Cross-cultural psychology attempts to understand how individuals of different cultures interact with each other. Along these lines, cross-cultural leadership has developed as a way to understand leaders who work in the newly globalized market. Today's international organizations require leaders who can adjust to different environments quickly and work with partners and employees of other cultures. It cannot be assumed that a manager who is successful in one country will be successful in another.
Related Theories and Research
Implicit Leadership Theory
The Implicit Leadership Theory (ILT) asserts that people's underlying assumptions, stereotypes, beliefs and schemas influence the extent to which they view someone as a good leader. Since people across cultures tend to hold different implicit beliefs, schemas and stereotypes, it would seem only natural that their underlying beliefs in what makes a good leader differ across cultures.
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions
One of the most prominent and influential studies to date regarding leadership in a globalized world is the Hofstede dimensions of culture. The study reveals similarities as well as differences across cultures and emphasizes the need to be open-minded to understand the differences in other cultures. Hofstede utilizes six dimensions of culture to compare cultures to give leaders an understanding of how to adjust their leadership styles accordingly. These dimensions include individualism/collectivism, feminine/masculine, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, long-term/short-term orientation, and indulgence/restraint.
GLOBE
The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Research Project (GLOBE) study incorporated both the ILT and Hofstede's dimensions into one unique research study. The GLOBE study extended the ILT to include individuals of a common culture maintaining a relatively stable common belief about leaders, which varies from culture to culture. They labeled this the Culturally Endorsed Implicit Leadership Theory (CLT). The GLOBE study came up with the nine dimensions of uncertainty avoidance, power distance, collectivism I: societal collectivism, collectivism II: in-group collectivism, gender egalitarianism, assertiveness, future orientation, performance orientation and humane orientation. Some of those dimensions correlate with the respective dimension from Hofstede. However, they differ since the GLOBE dimensions distinguish between cultural values and cultural practices, as opposed to Hofstede.
Leadership styles
Paternalistic leadership
Paternalistic leadership “combines strong discipline and authority with fatherly benevolence and moral integrity couched in a ‘personalistic’ atmosphere”. Paternalistic leadership is composed of three main elements: authoritarianism, benevolence, and moral leadership. At its roots, paternalistic leadership refers to a hierarchical relationship in which the leader takes personal interest in the workers’ professional and personal lives in a manner resembling a parent, and expects loyalty and respect in return. These leaders want to transform a team into a family-like group. They would like to know employees' quality of the life overall such as hobbies, parents' health condition, and children's education.
A great deal of research has been conducted on the prevalence of this leadership style in non-Western business organizations, indicating the prevalence of paternalistic leadership in countries like mainland China and Taiwan. However, considerably less research has been done on whether paternalistic leadership exists in Western cultures. Recently, there has been an increase in the amount of attention placed on paternalistic leadership in non-Western cultures. Although it is a relatively new area of focus in leadership research, evidence has been found supporting the relationship between paternalism and positive work attitudes in numerous cultures, including those of the Middle East, Latin America, and Pacific Asia. Paternalistic leadership has been found to be positively associated with job satisfaction in India but not in the United States. In both countries, paternalistic leadership was positively related to leader-member exchange and organizational commitment.
Transformational & transactional leadership
Transformational leadership is loosely defined as a charismatic leadership style that rallies subordinates around a common goal with enthusiasm and support. Transactional leadership is characterized by a give-and-take relationship using rewards as an incentive.