In an emerging global economy traditional leadership qualities are being redefined. For today's business leaders it is no longer enough to only focus on domestic issues. As technology continues to improve and global outsourcing becomes the norm, international business deals have become very common.

"I think leaders today have to really think in global terms," said Art Data, CIO for Navistar Information Systems. "You can't ignore it and that's a fundamental change. It's a characteristic that we're looking more at than perhaps five or seven years ago."

Data has spent decades in the IT industry and has led his company through numerous transitions, including a period where Navistar grew from a $7.5 billion company to a $15 billion one. "There was no grand plan in my career that I ever had other than I told people it was destiny because of my last name," said Data.

All kidding aside, Data has the experience to recognize new trends when he sees them, and right now he predicts that tomorrow's business leaders will be need to be much more comfortable in an international setting. "I think the whole world is in that mode," said Data. "I think that the competitive nature that globalization has caused is being fully understood by all. Now people have started to experience the effects of it. The tentacles have gotten broad and are being experienced by more for some and less for others. But the fact of the matter is it's affecting everybody."

Now executives are looking for different qualities in their potential leaders that may not have been as important in the past. Qualities such as international experience, knowledge of foreign languages, and cultural awareness may now be at the top of every executive's wish list for his/her next big hire.

"In the future we will see more people that have experienced other geographies besides this one," said Data. "And I think that we are going to see more movement of people between different places of the world."

This new business leader must be equipped with a combination of hard and soft skills, meaning that he/she must have the creativity to take things in a new direction, but also have solid international experience and competent relationship building abilities, suggested Data. "It's not an 'either or', it's an 'and'," said Data.

However, not just the characteristics of our business leaders will change, but the environment that they operate in will be uncharted as well, so the most important change is perhaps the ambiguity of the process, said Data. With change comes uncertainty and today's new business leader must feel confident working without a map or past examples to follow. Many of the challenges an international businessperson will encounter will be new and perhaps never attempted before.

Different cultures may have different reactions to the same business situations. What may seem like a simple business transaction in the United States may go over completely different in Taiwan. Therefore, today's leader must always be on his/her toes and not focused on a fixed outcome before the situation is properly assessed.

"You have got to be able to deal with the ambiguity and be able to take the risk," said Data. "And I think that's different than it perhaps was in the past. We need people that can deal with ambiguities because so many of us are trying to get too analytical by dotting every 'i' or crossing every 't.' They want to know exactly the path that they should take. That's not leadership."

Being a leader also means being able to step back and let your employees operate on their own accord, said Data. It may be difficult, but according to Data a solid leader is not someone who is constantly in control. Rather, they should know their own strengths and weaknesses, allowing themselves to rely on their employees at certain times. "I believe that everybody that works for you should be better than you are," said Data. "I think part of leadership is knowing what your weaknesses are and having people under you that are better at it than you are in different areas."

Data has accumulated this knowledge over a long career that has spanned from entry level positions in his IT field to managerial experience in a global economy. And through all of that some of his earliest advice still rings true about what it takes to be a leader. Data remembers that it was his father who told him that his biggest challenge in life would be when he had other people working for him.

"He said, 'should you come to that time, you will learn that this will be your biggest challenge, and you can decide whether to make it a liability or an asset,'" said Data. "He said the technical stuff is the easy stuff. My dad was a mechanic by trade. He was technically very, very good at what he did. He became responsible for whole bunch of people that did that type of work. And he says this is different, when I pulled the wrench versus when I have the whole bunch of other people doing it."

And while Data may not be pulling any wrenches so to speak, he has adapted that attitude to his leadership approach and so far it is paying off.

"The first thing you have to learn is how to let go," said Data. "I think that's sometimes the most difficult thing. It's all via the people that you have. And as good as they are if you continue to do the work that you did before, you can't possibly grow."