Leadership Chapter 15 - Culture and Leadership

As the title suggests, this chapter is about culture and leadership. Like the previous chapter, this one is multifaceted and focuses on a collection of related ideas rather than on a single unified theory. Our discussion in this chapter will center on research that describes culture, its dimensions, and the effects of culture on the leadership process.
 

Since World War II, globalization has been advancing throughout the world. Globalization is the increased interdependence (economic, social, technical, and political) between nations. People are becoming more inter-connected. There is more international trade, cultural exchange, and use of  worldwide telecommunication systems. In the past 10 years, our schools, organizations, and communities have become far more global than in the past. Increased globalization has created many challenges, including the need to design effective multinational organizations, to identify and select appropriate leaders for these entities, and to manage organizations with culturally diverse employees (House & Javidan, 2004). Globalization has created a need to understand how cultural differences affect leadership performance.
 

Globalization has also created the need for leaders to become competent in cross-cultural awareness and practice. Adler and Bartholomew (1992) contended that global leaders need to develop five cross-cultural competencies: First, leaders need to understand business, political, and cultural environments worldwide. Second, they need to learn the perspectives, tastes, trends, and technologies of many other cultures. Third, they need to be able to work simultaneously with people from many cultures.
 

Fourth, leaders must be able to adapt to living and communicating in other cultures. Fifth, they need to learn to relate to people from other cultures from a position of equality rather than cultural superiority (Adler & Bartholomew, 1992, p. 53). Additionally, Ting-Toomey (1999) said that global leaders need to be skilled in creating transcultural visions. They need to develop communication competencies that will enable them to articulate and implement their vision in a diverse workplace. In sum, today’s leaders need to acquire a challenging set of competencies if they intend to be effective in present-day global societies.