Cross-cultural leadership: An analysis

Cross-cultural lead An analysisIntroductionI prolong lived, travelled and unraveled extensively overseas since 2003 in particular London, UK and Dubai, UAE this has sparked my interest in furthering my understanding of cross-cultural lead issues.I return experienced working in different organisations, cultural, customs, races, work ethic, languages, morals, ethics, beliefs, class / caste systems, education, etc. this is more evident in Dubai, UAE then it was in London, UK.In this leaders Research stand I will explore how cross-cultural issues might influence leadership approaches, I will be looking at it from a Western leadinghip court and Eastern leadinghip Approach, which I will define later.There be a lot of issues and factors that effect leadership approaches, airs, and effectiveness some of which argon organisational floriculture, subject field culture which we will be exploring.Yousef (1998) has highlighted that leaders and followers personal attributes such as nat ional cultural, experience, education, age, tenure with present organisation and organisational factors such as ownership pee-pee a significant relationship with leadership effectiveness.I will be looking at Western lead Approaches i.e. Anglo Saxon Australian and British verus Eastern i.e. Arabic and Indian and drawing on some of my experiences in the Middle East while working as a Construction Project Manager in Dubai, UAE from 2007 to 2009.Please note that the terms / descriptions Australian, Indian, Arabic etc Leaders and Managers argon more Democratic, Authoritarian, Autocratic, Laissez-faire etc These are generalisations and I acknowledge that thither are Leaders, Managers and Followers that fall outside of these generalisations, as in lead in that respect is no unitary size that fits all approach, what works in one culture does not necessarily work in an different.From personal experience adopting an Australian, British, American i.e. Western leading Approach, Style, Ch aracteristics, Traits etc. to the context of the Middle East i.e. Dubai, UAE working in an Arabic Cultural and leading and managing predominately Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sir Lankan, Chinese etc. work force does not necessarily work due to a cultural differences i.e. organisational and national, so you have to have a Situational / Contingency Leadership Approach Style to be effective in cross-cultural.Yousef (1998) suggest that leaders should adopt a leadership style that accommodates the followers personal attributes as well as organisational factors in order to achieve organisational goals and objectives effectively, this backs up my argument above.The two organisations that I worked in we polar opposites in terms on organisational cultural the first one Dutco Balfour Beatty LLC was one of the largest and well naturalised construction and engineering companies in the UAE operating across diverse fields.The other Cliff Creek Building Contractors LLC was a relatively small companyThe first organisation was highly Authoritarian, Bureaucratic, over-centralised, authority and billet is unequally distributed at the peak and this is typical of most firms in the Middle East from my experiences.The second organisation wasBrief Overview of the IndustryInsert HereBodyDefinitionsThere is no settle definition of leadership and cultural, it has been defined in many ways by many people for the purposes of this Leadership Research Project we will use the sideline definitionLeadership DefinitionThe GLOBE Project defines leadership as the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organisation of which they are members (Page 15 Culture, Leadership and Organisations The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies)Cultural DefinitionThe GLOBE Project defines culture as shared motives, values, beliefs, identities, and interpretations of meanings of significant events that result from ballpark experie nces of members collectives that are transmitted across generations (Page 15 Culture, Leadership and Organisations The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies)Culture includes the organisation, country where you live or have lived in, social class, generation, gender, regional, ethnic, religious, linguistics, customs, race, work ethic, morals, ethics, beliefs, values, class / caste systems etc.Western Leadership Style Ideas DefinitionI have bound my Leadership Style Ideas to the UK and Australian, as this is where I have worked during my career and have experience in managing people, resources etc. in terms ofEastern Leadership Style Ideas DefinitionI have limited my Leadership Style Ideas to Indian as this is was the majority of the workforce in Dubai, UAE that I managed and lead i.e. Leader / Follower relationship. writings ReviewA review of the Literature reveals that there has been much written on the topics of Leadership and Culture but there is not enough interaction of the topics an d a lot of the literature is from a Western Perspective, more needs to be written from the prospective of the Arab and Indian and in like manner the industry.I have found from the Literature Review that there are many Leadership Theories i.e. Transformational, Transactional, Situational, Contingency, Leadership Member Exchange LMX, Ethical, Authentic, Visionary, Cross-cultural, Military View Heroic Leadership, Strategic, Charismatic, Spiritual, Less-ego, Liberating, Theory X, Y, Z, Traits, etc. and that different researches call them different things and there is a lot of overlap between them.There are of course other leadership theories that I have not listed above due to the limited space available.The leadership styles, traits, characteristics and approaches that I have outlined below are a broad generalisation of leadership in terms of Australian / British i.e. Western Leadership and Arab / Indian i.e. Eastern Leadership.The seminal work in the field of cross-cultural leadershi p was by Greet Hofsteed 1980 which has been widely cited, he depicted object 100,000.00 employees of IBM from 49 countries and cultures over a 6 year