Cultural Dimensions

LEADING

How Different Cultures View Leadership, Hierarchy and Power

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Answer the following questions quickly without giving them much thought.

– Do you expect a boss to wear an Armani suit or khaki trousers with jogging shoes?

– Should she travel to work on a mountain bike or in a limousine?

– Do you call him “Mr. Director,” or are you more likely to address him as “Sam”?

How you respond to these questions depends on your individual personality. It also may reflect the country you come from.

The leading scale measures the degree of respect and deference shown to authority figures.

This scale places countries on a spectrum from egalitarian to hierarchical. Egalitarian cultures expect leading to be in a democratic fashion. Hierarchical cultures expect leading to be from top to bottom (Eiffel tower structure)

Key Characteristics

EGALITARIAN

HIERARCHICAL

  • The ideal distance between a boss and a subordinate is low.
  • The best boss is a facilitator among equals.
  • Organizational structures are flat.
  • Communication often skips hierarchical lines.

 

  • The ideal distance between a boss and a subordinate is high.
  • The best boss is a strong director who leads from the front.
  • Status is important.
  • Organizational structures are multi-layered and fixed.
  • Communication follows set hierarchical lines

CGENERAL TRAITS OF EACH LEADERSHIP STYLE

The chart shows examples of where certain countries fall on the leadership scale. 

COUNTRY COMPARISON

The chart shows examples of where certain countries fall on the leadership scale. 

ANDRE LAURENT’S STUDY

An interesting study done by Professor André Laurent from the Business School INSEAD asked the following question to hundreds of European managers:

« Is it important for a manager to have at hand precise answers to most of the questions that subordinates may raise about their work? »

While 55% of Italians that were polled said that it is indeed important for the boss to have most of the answers, only 7% of Swedes thought the same way.

EXAMPLE Nr. 1

 

What is for you a good boss? 

For Steve Henning, raised in egalitarian Australia, the answer was clear. The best boss is just one of the guys: At home I was a near-full-time bicycle commuter. I’m a senior vice president and my Australian staff thought it was great that I rode a bike to work like many of them did. So I decided to bring my bicycle with me when I was assigned to a new job in China.

Unfortunately, Henning’s decision backfired:

My team was humiliated that their boss rode a bike to work like a common person. There are plenty of bikes on the road here but they are not carrying vice presidents. The team felt my actions suggested to the company that their boss was unimportant, and that they, by association, were also unimportant.

After several years in China, Steve Henning reflected on his experience:

I soon got rid of the bike, and stopped asking everyone to call me by my first name. I abandoned early strategies to make their culture more like my own, like implementing an open-floor seating plan. My team no more wanted me to be seated in a cubicle.

“In China, the boss is always right,” Henning reflected, “and even when the boss is very wrong, he is still right.” Gradually he had learned to understand and respect this system of reciprocal obligations. “Your team may follow your instructions to the letter, but in return, you must understand your role to coach and take care of them,”.

 

EXAMPLE Nr. 2

 

When Joseph Alabi moved from Nigeria to Denmark, he was taken aback by the way his Danish staff spoke to him. Everyone — from the secretary to guys on the shop floor — used his first name and didn’t hesitate to contradict him in meetings. As he pointed out:

In the part of Nigeria I come from, we are taught to show the utmost respect to anyone above us in the hierarchy. When an older brother asks his little brother to fetch him water, the little brother does as told or suffers the wrath of his mother. When a grandparent arrives, he gets down on his knees in order to greet him. At work, you wouldn’t dare call your boss by his first name, let alone challenge him in public or in some other way insult his position in society.

At first he took things personally, but gradually Joseph realized that the Danes simply show their respect very differently from Nigerians:

The Danes have something called “the Law Of Jante”, which is a set of extremely egalitarian principles. Do not think you are better than others. Do not think you are smarter than others. Do not think you are more important than others. These and the other Jante rules are part of the way the Danes live. Hierarchy is almost entirely absent in this society. Children call the teacher by his first name. Young children challenge elders without hesitation. And the boss really is treated like he is just one of the team — a sort of facilitator among equals. 

In the following video, Erin Meyer is discussing how leadership styles are different in cultures around the world and how to lead a successful international team.

HISTORICAL ROOTS OF THIS DIMENSION

– Role of Roman Empire in Southern Europe: the Romans built hierarchical social and political structures and heavily centralized systems for managing their vast empire. Later, the catholic church set up the same type of hierarchical system.

– The Protestant Reformation largely removed the traditional hierarchy from the church. Individuals speak directly to God, instead of speaking to God through the priest, the bishop and the pope, as it is the case in Catholicism. Societies dominated by Protestantism are very often more egalitarian tha those dominated by Catholicism.

– In Northern Europe, by contrast, the Vikings were surprisingly egalitarian. When settling to Iceland, they founded one of the world’s early democracies, with a debating hall in which everybody could give his opinion and vote.

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