Cross-cultural Leadership

The Good News

If you lead from a foundation of values shared by your members, if you emphasize team building, if you involve your group when making decisions, if you support those who work with you and aren’t status or class-conscious or independent and individualistic then it’s likely you could lead in any culture. Yes, it’s a little more complicated than that but the good news is that good leadership is universally recognized and desired.

A study across 20 countries discovered eight common leadership characteristics. They are: responsibility /commitment, charisma, competency/experience, authenticity/integrity, drive/passion, intelligence, insight into the future, and courage/risk taking. The GLOBE study generally agreed stating that while behaviors and leadership characteristics are culturally bound, some leadership characteristics are present in every culture and give rise to forms of leadership so germane to humanity as to be the same everywhere. In effect, what culture may make acceptable is, by virtue of our common humanity, already credible. In the GLOBE study four leadership styles are universally viewed as contributing to leader effectiveness while two are seen to inhibit leader effectiveness. GLOBE is not the only study to examine leadership across cultures; however, the six leadership styles it reports are worthy of consideration.

Those that make for effective leaders are: Charismatic/value-based leadership or the ability of leaders to “inspire, motivate, and encourage high performance from others based on a foundation of core values. Team-Oriented leadership places emphasis on effective team building and implementation of a common goal among team members. Participative leadership reflects the extent to which leaders involve others in decisions and their implementation and Humane-Oriented leadership comprises supportive and considerate leadership. The two leadership styles universally seen to inhibit leadership: Autonomous leadership or independent and individualistic leadership behavior and Self-Protective leadership that focuses on ensuring the safety and security of the individual through status-enhancement and face-saving” (Middlemist).

The Big Picture

Taking cross-cultural leadership a little further, five common themes or rules are thought fundamental to human society; rules, it appears, that naturally inhere among people and as such have critical implications for leaders. They relate to 1) Power, 2) Role, 3) Relationship, 4) Time, and 5) Behavior. These five are referred to as core cultural dimensionsand ask the following questions of a given society. 1) Is power distributed vertically as in a hierarchy among the people or horizontally in a participative fashion? 2) Are groups or individuals viewed as the fundamental building block of the society? 3) Are external events viewed as something we must control or live with? 4) Is time based on attention to single tasks or simultaneous attention to multiple tasks? 5) Is the locus of societal control the uniform application of law/policy or personal ties? For example, as to Power a culture may make some live with what others decide (vertical power distribution), as to Role its people may value the clan over the individual (group over individual), concerning Relationship its people could see their future influenced by sources not of their control (external events are to be lived with), Time could be reckoned by the event instead of the accomplishment of details (time based on multiple tasks), and their Behavior may be governed by group rule more than objective civil law (law in personal ties).

The importance of these to leaders isn’t in the determination of whether a given culture is “Eastern” or “Western” in worldview for the tendency to see cultures in these polar extremes isn’t altogether accurate. As an example, cultures that could be considered “Western” prefer hierarchical power distribution the same as their “Eastern” cousins. Because of this “worldview” in reference to cross-cultural leadership, unlike to that of philosophy, has a challenge. It also serves as reminder for the cross-cultural leader to rely less on preconceptions than sensitivity. No, the importance is in what these things mean for the leader’s pace of change. For if leadership is about any one thing it is enabling people to change something about their location, beliefs, and/or practices. Doing so with a cultural frame out of sync with those you serve will lead to frustration and ultimately burnout. In addition to these structuring themes, cultures also contain rules that determine how the behaviors and characteristics associated with leadership are understood.

Culture-wide Understandings About Leadership

Just as individuals hold ideas about what leadership is and compare them against those who purport to lead, cultures do too. That is, the expectations, permissions, and status given leaders results from cultural forces and forms people’s expectations of what a leader is and does. Negatively, it means that people will resist leadership if it’s seen to violate their commonly shared understandings. Positively, it means that roles are defined and these stipulate what leaders can and may do in their work as well as what may be assumed about their place. For instance, in some cultures it would not be considered unusual for a leader to assume that his/her place was in command. Yet in aboriginal cultures this would be an offense to their value of communal consensus building. In this example the value of place differs among cultures.

Culture is, in the words of another, the “software of our minds” programmed through a common language, belief system, ethnic heritage, and history. Culture supplies the “fit” that assures us we belong and highlights why others don’t. It is complex in its composition yet simple in its expression making what those within know instinctively the work of years for those without. We live by it and protect it without thought to the demarcation it creates among people accepting all such as normal. And normal it is but lest we be lulled into thinking that culture is quantifiable it’s worth bearing in mind that no consensus exists as to its definition. In large strokes culture refers to the rules in use by human collectives to distinguish themselves from each other. For the leader who desires to lead well and finish well learning rather than assuming the nuances of a culture, be it national, regional, or organizational, is the first step to fulfilling service.

