How a Leader Can Adopt Leadership Approaches to Differing Global Contexts?

Summative Assignment 1 - Reflective

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Essay- How a leader can adopt leadership approaches to differing global contexts?

Introduction

This reflective essay will be associated with the leadership theories concerning cultural leadership analysis. The theories of traditional leadership styles, as well as new leadership styles, will be presented. It will include the critical analysis of how different contexts of the global culture relate to the different approaches of leadership. It will also include the reflection of my experience as a leader as well as experience gained through team collaboration. This essay will include an explanation about how the national culture can affect leadership styles with the help of power or influence as well as team communication.

Core concepts of leadership theories associated with cultural leadership analysis

The traditional leadership theories involve the leadership styles such as Autocratic or Authoritarian leadership, participative leadership as well as Delegative leadership. In the current era, the use of Authoritarian or Autocratic leadership style is not possible as it involves that the control, as well as decision-making power, is held by an individual and the input of a group very little. An autocratic leader does not take the advice of their followers and makes the decision based on their judgment. This leadership approach is ineffective in the current time, and it is used in companies or countries where power is held by the individual. Participative or Democratic leadership style means that the leader uses the approach in which all members of the company work together to make the business decision. This leadership style consists of encouraging everyone to contribute and participate. This leadership promotes a culture of cooperation as well as participation. The Laissez-Faire or delegative leadership style involves exploring the talent as well as skills of all members and providing the work environment in which employees can develop their skills to do the companies tasks effectively (Bertsch et al., 2017). This leadership approach gives the right to decide the followers which helps in developing the future leaders.

The new leadership theories involve the leadership styles such as the transformational leadership style as well as the charismatic leadership style. Transformational leadership is the style of leadership that brings changes in the organization as well as the employees. Such support as well as guide their followers to being the positive and valuable changes in the organization. Such transformational leaders show inspiration, empathy, and rapport development (Anderson, 2017). Transformational leadership is effective for the bring change to the organization. For example, Netflix is using the transformational leadership approach as the leader allows their employees to decide independently, the information sharing is open and deliberate in the organization and the company has the employee which high effectiveness. Charismatic leadership can be explained as the leadership approach of a leader which involves using communication skills, charm as well as persuasiveness to influence the followers (Jamal and Abu Bakar, 2017). Such a type of leader connects with the followers deeply. The features of such leaders are that they are good at communication, compassion, effective listening skill, and confidence. Charismatic leadership may result in negative influence.

Culture leadership is important as it involves using the approaches guided by cultural factors. The national culture, as well as organizational culture, do impact the leadership style. The organizational leadership style is usually developed based on cultural factors. According to the model of Hofstede, there are 6 dimensions. The first dimension is PDI - Power Distance Index which indicates the degree to which the least powerful people accept as well as expect the unequal distribution of power. The low level of PDI means equal power distribution by the leader. Second dimension is IDV which means individualism vs. collectivism (Beugelsdijk and Welzel, 2018). Individualism in a culture means a leader takes care of themselves and does consider the benefit of others. Collectivism in a culture means a leader looks forward to the benefit of society. The third dimension is MAS that is masculinity vs. femininity. The masculinity culture means a culture of competition as well as success is promoted by a leader. The femininity culture means to have cooperation, consensus, modesty as well as care for weak people by the leader. The fourth dimension is UAI - Uncertainty Avoidance Index which states the degree to which the people of the organization feel uncomfortable with the ambiguity as well as uncertainty. The organizational leaders or national culture that has a strong Uncertainty Avoidance Index has rigid behavior and beliefs. The fifth dimension is LTO - Long - term orientation vs. short-term orientation. The low LTO means the organizational leader or national culture holds the traditions and does promote the change. For example, a country like China protects its traditions and is not adaptable to foreign cultures. The high LTO means the organizational leader or national culture is pragmatic as well promote modern approaches (Kristjánsdóttir et al., 2018). The last dimension is IVR - indulgence vs. Restraint. If the leadership approaches promote indulgence, then it gives free gratification and provides freedom. In the restraint approach, the leader tries to suppress the gratification of needs and have strictness.

