Critical Thinking Culture and Leadership

Critical Thinking: Culture and Leadership

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Critical Thinking: Culture and Leadership

Introduction

Globalization has led to an increase in diversity in the workplace. More and more organizations employ workers with diverse backgrounds. This has led to an increase in the importance of having multicultural leadership as companies strive to succeed in the face of increasing diversity. According to Northouse (2018) globalizations has led to an increase in the need for companies to understand cultural differences that affect leadership performance. As such, it is vital for global leaders to develop cross-cultural competencies. In essence, multicultural leadership is a framework that requires leaders to have respect for cultural differences as failure to do so would limit their effectiveness in contemporary organizations. This requires leaders to immerse themselves in different cultural to have a better understanding of the cultures and the contexts and values of the cultures. The Global Leadership Behavior Effectiveness project and the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions framework are the two approaches that help leaders understand cultural framework. The Global Leadership Behavior Effectiveness project provides leaders with insights on how to navigate the challenges and opportunities of a more diverse workplace. On the other hand, the Hofstede’s cultural dimension framework provides leaders with the ability to understand how people with different cultural backgrounds interact based on the cultural dimensions framework. This paper will provide a thorough discussion of the two approaches.

Overview of Global Project

Established in 1991 by Robert House, the Global Leadership Behavioral Effectiveness (GLOBE) project provides leadership with an additional dimension of understanding multiculturalism to improve their performance in the global environment. The aim of the project was to determine the interrelationship between organizational leadership, societal culture and societal effectiveness. Since its inception, it has been implemented in three phases. It has incorporated 17,000 middle level management leaders from more than 62 global cultures.

The initial phase of the project involved the identification and development of different measures of global societal cultures. This led to the launch of several pilot studies to examine various elements related to societal culture. Various research instruments were used in the pilot studies to determine the elements related to societal culture. These include psychometric procedures such as element analysis, factor analysis, and generalizability analysis. This phase led to the development of nine cultural dimensions – fundamental attributes – whose assessment of their impact on societal and organizational culture facilitated the launching of the second phase of the project.

The last phase of the GLOBE project involved studying the effectiveness of global leadership behavior on the performance and attitudes of subordinates. This phase of the project helped in determining how to compare different cultural values and practices across different countries (Dorfman et al., 2012).

Defining Global Leadership Behaviors

Six global leadership behaviors may be used to provide a summary of the skills, abilities, and characteristics of understanding leadership according to different cultures. These include charismatic/value-based leadership, team-oriented leadership, participative leadership, human-oriented leadership, autonomous leadership, and self-protective leadership.

The charismatic/value-based leadership is usually regarded as outstanding leadership within the corporate world. Charismatic/value based leaders can motivate their subordinates and require them to have high performance by drawing from established values of the organization. Team-oriented leadership refers to leadership behavior that helps in building effective team through the implementation of common goals within a group of individuals. Therefore, team-oriented leadership is more diplomatic and facilitates collaboration of teams. Participative leadership refers to leadership that involves others in developing and implementing decisions. As such, just like team-oriented leadership, participating leadership is diplomatic. Human-oriented leadership is the fourth type of leadership attribute. This leadership attribute involved being sensitive and modest in the treatment of subordinates. Autonomous leadership refers to a leadership attribute where the leader is more individualistic and independent. This leader portrays original leadership and more unique. This sixth type of leadership is the self-protective leader. This type of leadership puts more emphasis on the safety of the leader and the group. The self-protective leader is the self-conscious, procedural, and status-conscious (Dorfman et al., 2012).

Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

Geert Hofstede, a Dutch management researcher, developed the Hofstede cultural dimension in 1980. The aim of the study was to determine the variations in cultural dimensions. It comprises of six dimensions, power distance index, collectivistic vs. individualism, uncertainty avoidance index, femininity vs. masculinity, short-term vs. long-term orientation, and restraint vs. indulgence. The Hofstede’s cultural dimensions is one of the most referenced researches of dimensions of culture. The GLOBE studies also generated significant insights on the relationship between culture and leadership. For example, a high power index as defined by the Hofstede cultural dimension may imply obedience and loyalty (Perez, 2018). As such, management superiority would be suitable in such a situation with the management using performance appraisal that is focused on affecting the behavior instead of results of the subordinates.

Individualism vs. collectivism is another application of the Hofstede’s dimensions of culture. Leaders should know the individualism vs. collectivism (IDV) score of the country, which would act as a guide on how they should approach leadership within the country. For instance, in certain countries that have a low IDV score, the management should focus on the benefit to communities instead of benefits to individuals since the people within the society would like to feel as if they are part of a community. On the other hand, countries that have a high masculinity score imply that the society is more patriarchal and favors hierarchical structures. However, countries that have a low masculinity score imply that leaders should focus more on negotiation and compromise.

Applying GLOBE Approach and Hofstede Cultural Dimension in Organizational Leadership

The use of multidisciplinary method of understanding societies may be used to motivate people from different cultures. This requires leaders to know how to implement both the insights from the GLOBE research and the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. For example, in a team-oriented culture, the leadership should focus more in institutional collectivism, which imply that they should favor collective action and the distribution of the resources of the organization. For instance, certain cultures in the Middle East prefer charismatic/value based leadership. This would influence the leadership type in that direction to ensure the effectiveness of the organization (Perez, 2018).

Conclusion

The GLOBE and the Hofstede cultural dimensions of leadership can be applied to improve the leadership effectiveness of managers of multinational corporations that have employees from different cultures. Nevertheless, leaders should ensure they understand a careful analysis of the frameworks to ensure they engage in activities that improve the effectiveness in guiding the employees towards achieving the goals and objectives of the organization without violation cultural norms and practices. The leadership of the organization should use their skills and abilities to improve their effectiveness within the diverse workplace.

References

Dorfman, P., Javidan, M., Hanges, P., Dastmalchian, A., & House, R. (2012). GLOBE: A twenty year journey into the intriguing world of culture and leadership. Journal of World Business, 47(4), 504-518.

Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and practice (8th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Perez, J. R. (2018). An Exploration of Global Leadership: Culture, Ethics, and Conflict Management. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 15(3), 122-133.