period from 1967 to 1973 and identified four leadership dimensions to compare leadership differences and similarities, these dimension are Individualism / collectivism (Refer Item 5 6 below)Hierarchy, Status and Power Distance (Refer Item 8 below) uncertainty Avoidance (Refer Item 9 below) andMasculinity (Refer Item 2 below).The study was of one organisation IBM and one industry, and as such these dimension are generalisations of organisational and national cultural.This work has formed the bases for other researches, to replicate, extend and refute this, one such works was the GLOBE Study.The man Leadership and Organisational Behaviour Effectiveness Research Program House 2004, from hear on will be referred to as the Globe Study for the rest of Leadership Research Project.The GLOBE Study examined 62 cultures across 3 industries (F inancial Services, Food Processing and Telecommunications), how culture related to societal, organisational and leadership effectiveness. It studied 17,300.00 managers in 951 organisations and tested 27 hypotheses over a 5 year from 1992 to 1997.The Globe Study examined leadership from the followers point of view and utilise Hofsteed 1980 original four dimensions albeit renamed and added five new cultural dimensions listed below Future orientationGender Egalitarianism (Refer Item above 4)AssertivenessHumane OrientationIn- class Collectivism (Refer Item above 1)institutional Collectivism (Refer Item above 1)Performance OrientationPower Concentration vs. Decentralisation (Refer Item above 2) andUncertainty Avoidance (Refer Item above 3).Refer to Appendix A for Definitions of item 1 to 9 above.The Global Study identified six major world(prenominal) leadership behaviours AutonomousCharismatic / Value-BasedHumane OrientedParticipativeSelf-Protective andTeam Oriented.Refer to Appendix A for Definitions of item 1 to 6 above.They also identified 22 attributes that are universally accepted across the 62 cultures for effective Leadership TrustworthyJustHonestForesightPlans aheadEncouragingPositive alive(p)Motive arousersConfidence detergent builderMotivationalDependableIntelligentDecisiveEffective bargainorWin-win problems solverAdministrative SkilledCommunicativeInformedCoordinatorTeam Builder andExcellence oriented.They also identified 8 attributes that are universally not accepted across the 62 cultures for effective Leadership LonerAsocialNon-cooperative vexatiousNon-explicitEgocentricRuthless andDictatorial.Jacob 2005 suggests that there are short comings of global sweep studies as cultural and management are dynamic and constantly evolving where these studies are a static snapshot of a country orientation.She then goes on to say cross-cultural managers should be able to gauge what types of leadership behaviour works in a particular culture and develop skills w hich enable them to assume the required leadership behaviour, this reinforces my argument above regarding Situational Leadership.She cites Fiedler who suggests that leadership style used should match the situational requirements.I think that the cultural dimensions and typologies that are outlined in this paper and that were identified by Hofseed (1980), Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars (2000), House et al (2004) and others have there place, and are a life-threatening indicator for organisations and individual leaders who are proposing or are already actively operating in a different culture and country to there own e.g. Australian / Middle East / Indian.As this will give them an indicative guide to what attributes are universal across cultures, are considered good and destructive and specific to a particular culture and what followers expect from there leader.I will identify below the individual attributes of the Western Easter Leaders as identified by Hofsteed 1980 and the Globe Study 2004.Western Leadership ApproachesAustralian and England AngloGenerallyAccording to House et al 2007 1 P297 Generally Leaders from Anglo Countries i.e. Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa (White Sample) and the USA are highly performance orientated, mildly assertiveness, future orientation, gender egalitarianism, humane orientation, institutional collectivism, power distance and uncertainty turning away but low on in-group collectivism.Leaders from these countries generally support a charismatic / Value Based Leadership Approach, Style, Traits, Characteristics very strongly compared to other countries.It also quiet strongly supported Team Oriented Leadership and elements of participated leadership which enacted in humane oriented manner.Self-Protective Behaviours were viewed negatively a Person Oriented Leadership is endorsed by all Anglo countries where results are expected to be delivered and achieved by the leader by operating in a team.Australia nThe Australian management and leadership styleI was born and breed in Australia which has influenced my leadership style, approach, characteristics, traits etc.This was developed through cultural influences both organisational and societal i.e. values, beliefs, morals, ethics, customs, rituals, artefacts, language, social class, generation, gender, which are versed and engrained in you from an early age.The generalisation of Australian Leadership style, approach, characteristics, traits etc. areGenerally in Australia our culture and leadership is an enigma which is full or contradiction in terms and change this has been developed over our relatively short history from European settlement in1788 by the British to present day, which has included the following Pre- and Early SettlementGovernment and PoliticsEconomyAustralia as a Multicultural, Tolerant and Pluralist SocietyRelationship with Other Countries.ValuesEgalitarianism Mateship and A Fair Goinspirational not CharismaticIndiv idual RewardsPerformance Oriented One of the BoysDistrust of Politics and PoliticiansNational Identity with the Heroism of the AnzacsAustralia ContinuedRefer to table 9.1 P. 305BritishThe British management and leadership styleGeneralSpecificRefer to Australia for detailsEastern Leadership ApproachesArabicWe had to