Show There are often two perspectives on the expectations of what it means to be a good manager or leader—as this cartoon shows. In this case, the manager is looking at how he can empower his employee. The employee, on the other hand, would prefer to be given direct orders. There can be a huge gap in defining "a good manager," depending on who’s providing the definition. These discrepancies stem from different preferences, expectations and culturally inherited values in a particular society. For instance, people that are used to working in more egalitarian cultures tend to have the following attitudes:
There is huge potential for cultural clashes and misunderstandings if a new leader is unaware of these unspoken expectations. But what about leadership attributes across cultures? As expectations vary, there are also contrary preferences of leadership styles across cultures. The Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness (GLOBE) project is a longitudinal cross-cultural research study which aimed to examine leadership worldwide. The research was started in 1991 by Robert House, a professor at the Wharton School. The study involved a team of researchers in 62 cultures. The researchers collected data from 17,200 middle managers in over 900 different organizations. The results were as follows:
The researchers were able to define universal attitudes, which are evaluated as substantially positive or negative across cultures. Good attributes include trustworthiness, motivating and excellence oriented, whereas negative attributes were dictatorial or self-protective. Further, the researchers defined culturally contingent attributes, which reflect the contradictory character of some attributes. Some attributes that were evaluated as positive for leaders in one country were viewed as negative in other countries. These attributes resulted in six culturally endorsed leadership theory dimensions (CLTs), which represent "characteristics, skills, and abilities perceived to facilitate outstanding leadership." These dimensions are:
Below you find an illustration of the country cluster of the 62 countries, which participated in this study. Essentially, every country has specific preferences, which are in line with, or contrary to other countries:
Being aware and understanding the practical impacts of these different interpretations and expectations of leadership provides a huge benefit when working in multi-national corporations and international organizations. Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is an essential skill for business leaders today as they become more effective in navigating culturally diverse business contexts, and managing their increasingly multicultural teams. What is GLOBE leadership model?Leadership and GLOBE's Culturally Endorsed Leadership Theory (CLT) The GLOBE research team defined leadership as the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members (House et al, 2004).
What was the main purpose of the GLOBE project?The aim of the GLOBE project was to develop societal and organisational measures of culture and leadership attributes that could be used across cultures (House, Hanges, Ruiz-Quintanilla, Dorfman,Javidan, Dickson, Gupta et al., 1999).
How many leadership styles did the GLOBE project identify?The GLOBE study provides scores on six CLT dimensions—charismatic/value-based/performance-based, team-oriented, humane-oriented, participative, autonomous, and self-protective.
Which GLOBE study dimension describes the degree to which individuals express pride loyalty and cohesiveness in their organizations or families?In-group collectivism is "the degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or families" (House et al, 2004, p.
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