in this program
 Focused on developing successful business management and learning
English, German and French languages
 Topics as economics, general management, marketing, business
planning, English and financial and strategic management

5. Offering leadership training
programs
USA Russia
 80 -100%  Only those companies
which face
competition.

6. Style of leadership
American Russian
 Americans apply the
same rules and values
for all situations
 Americans consider that
only good leaders have
this skill
 Such things are
intolerable
 Use different standards for “personal and
impersonal relationships
 Think that only weak people will try to resolve
conflicts peacefully and compromise
 Unlike the new generation, old Russian
managers are very unlikely to be decisive,
responsible and take initiative
 It is normal not to care about honesty in
business, to not guard proprietary
information, and to approve of bribery

7. Challenges caused by its Soviet
heritage
 Existence of blat and blatters in the companies.
 Blat is when companies rely on personal
networking with influential people from the
government while doing business.
 People who have those connections are known as
blatters.

8. Consulting companies (c.c.)
USA Russia
4,996 HR c.c. 1175 c.c. and 883 of them are in
Moscow.
 Find it difficult to meet organizations’
needs
Face reduced demand for training
programs
Started reducing prices for their
seminars by spending less time in
classrooms and moving to distance
learning

9. Consulting companies
USA Russia
 Offer separate
leadership and
supervision seminars
while only a few
companies combine
those skills.
Only a few c. c. offer separate
leadership training, which
usually includes supervision
training.
Leadership skills are often
introduced under different
names:
 coaching for managers
 management training
 corporate development program
for managerial staff
 effective manager

10. Leadership skills
USA Russia
 Problem solving
 Conflict management
 Decision-making
 Project management
 Communication
 Effective meetings
 Delegation
 Responsibility
 Empowerment
 Coaching
 Critical thinking
 Persuasion
 Managing teams
 Motivation
 Communication
 Influencing people
 Assessment of employees
 Overcoming fears
 Time management
 Managing teams
 Coaching
 Delegation

11. Russian consulting companies
These skills are taught separately.
 Empowerment
 Persuasion
 Effective meetings
 Negotiation
 Conflict management

12. Russian consulting companies
(cont.)
Consulting companies use the following formats:
 Lectures
 Case studies
 Role-playing games
 Discussions
 Teamwork.

13. New Russian company
TNK-VR is one of the leading oil companies in Russia.
Offers three leadership corporate programs known as
“Horizons”, “Perspective” and “Ascent”.
 “Horizons” is aiming to develop technical and business
skills among university graduates.
“Perspective” is focused on teaching supervisors and
managers how to manage affectively subordinates.
“Ascent” is designed to develop high potential
employees.
Lectures, mentoring and assignments.

14. Established Russian company
 Mir is one of the largest shopping centers in Russia.
 The executives take marketing, management basics, strategic
managing in changing conditions, effective manager, strategic
planning, time-management, organizational development, the
managing of subordinates, psychology of influence, mutual
partnership and unusual management styles.
 Mir uses lectures, business games, and cases to train executives.
 The high potential middle-level employees participate in an “action
learning” program offered by an outside consulting company.

15. Multinational company
Alcoa is a global producer of primary aluminum, fabricated
aluminum, and alumina.
In Russia, Alcoa is implementing a leadership succession plan
to replace employees from other countries by Russian ones.
For example, in the beginning of 2007 the company had 52
expatriates and at the end of the same year 31 of foreign
employees were replaced by Russian managers.

16. Russia through Robert Pucelik’s eyes
 Russian companies started to focus on quality, effectiveness and
professionalism in their activities.
 A few companies manage their personnel on a high level.
 Russian organizations accepted that they cannot know everything and
they need help, and started to learn through inviting outside trainers and
providing their employees with internships.
 Russian managers do not know the basics of doing business in areas like
how to create business plan, how to conduct a meeting and how to resolve
conflicts.
 Russian consulting companies do not have enough seminars for
developing the basics of doing business in Russia, while there are a lot of
workshops focused on more complicated topics.
 The western market can still learn a lot from Russia.

17. Russia through Reino Routamo’s’ eyes
Reino Routamo’s advise:
 To be patient, because in Russia it takes more than two years to
establish a sub-contracting relationship
 Forget your previous ideas and be ready to be shocked because
Russia is in the transition period from communist system to
open market economy
 Combine the knowledge of Russian and Western managers
 Progress step-by-step and do not be too slow

18. Russia through Kimberly Blanchard-
Cattarossi’s eyes
Russians tend to divide all people into insiders and outsiders.
Kimberly Blanchard-Cattarossi’s recommendations:
 Show that you are informed about Russian life
 Stay away from “West is best" attitude
 Request participant’s views
 Learn such basic Russian phrases as "Dobroe utro" (good
morning) and "Spasibo" (thank you)