extrapolate the GLOBE Study data for the Middle East to Dubai, UAE as only Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Kuwait, Morocco were researched the Globe Study.I will have to extrapolate the Middle East Data to Dubai, UAE as only Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Kuwait, Morocco were researched the Globe Study.I acknowledge that there are differences between countries and industries.GeneralSpecificRefer to Australia for detailsIndian, Pakistani, etc.GeneralSpecificRefer to Australia for detailsIndian is a spiritual cultureEthics and Social ResponsibilityWith regards to ethics and social responsibility within the context of Dubai, UAE and the construction industry / construction companies I worked with this issue does not exist it has been my experience.Practical ImplicationsConclusions and RecommendationsSo as a Western Leader and Manager, who is managing Indians for example you should exhibit the following behaviours in the followers eye if you do not already posses them.Culture and Leadership are inextricably linked.There is a need for further research in the area of cre referable to the globalisation of business and the mix of culturesReferences / BibliographyI have used APA or Harvard citation in this Leadership Research Project.Books1. Sinclair, A. (2007). Leadership for the disillusioned Moving beyond myths and heroes to leading that liberates. Allen Unwin ISBN 978-1-7417-5100-0.2. Jackson, B. Parry, K. (2008). A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably garish Book About Studying Leadership. Sage ISBN 978-1-4129-2848-53. Jagdeep S. Chhokar, Felix C. Brodbeck, Robert J. House (2007). Culture and Leadership across the instauration The GLOBE Book of In-Depth Stu dies of 25 Cultures. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates ISBN 0-8058-5997-7Journals1. Dawish A. Yousef College of product line Economics, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates Correlates of perceived leadership style in a culturally mixed environs Leadership Organisation Development Journal 19,5 (1998) 275 284 MCB University Press (ISSN 0143-7739)2. Nina Jacob Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Post Bus, The Netherlands Cross-cultural investigations emerging concepts Journal of Organisational metamorphose Management Vol. 18 No. 5, 2005 pp. 514 528 Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0953-4814.AppendicesAppendix ADefinitionsGLOBE Study 2004Future OrientationIs the degree to which individuals in organisations or societies engage in future-oriented behaviours such as planning, investing in the future, and delaying individual or collective gratification.Gender EgalitarianismIs the extent to which an organisations or societies minimises gender role di fferences while promoting gender equity and the equivalence of genders.AssertivenessIs the degree to which individuals in organisations or societies are assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in social relationshipsHumane OrientationIs the degree to which individuals in organisations or societies encourage and pay off individuals for being fair, altruistic, friendly, generous, caring, kind to others, and exhibiting and promoting altruistic ideals.In-Group Collectivism (Collectivism II)Reflects the degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organisations, families, circle of close friends, or other such small groups.Institutional Collectivism (Collectivism I)Reflects the degree to which organisational and societal institutional practises encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action.Performance OrientationRefers to the extent to which high level members of organisations or societies encourage and reward group members for performance improvement and excellence.Power DistanceIs the degree to which members of an organisation and society encourage and reward unequal distribution of power with greater power at higher levels.Uncertainty Avoidance.Is the extent to which members of an organisation or society strive to avoid uncertainty by relying on established social norms, rituals, and bureaucratic practices to decrease the probability of unpredictable future events that could unfortunately affect the operation of an organisation or society, and also remedy the potential adverse effects of such unpredictable future events.Ch. 1 Introduction Culture Page 3 and 4 Jagdeep S. Chhokar, Felix C. Brodbeck, Robert J. House (2007). Culture and Leadership Across the World The GLOBE Book of In-Depth Studies of 25 Cultures. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates ISBN 0-8058-5997-7Mr. Matthew C. Smith (S2748489) Draft Leadership Project Assignment13 of 15 Rev. 1 12/02/2010 147pm5158 outgo of Business Administration (MBA) South BankLeadership CharacteristicsAustralianEnglandArabicIndianUniversalDifferencesGeneral AttributesSpecific AttributesGame MetaphorMateshipWork Ethic discourageAdversarialOne of UsTall PoppyUnderdogPragmaticMr. Matthew C. Smith (S2748489) Draft Leadership Project Assignment13 of 15 Rev. 1 12/02/2010 147pm5158 Master of Business Administration (MBA) South BankBrainstorming / Ideas to be used or notLeadership inexorably intertwinded with Culture P.2 Cultural Methology and Global Leadership Edited by Eric H. Kessler and Diana J. Wong-MingjiLeadership is something that is co-produced within a specific context and Leadership is co-produced by leaders and followers Ch. 4 Cultural Perspectives on Leadership Page 61 A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Leadership Brad Jackson and cognisance Parry.Leadership is essentially a cultural activity it is suffused with values, beliefs, language, rituals and artefacts Page 63 Culture Leadership A V ery Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Leadership Brad Jackson and Ken Parry.Culture Shock I want to mention this.Cultural IntelligenceChange management / leadership style and ideas to suit cultural context i.e. Situational Leadership.Sarros Santora leadership is embedded in social and cultural beliefs and values, and cannot be fully understood away from the context in which it exists.