ADM 612 - Leadership
Lecture 23 – Culture and
Leadership
Description
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No unified theory for culture and
leadership.
We can only discuss culture and talk
about its impact on leadership.
Description
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Globalization is central to the
discussion of culture and leadership.
– The increased interdependence
(economic, social, and political) between
nations.
Description
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Globalization has created three challenges:
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The design of effective multinational
organizations.
The identification and selection of leaders for
these organizations.
The management of organizations with culturally
diverse employees.
Description
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The development of leadership
competence in cross-cultural
awareness and practice.
Leaders must develop five crosscultural competences.
Six Cross-Cultural Competencies
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Leaders must understand business, political,
and cultural environments worldwide.
Leaders must learn the perspectives, tastes,
trends, and technologies of many other
cultures.
Leaders must be able to work simultaneously
with people from many cultures.
Six Cross-Cultural Competencies
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Leaders must be able to adapt to living and
communicating in other cultures.
Leaders must learn to relate to people from
other cultures from a position of equality.
Leaders must be skilled in creating
transcultural visions.
Culture Defined
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The learned beliefs, values, rules,
norms, symbols, and traditions that
are common to a group of people.
Shared qualities make a group unique.
Culture is dynamic and transmitted to
others.
Culture Defined
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Multicultural implies an approach or system that
takes more than one culture into account.
Multicultural can also refer to a set of subcultures
defined by race, gender, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, and age.
Diversity refers to the existence of different cultures
or ethnicities within a group or organization.
Related Concepts
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Ethnocentrism is the tendency for individuals to
place their own group (ethnic, racial, or cultural) at
the center of their observations of others and the
world, that their own culture is better or more
natural than others.
Ethnocentrism is an obstacle to effective leadership
because it prevents people from fully
understanding or respecting the world view of
others.
Related Concepts
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Prejudice is a largely fixed attitude, belief, or
emotion held by an individual about another
individual or group based on faulty or
unsubstantiated data.
Prejudices are based on previous decisions
and experiences, and involve inflexible
generalizations that are resistant to change
or evidence to the contrary.
Related Concepts
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Prejudice creates leadership problems by
being self-oriented, rather than otheroriented, and by limiting the leader’s ability
to see multiple perspectives.
Prejudice also limits the leader’s ability to
manage followers by requiring negotiation
across follower’s prejudices.
Dimensions of Culture
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GLOBE Study of 62 Societies.
Global Leadership and Organizational
Behavioral Effectiveness.
Responses of 17,000 managers in 950
organizations representing 62 different
cultures.
Nine Dimensions of Culture
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Uncertainty avoidance—The use of
rules, structures, and laws to make
things more predictable.
Power distance—The degree to which
power is stratified.
Nine Dimensions of Culture
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Institutional collectivism—The degree to
which an organization or society
encourages collective action.
In-group collectivism—The degree to which
people express pride, loyalty, and
cohesiveness in their organizations and
families.
Nine Dimensions of Culture
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Gender egalitarianism—Degree to
which organization or society
minimizes gender role differences.
Assertiveness—Degree to which
individuals are determined and
assertive in their social relationships.
Nine Dimensions of Culture
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Future orientation—Degree to which
individuals in a culture engage in planning,
investing, and delaying gratification.
Performance orientation—Degree to which
organization or society rewards group
members for improved performance.
Nine Dimensions of Culture
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Humane orientation—Degree to which
a culture rewards people for being
altruistic.
Country
Clusters GLOBE
Cultural
Clusters GLOBE
Leadership Behavior and Culture
Clusters
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Charismatic/value-based leadership.
Team-oriented leadership.
Participative leadership.
Humane-oriented leadership.
Autonomous leadership.
Self-protective leadership.
Leadership Behavior and Culture
Clusters
Leadership Behavior and Culture
Clusters
Leadership Behavior and Culture
Clusters
Leadership Behavior and Culture
Clusters
Leadership Behavior and Culture
Clusters
Universally Desirable Leadership
Attributes
Universally Undesirable
Leadership Attributes
Strengths of Model
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GLOBE study is a major study with
broad applicability.
Findings emerge from a welldeveloped research design.
Strengths of Model
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Cultural classification broader than previous
models.
Model provides information on what is
universally accepted as good and bad
leadership.
Model underscores complexity of leadership
process and how culture influences it.
Weaknesses of Model
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Does not provide a basis for a single theory
of how culture relates to leadership.
Cultural terms are unnecessarily vague.
Model based on perceptions of leadership
rather than leadership actions.
Weaknesses of Model
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The six leadership behaviors are built
on subscales that model very different
behaviors.
The desirable and undesirable traits
have the same problems of context as
trait theory.
Applications
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Help understand own cultural biases.
Help understand what it means to be a
good leader.
Help communication across cultural
and geographic boundaries.