Intercultural management

Transformational leadership is a leadership outlook that causes changes in both individuals and social systems. This type of leadership creates positive change in its followers with the final goal of developing its followers into leaders. When enacted in its authentic form,   the leadership enhances motivation, morale, and performance in individuals through a variety of mechanisms. 

The mechanisms include connecting the individuals’ sense of identity and self to the mission and identity of the organization, being a role model for individuals that inspire them, challenging individuals to take ownership of work and understanding the strengths and weakness of followers which enables the leader to align individuals with tasks that optimize their performance.

Q1.

There are different types of transformational leaders that exist for each cultural group. Transformational leaders can be referred as managers that go beyond the transactional leadership through articulating a vision, breaking loose from a status quo, and giving purpose to the goals, risk-taking, and motivation to lead and demonstrating high ethical standards. Such leaders succeed because their subordinates respond with high levels of performance, devotion, reverence, and willingness to sacrifice for the company.  Transformational leaders exist in every culture although the same leadership may not succeed everywhere. It is widely acknowledged that cultural differences play a major role in influencing the human thinking and behavior and therefore management is affected by the local, historical and social norms. Different cultures have different conceptions and evaluation standards of the requirements for effective leadership. Some of the cultures expect leaders to make all decisions to be effective whereas other cultures the leaders might need to adopt a democratic approach to be termed effective.  

In Taiwan, the Confucian based values emphasize a strong respect for hierarchy whether at work or in the family, preserving interpersonal peace and exhibiting modesty. Confucian based societies emphasize leadership paternalism and benevolence. Cultural values have an important influence on the development of leadership ideals. Research has found that different country seems to have different ideals of leaders.   The effectiveness of a leader is therefore inferred through cultural values. The most important attribute for the leaders is the personal responsibility for work performance. Therefore, when determining how to respond to subordinates behavior, leaders have to make a key distinction the external and internal distinction.

Q2.

In general, people prefer certain traits and behaviors in their leaders depending on their cultural backgrounds. Different cultures have different perceptions of what defines a successful leader. However, some of the behaviors and traits are culturally universal since most of the cultures accept them. The distinction between a person’s national cultures is explained as the focus on exalting itself above all other present cultures while a multinational environment is explained as working to embrace and adapt the diverse cultures. An individual selected for multinational leadership must adjust their strong sense of national cultural norms through adopting a multicultural mindset.  The multicultural mindset must have the willingness to recognize the limitations of their own culture and adopt the culture of the host country.  Therefore, to become an effective leader in a multinational environment, the leader will require a multicultural mindset that is cultivated by employing universal principles of effective leadership such as the vision, service and leading other to greatness. In other words, to achieve effective leadership in the multinational environment, the leader is required to adopt the host culture, establish a corporate vision by not abandoning their national culture and leading others to greatness with humility and patience.

Q3.

All levels of culture influence the types of leaders’ behaviors that the subordinates consider appropriate or just and therefore multinational managers will be considered most effective if they behave the way their subordinates’ expect of them. In countries with high power distance values, the subordinates’ expect an autocratic leadership whereby the leader assumes a master figure status but acts as an authoritarian master. In low power countries such as Sweden and Norway, the subordinates expect their leader to act more like themselves. England is an example of a low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance where the leader is expected to be democratic and the leadership style a participative and supportive. China, however, is an example of a country with high power distance and low uncertainty avoidance whereby the leaders are expected to be “masters” using directive and supportive leadership styles.

The national context affects the subordinates expectations relating to what a leader should do and what they may not do.   The differences in leaders’ behaviors communicate the personal leader’s task orientation. The subordinates can either accept or reject certain leadership behaviors as a legitimate entitlement of leadership. The cultural values of power distance have insightful effects on subordinates’ expectations concerning their leaders. In the countries with high power distance which are mostly Latin and Asian countries, the subordinates expect autocratic leadership. Other than the power distance, other cultural values are likely to affect the subordinates’ expectations concerning the leadership styles and behaviors.  Strong masculinity norms often cause the acceptance of authoritarian leadership although this is most evident in the paternalistic authoritarianism of the Japanese. The classic contingency view and the national context contingency models of leadership provide multinational managers with tips on how to adapt leadership styles to different national context.

Q4.

Fundamental attribution error is the human tendency to explain another person’s behavior based on internal factors such as their disposition and underestimating the role those external factors such as the situational influences play on a person’s behavior. Fundamental attribution error is often associated with correspondence bias which refers to the tendency to conclude stable personality characteristics from another person’s behavior even in instances when situational factors caused the behavior.

Humans are inclined to attribute a person’s behavior to his or her personality rather than considering the external factors that caused the actions. When one or more of the employees are underperforming, it is easy to conclude that the employees are at fault since they either lack the drive or the competence to perform effectively.  The leader may conclude that the right people for the job were not hired (Andrew, 2015). Though this may be true, there are other explanations for the situation are also possible. The employees may not have been properly trained or perhaps lack the resources needed to perform effectively in their job capacities. The leaders are likely to fall prey to the fundamental attribution error and under look underlying problems within the departments which results in inadequate solutions, time and resource wastage.  The leaders need to broaden their mindset and consider alternatives to ensure thorough analysis of situations is done, and the correct solutions are developed.

References

Day A. ( 2015) the fundamental attribution error and how to better understand your employees. 

Carolyn Morgan is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in nursing research paper writing service California. If you need a similar paper you can place your order from nursing paper writing services Pennsylvania.