Critically analysis of global cultural context fit to business leadership style or approaches

In the global cultural environment, the leaders know the cultural preferences as well as biases which they need to analyze. In the organization, the followers have different thoughts as well as ideas regarding their expectations from their leaders. By analyzing the cultural environment, the leader can adapt the best practices suitable for the culture. Multinational companies' leaders need to communicate with the global leader, so it is necessary to understand the geographical as well as cultural boundaries while communicating. By understanding the cultural differences, the leaders become empathic as well as good in communication. It became necessary for the leaders to design the employee induction programs as well as training programs as per the cultural needs. In the organization in which the company relocates its employee to a foreign country, it becomes necessary to have cultural training as well as enhance the effectiveness of a global team. During the international merger, the leaders need to understand the difference in organizational culture as well as national culture affecting the employees (Maranga et al., 2017). The managers or leaders need to be careful when doing business or taking the management ideas from other cultures as other country's ideas of management and business may not be effective in their organization or national culture because of different values. It is necessary to develop the training program as per the specific need of the home country or host country's employees' needs. Even the leaders need to be aware of the impact of the culture on the organization's marketing, services as well as products. The autocratic leaders fail to do business effectively globally because of ignoring cultural differences and does not consider the need for employee ideas. Participative leadership can help to incorporate the need of the employee need while operating the global market. Laissez-Faire or delegation leaders will focus on the develop the required skills of employees when they operate in the global market. Transformational leaders focus on the change which helps the organization to succeed, and it incorporates the best practices that can help the business to grow in the international market (Coker, Flight and Valle, 2017). The charismatic leaders need to present may try to influence their followers with or their cultural views.

Reflection on leadership and team collaboration

Based on my experience regarding leadership, I would say that it is difficult to lead cross-cultural teams. For example, in college projects, I led the team, the problem that is usually faced are related to ineffective communication as well as coordination. Usually, the team is developed as per the model of team development given by Tuckman. During the forming stage, I had observed that there is unclarity and team members are not aware of each other. In the stage of storming, our team working group assignment faced conflicts regarding role and way to operate. At this stage, I took the role of leader and moved my team to the third stage of norming. During this stage, I had tried to resolve the communication problems that the team was facing as well as ensure coordination by setting a timeline for every activity and discussing the progress in meetings (Hildebrandt and Marr, 2020). In the performing stage, my team was comfortable with each other and doing activities properly meeting the targets. I had focused on transformational leadership as I explored the skills and knowledge that every team member has and distributed the group tasks based on it. For promoting team collaboration, I had used the collaborative approach to deal with conflicts. This leadership approach is high on assertiveness as well as high on cooperativeness. The collaborative approach helped me and my team to resolve the problem and differences effectively. For example, two members of the team were not satisfied with their roles, so I had used the collaborative approach, where I had discussed what is their problem and help them to clear their doubts about the role.

Influence of national culture on leadership style

The national culture directly affects the leadership styles of leaders. The national cultures' two main dimensions are the participative or authoritarianism orientation as well as people or task orientation. Transformational leadership applies to all types of cultures but the behavior manifestation mat differs in the different cultures (Minai and Varma, 2017). The factor that impacts the selection of the two leadership approaches such as authoritarian leadership and democratic leadership are power distance, collectivism or individualism approach, the approach of uncertainty avoidance, and assertiveness. Even the dimension of gender equality or masculinity or femininity and people-orientation pr task orientation need to be considered to explore the natural culture and its impact on the leadership approach. If the national culture involves a high level of uncertainty avoidance and individualistic culture, then the leadership approach is autocratic and has a task-oriented culture in the organization. If the national culture involves a high level of uncertainty avoidance and collectivistic culture, then the leadership approach is autocratic and has a people-oriented culture in the organization. If the national culture involves a low level of uncertainty avoidance and collectivistic culture, then the leadership approach is participative style. If the national culture involves a low level of uncertainty avoidance and individualistic culture, then also the leadership approach is participative style.

The dimension of national culture affects the style of leader based on the power distance as well as team communication. If the power distance is high, then there is no communication between down to top. If the power distance is low, then there is effective communication between down to top. The national culture is having a high level of power distance, a high level of uncertainty avoidance, collectivism, and a high level of assertiveness with masculinity leading to autocratic leadership with the task-oriented. The national culture is having a low level of power distance, low level of uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and low level of assertiveness with masculinity lead to participative leadership with the task-oriented. The national culture is having a high level of power distance, a high level of uncertainty avoidance, collectivism, and a high level of assertiveness with femininity leading to autocratic leadership with people-oriented. The national culture is having a low level of power distance, a low level of uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and a low level of assertiveness with femininity lead to participative leadership with people-oriented (Jani?ijevi?, 2019).

Conclusion

Therefore, it can be summarized that the leadership approach is affected by the culture of the organization as well as the national culture. The traditional, as well as new leadership approach adopted by the business leaders, is based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions. The team working experience helped to understand how to lead a team during the team development stages as well as ways to resolve the conflict to promote collaboration. The national culture and leadership approach analysis involves the cultural dimensions of Hofstede.

References

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Bertsch, A., Nguyen, H.T.H., Alford, A., Baran, W., Reynen, J., Saeed, M. and Ondracek, J., 2017. Exploring the relationship between personality and preferred leadership. Journal of Leadership, Accountability, and Ethics, 14(1), pp.32-45. http://www.na-businesspress.com/JLAE/BertschA_Web14_1_.pdf

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