Implicit Leadership and Categorization Theories

In brief, Implicit Leadership Theory (ILT) says we hold mental prototypes that are ideal instances of leadership. When an individual meets our mental criteria, whether or not they identify as a leader, we’re inclined to see them as such. In conjunction with this is Categorization Theory (CT) that suggests we will evaluate leaders who match these internal images more favorably than those who don’t. In the first are the reasons we accept leadership and the second the mechanisms that make acceptance possible.

Our recognizing leadership seems to occur, in part, by the information we receive, interpret, store, recall, modify, and act on. In fact, what are thought as mental images may not be static images at all but constructs that emerge in the moment based on context, history, and the qualities of the people involved. Whether we recognize leadership from stored images or the ability to create them some of the more important variables that make those images are our personality, the similarity of the leader to ourselves, and the traits of our family.

Personality and Similarity
In regards to leadership, personality is discussed along five axis: “(1) Agreeableness - the tendency to be sympathetic and helpful to others; (2) Conscientiousness - the tendency to be reliable and punctual; (3) Extroversion - the tendency to be active and talkative; (4) Openness - the tendency to be open to ideas; and (5) Neuroticism - the tendency to experience guilt and irrational ideas” (Keller, 1990). In exploring the thought that we choose leaders most like us Keller tested the personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extroversion and found that we use them implicitly to determine suitability for leadership. Here agreeableness determines the value we place upon a leader’s sensitivity, conscientiousness the value we place upon a leader’s dedication; and extroversion the value we place upon a leader’s charisma. In other words, the extent to which we’re agreeable, conscientious, and extroverted is roughly the same that we look for in our leaders. This scheme or way of working is inward to us and implicit in how we choose people to lead others or us. But where do we get the first images?

The Traits of our Family
Parents are the first leaders we see and as such role models that codify leadership for us. It is in our family unit that we observe the first instances of leading and following and while this isn’t the only source for leadership prototypes it is an important one. The susceptibility to parental influence is enhanced by two conditions: a) Our preference for familiar behavior and b) our assigning value to behavior by its outcome, i.e., a parent yells and get his/her way, since getting what you want is good we deduce that yelling is good. The fact that yelling isn’t socially acceptable loses importance to what is familiar, in this case, the parent yelling and the “good” result it produces. Yes, that’s simple, maybe too simple but it does communicate an important truth about ourselves: We’re impressionable to what benefits us. Through this ready lens of impressionable self we concretize the images of leadership portrayed by our parents, particularly when the parent is overbearing. In the same work mentioned above, Keller also discovered that parental traits of manipulation and dominance are more likely to be internalized as acceptable images of good leadership while that of compassion less so.

This isn’t to say the only images we take from our family are those of dominance, far from it. While these do impress us and are retained in our thinking others are likewise formed, especially those built around our perceptions of parental behavior as opposed to the actual behavior. Interestingly, Hartman and Harris found that regardless the behavior a parent reported as their own, the child’s perception of the parents’ behavior is that modeled in their leadership.

This makes it essential that the leader have understanding of the stories that give shape to the lives of those s/he purports to lead. It also requires that the narrative undertaking be entered into aware that leadership will mean something different to each member. There is acknowledgment of this possibility in Implicit Leadership Theory where members determine the effectiveness of leadership by comparing the leader’s effort against their own internal model of what an effective leader is. The stories of our life do produce memories but also templates by which we know and understand. Learning them before attempting change, while slowing our effort to “get there,” helps make the transition a more humane affair.

Keller, T. (1999). Images of the familiar: Individual differences and implicit leadership theories. Leadership Quarterly, 10(4), 590-607.

Embodied Leadership

Donna Ladkin and Steven Taylor have written about a form of leadership that they’ve called, “Authentic Embodied Leadership.” While their work has meaning for all leaders it seems especially fitting for clergy leaders. The premise is simple: the leader’s ability to convey authenticity enhances the follower’s experience of the leader/led relationship. Although in the field of leadership studies no agreed upon definition exists as to when our leadership is authentic, Ladkin and Taylor have discovered three themes that run throughout. They are: a) authentic leadership is an expression of the leader’s true self; b) the leader must be aware of his or her self to express it authentically; and c) since the self is inclined toward virtue, authentic leadership is closely linked to moral leadership. However, leaders and followers may be equally as challenged to find the true self.

The difficulty is two-fold: For the leader it is to find the mechanisms that bring awareness of their self. For followers it is to discern when the leader is expressing his/her true self. What followers can see, however, is the leader’s body and how s/he uses it. It is upon this that follower’s perceptions are keyed. Though unable to know the inner thoughts of their leaders, follower’s awareness of them as knowing themselves and thus revealing through their body what is genuinely and truly self forms the basis of followership. In short, our bodies become the method by which our invisible intents are manifest and the follower’s perception of the leader’s authenticity founded.

