Selecting and developing your future leaders to operate globally
The removal of trade barriers and the growth of the single market within Europe increases the permeability of national boundaries. An increasing number of companies are expanding beyond national borders, managers are employed transnationally, in cultures other than their own, and participation in cross-cultural teams is becoming commonplace.
Companies that operate across Europe need leaders who are able to lead people in a variety of different cultures and this requires them to be aware of cultural differences. Leadership theories argue that the closer the match between a leader and the leadership 'concept' of those being led, the more likely are followers to react positively to being led/influenced. In other words, if your concept of a leader involves him/her being autocratic in style and you're faced with a leader who takes a more participative approach it is likely that the leader will be less effective in the role. It therefore follows that if leaders have an understanding of the leadership concepts of different cultures, and alter their style accordingly, then they are likely to be more successful in fulfilling their role outside their home country.
The research being reviewed here (Brodbeck et al, 2000) found that certain European countries 'cluster' together in terms of their leadership concepts. They were clustered as follows:
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Anglo - England and Ireland
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Nordic - Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Netherlands
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Germanic - Austria, Germany, Switzerland
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Latin - Hungary, Italy, Spain, Portugal
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Central - Poland, Slovenia
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Near East - Greece, Turkey
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The Czech Republic, France, Russia and Georgia were distinct from any other countries
Felix Brodbeck and his colleagues wanted to identify the leadership dimensions that describe differences between European countries. To this aim people were asked to complete a 112-item questionnaire, which required them to rate (on a 7-point scale) the degree to which each leadership attribute 'facilitates or impedes outstanding leadership'.
The items covered 21 attributes:
Visionary, Inspirational, Self Sacrificial, Integrity, Decisive, Performance Oriented, Team Collaborative, Team Integrator, Diplomatic, Malevolent, Administrative, Self Centred, Status Consciousness, Conflict Inducer, Face Saver, Procedural, Autocratic, Participative, Humane Orientation, Modesty & Autonomous.
The research found that certain leadership attributes were clearly important across all European countries. These included Inspirational, Visionary, Integrity, Performance Orientation and Decisiveness. Likewise, Self Centred and Malevolence were uniformly reported as mainly impeding outstanding leadership in all countries.
Interesting differences between clusters of countries include:
Participative (non-individual, egalitarian, non-micro manager, delegator)
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More typical of an outstanding leader: Anglo, Nordic and Germanic countries
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Less typical: Latin, Near East and Central countries, Russia and Georgia
Administrative (orderly, administratively skilled, organised, good administrator)
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More typical of an outstanding leader: Latin, Near East and Central countries, Russia and Georgia
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Less typical: Anglo and Nordic countries
The researchers conducted further analyses to see whether any of the attributes clustered together in such a way to further discriminate between the countries. The first group of attributes were named "interpersonal directness and proximity", mainly due to its high negative correlations with two attributes; Face Saving, defined as, indirect, evasive and avoids negatives, and Self Centred, defined as, self-interested, non-participative, loner and asocial.
The "interpersonal directness and proximity" dimension:
The second dimension was distinctly associated with the attribute Autonomy, defined as individualistic, independent, autonomous and unique, therefore the researchers retained the name.
The "autonomy" dimension:
Thirdly, a Self Centred - Group Centred dimension was discovered which positively related to Self Centred (defined above) and negatively related to Team Collaboration, defined as, group oriented, collaborative, loyal, consultative, mediator and fraternal.
The "self-centred / group-centered" dimension:
Finally, a fourth dimension was named Humane Orientation due to its positive correlation with the attribute of the same name, defined as, generous and compassionate.
The "humane orientation" dimension:
So how does this all affect the selection of our leaders?
There are two options. Either organisations can use the information to help them build up a clear picture of the kind of leadership qualities needed to operate effectively in a target country, and therefore select managers on the basis of how strongly they demonstrate these attributes. Or, organisations can recruit leaders who demonstrate an openness to foreign cultures and a willingness to adapt their style to achieve the required results. The second option is likely to be preferable for organisations which demand a high degree of mobility from their leaders.
What about development?
With this knowledge, training can be designed to provide leaders with the opportunity to learn about and develop the leadership approaches required to operate across Europe. It will also give HR professionals a greater idea of the amount of prior training, coaching and actual experience in the host country is necessary to ensure effective cross-cultural leadership. This will obviously depend on the magnitude of differences between cultures.
Reference
Brodbeck, F.C et al. (2000). Cultural variation of leadership prototypes across 22 European countries. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 73, 1-29.
Newsletter: 2003