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Culture and Leadership

Chapter 16

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Overview

Culture and Leadership Description

Culture Defined

Related Concepts

Dimensions of Culture

Clusters of World Cultures

Characteristics of Clusters

Leadership Behavior and Culture Clusters

Universally Desirable and Undesirable Leadership Attributes

Culture and Leadership

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Culture and Leadership Description

Culture and Leadership--focuses on a collection of related ideas rather than a single unified theory

Globalization:

Increased after World War II

Increased interdependence between nations

Economic, social, technical, political

Has created many challenges

Need to design multi-national organizations

Identify and select leaders for these organizations

Manage organizations with culturally diverse employees

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Culture and Leadership Description

Five cross-cultural competencies for Leaders (Adler Bartholomew, 1992)

Understand business, political, and cultural environments worldwide

Learn the perspectives, tastes, trends, and technologies of many cultures

Be able to work simultaneously with people from many cultures

Be able to adapt to living and communicating in other cultures

Need to learn to relate to people from other cultures from a position of equality rather than superiority

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Culture Defined

Culture:

learned beliefs, values, rules, norms, symbols, and traditions that are common to a group of people

shared qualities of a group that make them unique

is the way of life, customs, and scripts of a group of people

Terms related to culture:

Multicultural--approach or system that takes more than one culture into account

Diversity--existence of different cultures or ethnicities within a group or organization

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Ethnocentrism

The tendency for individuals to place their own group (ethnic, racial, or cultural) at the center of their observations of the world

Perception that one’s own culture is better or more natural than other cultures

Is a universal tendency, and each of us is ethnocentric to some degree

Ethnocentrism can be a major obstacle to effective leadership

Prevents people from understanding or respecting other cultures

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Prejudice

A largely fixed attitude, belief, or emotion held by an individual about another individual or group

based on faulty or unsubstantiated data

Involves inflexible generalizations that are resistant to change or evidence

Is self-oriented rather than other-oriented

Leaders face the challenge of dealing with their own prejudices and those of followers

Can be toward the leader or leader’s culture

Can face followers who represent culturally different groups, and they may have their own prejudices toward one another

A skilled leader needs to find ways to negotiate with followers from various cultural backgrounds

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Dimensions of Culture

Hall (1976) reported that a primary characteristic of cultures is degree of focus--on the individual (individualistic) or on the group (collectivistic)

Trompenaars (1994) classified an organization’s culture into two dimensions:

Egalitarian-hierarchical--degree to which cultures exhibit shared power versus hierarchical power

Person-task orientation--extent to which cultures emphasize human interaction versus focusing on tasks

Hofstede (1980, 2001) benchmark research identified five major dimensions on which cultures differ

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Dimensions of Culture

House et al.’s (2004) research on the relationship between culture and leadership resulted in the GLOBE research program

Initiated in 1991--this program involved more than 160 investigators

Used quantitative methods to study the responses of 17,000 managers in more than 950 organizations, 62 different cultures

Developed a classification of cultural dimensions--identified nine cultural dimensions

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Nine Cultural Dimensions

Uncertainty Avoidance

Extent to which a society, organization, or group relies on established social norms, rituals, and procedures to avoid uncertainty

For example, United States promotes entrepreneurship; Middle Eastern countries value careful business negotiations built on long-term trusted relationships

Power Distance

Degree to which members of a group expect and agree that power should be shared unequally

Which power bases (legitimate, expert, etc.) are preferred in a culture

For example, India caste system where everyone has his/her “rightful place”

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Nine Cultural Dimensions

Institutional Collectivism

Degree to which an organization or society encourages institutional or societal collective action

For example, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-II, who uses military to oversee development of cultural values of collective effort and non-material incentives

In-Group Collectivism

Degree to which people express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or families

For example, some Middle Eastern cultures regard family and religious affiliation above all else; honor killings of family members who have disgraced or defied the paternal leader of the family

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Nine Cultural Dimensions

Gender Egalitarianism

Degree to which an organization or society minimizes gender role differences and promotes gender equality

For example, in Sweden, men and women share power equally. Extensive welfare system allows both sexes to balance work and family life

Assertiveness

Degree to which people in a culture are determined, assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in their social relationships

For example, German managers use straightforward and direct language; conflict and confrontational discussion are acceptable workplace behaviors

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Nine Cultural Dimensions

Future Orientation

Extent to which people engage in future-oriented behaviors such as planning, investing in the future, and delaying gratification

For example, many Middle Eastern countries are concerned with traditional values and ways of doing things; North Americans believe they can plan and control the future and idealize change for the sake of changing

Performance Orientation

Extent to which an organization or society encourages and rewards group members for improved performance and excellence

For example, standardized testing in U.S. schools

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Nine Cultural Dimensions

Humane Orientation

Degree to which a culture encourages and rewards people for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others.

