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.
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