The document explores the influence of culture on leadership styles and perceptions across various societies, highlighting that charismatic and team-oriented leadership attributes are universally endorsed. It notes significant cultural variations in leadership prototypes, behaviors, and effectiveness, revealing that cultural values shape leadership preferences and strategies. The document emphasizes that transformational leadership is enhanced in collectivistic cultures and discusses cultural factors such as power distance and individualism that affect the efficacy of leadership practices.

1. Culture and Leadership
Elena Tecchiati
elena.tecchiati@cdc-leadership.com

2. Culture as a Main Effect on
Leaders and Followers

3. Cultural variation in research
¤ Most influential investigation of cultural variation in
perceptions of what traits are effective
¤ By the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior
Effectiveness Project (House et al. 2004)
¤ Relationships between
¤ societal culture
¤ organizational culture
¤ leadership prototypes
¤ 62 culturar societies
¤ appr. 17,000 middle managers

4. Results
¤ Two leadership attributes were universally endorsed:
a- Charismatic Leadership
b- Team-oriented leadership
¤ Organizational and societal values (rather than values)
were significantly related to a and b
¤ Power distance
¤ positive associated with self-protective leadership
¤ Negative associated with charismatic and participative
leadership

5. Variations in leadership prototypes
¤ Significant variations in leadership prototypes or
behavioral manifestations of the prototypes were found
¤ Across and within cultural clusters
¤ Across hierarchical positions
¤ Example: Attributes of an effective leader
¤ According to top managers:
¤ Innovative, visionary, courageous
¤ According to lower-level managers:
¤ Attention to subordinates, team building, participation

6. In individualistic cultures
¤ Perception of charisma based on recognition-based
perceptions
¤ i.e. leadership effectiveness is a perception that is based on
how well a person fits the characteristics of a „good“ or
„effective“ leader
¤ Japanes employees follow a „logic of approapriateness“
model (ehat is appropriate in a specific circumstance)

7. In collectivistic cultures
¤ Perception of charisma based on inference-based
perceptions
¤ i.e. leadership effectiveness is an inference based on group/
organizational performance outcomes
¤ U.S. employees follow a „logic consequence“ model
(what should be the consequence of a specific
behavior)

8. Variance
¤ Across-country variance accounts for more variance in
leadership preferences than
¤ Within-country variance (e.g. across demographics and
occupational grouping)

9. Culture‘s influence on leadership
prototypes
¤ Cross-cultural differences in leadership behaviors and
practices
¤ Study of how middle managers in 47 countries handle
work events (Smith et al. 2002) showed that
¤ Cultural values (e.g. high collectivism, power distance,
conservatism, and loyal involvement) are related to
¤ Reliance on vertical sources of guidance (i.e., formal rules
and superiors), rather than
¤ Reliance on peers or tacit sources of guidance

10. Strategic orientation
¤ Comparison of executive‘s strategic orientation
(Geletkanycz, 1997)
¤ In 20 countries
¤ Results:
¤ Individualism
¤ Low uncertainty avoidance
¤ Low power distance
¤ Short-term orientation
¤ Associated with executive‘s adherence to existing strategy

11. Study Hofstede et al. 2002
¤ Individualism and long-term orientation
¤ correlated positively with
¤ importance of profits in upcoming years
¤ Power distance
¤ correlated negatively with
¤ staying with the law

12. Culture‘s influences
¤ Culture affects
¤ the use of power
¤ influence tactics
¤ Individualistic cultures put emphasis on
¤ Coercive power
¤ Collectivistic cultures put more emphasis on
¤ Expert power

13. Study Rao et al. 1997
¤ Japanese managers were similar to U.S. managers in their
use of
¤ Assertiveness
¤ Sanctions
¤ Appeals to third parties
¤ Japanese mangers used culture specific influence
strategies (i.e. appeals to firm‘s authority, personal
development)