For this embodied leadership to remain authentic to both leader and follower the leader must be aware, if not give expression, to what s/he actually feels. Doing so is to engage in the awareness of self that occurs between our bodily clues and the larger world’s affirmation of our identity, but how is that done? These two, our bodily clues and the world’s affirmation of our identity, are referred to as our somatic and symbolic states. The somatic holds the existence of a firm, stable, and fixed self as a matter of fact while the symbolic sees the self as constructed from the stories that comprise our living and created depending upon the context. In the somatic view the sense of self can be thought of as grounded in our bodily reactions. This can be, among others, an inner sense about a decision; a “feeling” that arises in our emotions or that is felt in our body. If listened to it takes us closer to the “real” us. In the symbolic view others validate our real self by their response to our actions as we interact with them through language and gesture. In effect, the world tells us who we are.

So which is it? In reality it’s both. Because our self changes as we learn and age, we use both clues to determine our real self at a given point in time. Rigorous self-examination isn’t needed but awareness of what our inner clues tell us about ourselves and what others affirm about us are. This embodied leadership will enable us to lead authentically and followers realize the stability that authenticity brings.

Ladkin, D., Taylor, S. (2010). Enacting the ‘true self’: Towards a theory of embodied authentic leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 21:64-74.

Public Leadership: The Art of Leading Responsively

Leadership in a not-for-profit enterprise can differ from that in a for-profit venture. Without the motivation of market wages to entice cooperation people are motivated by another sense, often the altruism of helping accomplish the organization’s mission. However, recognizing that not-for-profit members respond to a different motivation isn’t all that’s required of leadership: the appeal for cooperation also has to be packaged differently. In other words, taking a “do as I say” approach may satisfy the drive for corporateness but if we're to retain members our involvement in their cause must be the medium of our communication.

Newer thought on the topic of Public Leadership can benefit those who lead not-for-profit enterprise. Although in a traditional sense Public Leadership has had more to do with elected leaders and those who work in government service, the term has expanded to include those entities oriented toward the common good within not-for-profit leadership, corporate leadership, and community leadership including religious, health, and social care. This broader definition moves Public Leadership from the nexus of politics and funding by taxation that once anchored it to the recognition that the common good may be interpreted by public entities chosen in forums not associated with political office. Consideration from two areas of human experience has enabled the expansion. These are the notion that leadership to be called such must be responsive to those it serves and that human emotion is intelligent. Both offer helpful insight.

The assertion that leadership must be responsive to those it serves is in some sense a refutation of the “great man” school of thought where leaders are seen as “be all” and “end all” beings. It recognizes that instead of located in a person called “leader,” leadership can be both specific to the context and co-created with members. What this new responsiveness entails is an understanding that we will not be “on point” in every situation, that other members are equally or more qualified to express the interests of the group and enable the achievement of its goal. It also holds that our leadership is a give and take of influence between leader and member and not by virtue of any title. These thoughts fix our service in irrevocable fashion to those we serve redefining it as “one among” and not merely as “one.”

The second consideration to influence Public Leadership is that emotions are intelligent and contrasts with the philosophy of Max Weber that public servants should maintain formal distance and in the execution of their duties be passionless. This emotional antiseptic came to be seen as a source of greater control and less initiative for some who work within and are served by public agencies, bureaucracy, and process: Its result was thought visible in a leadership concerned with the public more in name than fact. With the advent of New Public Management and its openness to modeling public service after the marketplace and recent thought calling for leaders “to take account of the complex processes of co-creation between producers and users” (John Benington, From Private Choice to Public Value?), the need for an intelligence beyond mental prowess has come to the fore.

The proponents of emotional intelligence present it as at least one possibility beyond what mental acuity can produce. They may be right. Robert Kramer (Beyond Max Weber: Emotional Intelligence and Public Leadership) begins with the premise that intelligence doesn’t cover all knowledge, that an entire world of knowing exists beyond the boundary of logic. He refers to this as our intelligent emotions and the source for building both group intelligence and social capital.

Without the intelligent guidance of emotions, human beings cannot respond to situations very flexibly, take advantage of the right time and right place, make sense of ambiguous or contradictory messages, recognize the importance of different elements of a situation, find similarities between situations despite differences that may separate them, draw distinctions between situations despite similarities that may link them, synthesize new concepts by taking old concepts and combining in new ways, or develop ideas that are novel. Without the guidance of emotions we cannot be intelligent. Without the guidance of emotions we cannot be rational. (p.5)

Central to the inquiry is if leaders will continue to see people as things to be directed or as potential to be discerned? Emotion in our leadership makes us vulnerable and sensing and instills a listening posture. Its lack robs us of the contribution of people and the good sense they could have made to the endeavor. While this is applicable for all forms of leadership even if not for all situations, not-for-profit leadership can especially benefit by the increased sensitivity to its members, their concerns, and cause available in emotional intelligence.

Clearly, not all who serve publicly are unresponsive and must change. The malady of leaders disconnecting from members is universal to all forms of leadership but can be corrected by seeing our work as influence and not position and through a willingness to explore the messiness of emotions. Although behavior seems generally to fall within known areas, still, the variableness of we humans along with the need of successive generations to express knowledge in familiar frames of reference make the work of research never complete. In this vein, leadership as a topic continues to be studied, analyzed, and categorized. This has produced multiple theories about leading and given the several forms that leadership is thought to take. Public Leadership is one of those forms.