National Context as a Contingency for Leadership Behaviors

Chapter 15

Leadership and Management

Behavior in Multinational

Companies

Copyright© 2007 Thomson Learning All rights reserved

Learning Objectives

• Know the characteristics of global business leadership

• Understand traditional North American models of leadership

• Understand the Japanese performance-maintenance model, the Indian nurturant-task-oriented model, and

Afro-centric model of leadership

• Be able to apply the cultural-contingency model of leadership

Copyright© 2007 South-Western/Thomson Learning All rights reserved


• Develop sensitivity to national cultural differences in preferred leadership traits and behaviors

• Understand how national culture affects the choice of leader influence tactics

• Understand how national culture influences subordinates’ expectations

• Understand the role of transformational leadership in multinational settings



• Understand how the national culture affects a leader’s attributions

• Understand the role of women global leaders for multinationals

• Develop the ability to diagnose cultural situations and suggest appropriate leadership style to fit the situation


Leadership

• Leadership: process of influencing group members to achieve organizational goals

• Excellent leaders

- Motivate their employees to achieve more than minimal requirements

• What makes a great leader?

- Many formal theories of leadership exist

- Most people have their own beliefs


Global Leadership: The New

Breed

• One who has the skills and abilities to interact with and manage people from diverse cultural backgrounds

• Characteristics of a global leader

- Cosmopolitan

- Skilled at intercultural communication

- Culturally sensitive

- Capable of rapid acculturation


Global Leadership:

Characteristics

- Knowledgeable about cultural and institutional influences on management

- Facilitator of subordinates’ intercultural performance

- A user of cultural synergy

- A promoter and user of the growing world culture

- A commitment to continuous improvement in selfawareness and renewal


Global Leadership: The New

Breed

• Emotional intelligence: refers to the ability of the global leader to accurately perceive his or her emotions and to use those emotions to solve problems and to relate to others


Three Classic Models:

A Vocabulary of Leadership

• Three basic models of leadership

- Leadership traits

- Leadership behavior

- Contingency leadership


Leadership Traits

• Are leaders born or made?

• Great-person theory: idea that leaders are born with unique characteristics that make them quite different from ordinary people

• Contemporary views of leadership traits do not assume that leaders are born


Traits of Successful U.S.

Leaders

• Higher intelligence and self-confidence

• More initiative

• More assertiveness and persistence

• Greater desire for responsibility and the opportunity to influence others

• A greater awareness of the needs of others


Leadership Behaviors: U.S.

Perspectives on Leadership

Behaviors

• Two major types of leadership behaviors

- Task-centered leader: focus on completing tasks by initiating structure

• Gives subordinates specific standards, schedules, and tasks

- Person-centered leader: focus on meeting the social and emotional needs of employees


Leader Decision Making

Styles

• Autocratic leadership: leaders make all major decisions themselves

• Democratic leadership: leader includes subordinates in decision making

• Consultative or participative leadership: leader’s style falls midway between autocratic and democratic styles


Exhibit 15.1: Likert’s Four Styles of

Management


Japanese Perspectives on

Leader Behaviors

• Performance-maintenance (PM) theory: balancing task- and person-centered leader behaviors


Performance-Maintenance

Theory

• Performance function (P): similar to task-centered leadership

- Two components of performance function

• Planning component: the leader works for or with subordinates to develop work procedures

• Pressure component: the leader then pressures employees to put forth more effort and to do good work


Performance-Maintenance

Theory

• Maintenance function (M): similar to person-centered

- Presents behaviors that promote group stability and social interaction

• Difference between the Japanese PM approach and the U.S. perspective

- Japanese PM leader focuses on influencing groups

- U.S. approach focuses on influencing individuals


Indian Perspectives on Leader

Behaviors

• Nurturant-task-oriented leadership (NT) theory: combines elements of task behaviors, arguing that the preferred leader in India is both person-centered and task-centered


Afro-Centric Perspectives on

Leader Behaviors

• Afro-centric model of leadership: emphasizes personcentered leadership, and is based on the concept of

Ubuntu

- Ubantu: an African philosophy based on collectivism and group-centeredness in contrast to individualism


Contingency Theory

• Assumption that different styles and different leaders are more appropriate for different situations

• Two North American contingency theories of leadership

- Fiedler’s theory of leadership

- Path-goal theory


Fiedler’s Theory of Leadership

• Proposed that managers tend to be either task- or person-centered leaders

- Three successful contingencies of the work situation

- Leader and subordinates relationships

- Clearly defined subordinates’ tasks

- Power of the leader


Fiedler’s Theory of Leadership

• Effective leadership occurs when the leadership styles match the situation

• Theory suggests that task-centered leadership works best when situation is favorable or not favorable for leader

- If favorable, subordinates are positive about their work—need to be told what to do

- In unfavorable situations, job requirements are unclear, leader need to focus on getting things done


Exhibit 15.2: Predictions of Leader

Effectiveness under Different

Conditions


Path-Goal Theory

• Four leadership styles that a manager might choose depending on the situation

- Directive

- Supportive

- Participative

- Achievement-oriented


Exhibit 15.3: A Simplified Model of

Path-Goal Theory


Path-Goal Theory: Key

Suggestions

• When subordinates have high achievement needs— adopt the achievement-oriented style

• Subordinates with high social needs—adopt the supportive leadership style

• When job is unstructured—adopt a directive style or an achievement-oriented style


Traits, Behaviors, and

Contingencies

• No consistent leadership trait or behavior that works best

• A successful leader must diagnose the situation and pick the behaviors and/or develop the leadership traits that fits best.