14. Study of Fu et al. 2004
¤ Perceived effectiveness of influence strategies is influenced
by
¤ individual-level variables (e.g., beliefs) and
¤ macro-level variables (e.g., national culture values)
¤ For example: individuals who believed in fate control are
¤ more likely to use assertive and relationship-based influence
strategies
¤ Particularly in societies high on
¤ future orientation
¤ In-group collectivism
¤ Uncertainty avoidance

15. Transformational and transactional
leadership
¤ Bass (1997) argued that they are
¤ Universal dimensions
¤ Tranformational more effective than transactional
¤ Yet: evidence for culture specific enactment of these
dimensions
¤ And additional dimensions in other cultures

16. Svadharma
¤ Indian svadharma orientation (following one‘s duty)
¤ As important component for transformational leaders in
India

17. Predictors of charismatic leadership
¤ Collectivism
¤ Organic organizational structures
¤ Manifestation of charisma vary across cultures!!!

18. Discourse analysis of speeches of
global leaders
¤ A strong voice with ups and downs was associated with
¤ perception of enthusiasm
¤ in Latin American cultures
¤ A monotonous tone of voice associated with
¤ perception of respect and self-control
¤ in Asian cultures

19. Culture as a Moderator of
Leadership

20. Culture
¤ Moderates relationship between
¤ leadership and
¤ employee‘s outcomes

21. Transformational leadership in
collectivistic cultures
¤ Collectivism strengthens the effect of transformational
leadership on
¤ employees‘ job satisfaction
¤ Organizational attitudes
¤ Turnover attention
¤ Transformational leadership enhanced creativity in
followers with
¤ High conservatism values in Korea

22. Participative leadership
¤ Improved profitability of work units in countries with
relatively low power distance
¤ but did not affect profitability in high-power-distance
ones

23. Leadership behavior
¤ Positive impact on employee outcomes across five
countries if
¤ Leader supportivness
¤ Contingent reward
¤ Charismatic leadership
¤ Differential impact if
¤ Participation
¤ Direcitve leadership (positive only in Taiwan and Mexico)
¤ Contingent punishment (positive only in U.S.)

24. Level of innovation
¤ In Russian culture facilitated by
¤ Charisma
¤ Demosntration of confidence
¤ Idealized influence
¤ Active/passive management by exception
¤ In Sweden facilitated by
¤ Inspirational motivation
¤ Intellectual stimulation

25. Role stress and ambiguity
¤ Initiating structure decreased role stress and ambiguity
¤ in the U.S. but not in India
¤ Consideration
¤ decreased these negative experiences and
¤ enhanced organizational commitment in both cultures

26. Emic Dimensions of Leadership
and Leadership in a Multicultural
Context

27. Paternalistic leadership
¤ Scales developed and validated by Aycan and
colleagues (Aycan et al. 2000, Aycan 2006)
¤ Paternalistic leadership has a positive impact on
¤ employee attitudes in
¤ collectivistic and
¤ high-power-distance cultures

28. Guanxi
¤ In the Chinese culture the social connections between
people that are based implicitly on mutual interest and
benefits.
¤ When guanxi is established, people can ask a favor from
each other with the expectation that the debt incurred
will be repaid sometime in the future (Yang 1994, pp. 1-2)
¤ For further information
¤ http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/guanxi.html

29. Guanxi and leadership
¤ Distinct concept from leadership member exchange
(LMX) and from commitment to the supervisor
¤ Has explanatory power for supervisory decisions on
promotion and
¤ reward allocation after controlling for performance

30. Positive leadership outcomes
¤ In multicultural work settings if
¤ Setting cooperative goals
¤ Using cooperative conflict management strategies
¤ Having a leader-follower match in ethnicity

31. Source:
„Cross-Cultural Organizational
Behavior“
¤ Gelfand, M.J., Erez, M., & Aycan, Z. (2007)
¤ The Annual Review of Psychology
¤ Pp. 492-494