For example, Switzerland’s helpfulness to others during and after WW I and WW II. The country espouses tolerance and responsibility as central educational goals.

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Clusters of World Cultures

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Figure 16.1: Country Clusters According to GLOBE

Characteristics of Clusters

Northouse, Leadership 8e. © SAGE Publications, 2019.

Table 16.1: Cultural Clusters Classified on Cultural Dimensions

Characteristics of Clusters

Characteristics include

Anglo--competitive and result oriented

Confucian Asia--result driven, encourage group working together over individual goals

Eastern Europe--forceful, supportive of co-workers, treat women with equality

Germanic Europe--value competition and aggressiveness and are more result oriented

Latin America--loyal and devoted to their families and similar groups

Characteristics of Clusters

Characteristics include

Latin Europe--value individual autonomy

Middle East--devoted and loyal to their own people, women afforded less status

Nordic Europe--high priority on long-term success, women treated with greater equality

Southern Asia--strong family and deep concern for their communities

Sub-Sahara Africa--concerned and sensitive to others, demonstrate strong family loyalty

Leadership Behavior and Culture Clusters

GLOBE research identified six global leadership behaviors

Charismatic/value-based leadership reflects the ability to inspire, to motivate, and to expect high performance from others based on strongly held core values.

Team-oriented leadership emphasizes team building and a common purpose among team members.

Participative leadership reflects the degree to which leaders involve others in making and implementing decisions.

Leadership Behavior and Culture Clusters

Humane-oriented leadership emphasizes being supportive, considerate, compassionate, and generous.

Autonomous leadership refers to independent and individualistic leadership, which includes being autonomous and unique.

Self-protective leadership reflects behaviors that ensure the safety and security of the leader and the group.

Desirable Leadership Attributes

Table 16.2: Universally Desirable Leadership Attributes

Undesirable Leadership Attributes

Table 16.3: Universally Undesirable Leadership Attributes

Culture and Leadership

Strengths

Criticisms

Application

Strengths

GLOBE study is a major study and, to date, the only study to analyze how leadership is viewed by cultures in all parts of the world.

Findings from GLOBE are valuable because they emerge from a well-developed, quantitative research design.

GLOBE studies provide a classification of cultural dimensions that is more expansive than the commonly used Hofstede classification system.

GLOBE studies provide useful information about what is universally accepted as good and bad leadership.

GLOBE studies provide a foundation for subsequent studies of cross-cultural leadership.

The study of culture and leadership underscores the complexity of the leadership process and how it is influenced by culture.

Criticisms

Research does not provide a clear set of assumptions and propositions that can form a single theory about the way culture relates to leadership or influences the leadership process.

Labels and definitions of cultural dimensions and leadership behaviors are somewhat vague, difficult at times to interpret or to fully comprehend the findings about culture and leadership.

Subsequent research has found that GLOBE cultural dimensions are often contradictory and don’t measure the same qualities when used in quantitative studies.

This study focuses on what people perceive to be leadership and ignores a large body of research that frames leadership in terms of what leaders do (e.g., transformational leadership, path–goal theory, skills approach).

Criticisms

Researchers in the GLOBE study measured leadership with subscales that represented a very broad range of behaviors and as a result compromised the precision and validity of the leadership measures.

The GLOBE studies tend to isolate a set of attributes that are characteristic of effective leaders without considering the influence of the situational effects.

Application

The findings about culture can help leaders understand their own cultural biases and preferences.

Different cultures have different ideas about what they want from their leaders, and these findings help our leaders adapt their styles to be more effective in different cultural settings.

The findings can help global leaders communicate more effectively across cultural and geographic boundaries.

Information on culture and leadership can be used to build culturally sensitive websites, design new employee orientation programs, conduct programs in relocation training, and improve global team effectiveness.