National Context as a

Contingency for Leadership

Behaviors

• Successful leadership in multinational companies requires that managers adjust their leadership styles to fit different situations.


National Context as a

Contingency for Leadership

Behaviors

• Two steps to adjust a leadership to a multination

- Step 1: understanding what local managers do to lead successfully in their own country

- Step 2: using this knowledge to modify one’s leadership style

• National-context contingency model of leadership: shows how culture and related social institutions affect leadership practices


Exhibit 15.4: National-Context

Contingency Model of Leadership


The National-Context

Contingency Model of

Leadership

• Outlines of how leadership behaviors, traits, and contingencies are affected by the national context:

- Leader behaviors and traits

- Subordinates’ characteristics

- Work setting


Leadership Traits and behaviors in the National

Context

• GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational

Behavior Effectiveness)

- The very latest research on cross-national differences in leadership

- Study contains insights regarding crucial leadership styles to navigate successfully through a maze of cultural settings


Exhibit 15.5: Culture Contingent

Leadership Traits and Behaviors


Exhibit 15.6 Culture Free Positively and

Negatively Regarded Leadership Traits and Behaviors from 60 countries


Exhibit 15.7: GLOBE’s Study Clusters and Countries Included in Each Cluster


Exhibit 15.8: Culturally Contingent

Beliefs Regarding Effective Leadership

Styles




Styles




Styles




Styles




Styles


GLOBE findings

• Leadership styles vary by countries.

• Team-oriented leaders are preferred in Latin European and Southern Asian countries.

• Anglo and Germanic cultures prefer participative leaders.

• South Asian cultures prefer humane leader.

• All countries agree that autonomous leaders and selfprotective leaders universally impeded leadership.


National Context and

Preferred Leader-Influence

Tactics

• Influence tactics: tactical behaviors leaders use to influence subordinates

- U.S managers favor seven influence tactics

• Assertiveness

• Friendliness

• Reasoning

• Bargaining

• Sanctioning

• Appeals to a higher authority

• Coalitions


Exhibit 15.9: Preferred Leader

Influence Tactics in Four Countries



Subordinates’ Expectations

• Subordinates’ expectations: expectations regarding what leaders “should” do and what they may or may not do

• High power-distance – autocratic leadership

- E.g., many of the Latin and Asian countries

• Low power-distance – leader be more like them

- E.g., Sweden and Norway


Exhibit 15.10: Subordinates’

Expectations under Three Levels of

Power Distance



Subordinates’ Expectation

• Strong masculinity norms

- Lead to the acceptance of more authoritarian leadership

• Strong uncertainty-avoidance norms

- Subordinates to expect the leader to provide more detail in directions


Preference for “Specific” Leader In

Thirteen Countries


Contemporary Leadership

Perspectives: Multinational

Implications

• Two basic forms of leadership

- Transactional leadership: managers use rewards or punishments to influence their subordinates

- Most ordinary leaders use transactional leadership


Transformational Leadership

• Managers go beyond transactional leadership by

- Articulating a vision

- Breaking from the status quo

- Providing goals and a plan

- Giving meaning or a purpose to goals

- Taking risks

- Being motivated to lead

- Building a power base

- Demonstrating high ethical and moral standards


Transformational Leaders

• Succeed because subordinates respond to them with high levels of performance, devotion and willingness to sacrifice

• Same leadership traits may not lead to transformational leadership in all countries


Exhibit 15.11: GLOBE Study and

Charismatic Leadership


Attributions and Leadership

• Emphasis on what leaders believe causes subordinates’ behaviors

• Two key distinctions in attributions

- External attribution: factors outside the person and beyond the person’s control (e.g., natural disasters, illness, faulty equipment, etc.)

- Internal attribution: characteristics of the person

(e.g., personality, motivation, low ability, etc.)


Attributions and Leadership

• Once leader makes attribution, leader responds to subordinate based on that assumption

• Fundamental attribution error: assumption by managers that people behave in certain ways because of internal motivations, rather than outside factors

• Successful leaders make the correct attributions.


Global Women Leaders:

The Future?

• Women global leadership: spread of traits or qualities that are associated with women to the process of leading organizations worldwide

- “orientation toward more participative, interactional, and relational styles of leading”


Global Women Leaders

• Women leaders have skills to develop deep relationship to understand markets

• More likely to provide unity to accommodate needs of various stakeholders

• Better ability to understand diversity at global levels


Getting the Results: Should

You Do What Works at Home?

• Cannot assume that successful home leadership styles or traits will result in equally successful leadership in a foreign country

• It is nevertheless difficult to adapt.


Exhibit 15.12: Leadership Behavior and

Job Performance of U.S. Managers in the U.S. and in Hong Kong


The Cultural Context and

Suggested Leadership Styles

• High power distance – behave more autocratically

• High uncertainty cultures – remove ambiguity from work setting


Exhibit 15.13: National Culture and

Recommended Leadership Styles


Conclusion

• All multinational managers should strive to become global leaders

• Chapter provides important information on the nature of leadership and understanding of leadership in the international setting

• Chapter reviews classic leadership theories and applies them to the international settings


National Context as a Contingency for Leadership Behaviors

Chapter 15

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