Background
Leadership can be defined, essentially, as a type of management interaction based on the most effective combination of various sources of power for a given situation. In any case present, leader’s actions should be aimed at encouraging people to achieve common goals. It follows from this definition that leadership is a function of the leader, followers, and situational variables.
Leadership as a Process
The process of leadership has quite a complicated nature; however, it is highly important to any organization. Tseng and Levy (p. 4, 2019) claim that “leadership is inherent in the interpersonal aspects of performance management”. This study implies that for an effective management approach, a manager should not only follow the organization’s set of policies – they also need to possess leader’s qualities. The process of leadership is comprised of many variables, the main being the ability to listen and understand, to see the whole picture and to unite people. A good example provide Sacavém et al. (p. 24, 2017), suggesting that “leaders’ expressing immediate behaviors would elicit greater ratings of charismatic leadership from followers than leaders’ who conveyed “non-immediate and non-dominant” displays”. Leader’s influence on the working atmosphere and the employees cannot be stressed enough, especially today, when the pandemic had influenced the entire society.
Cultural Differences and Biases
No one can deny the fact that cultural differences have a significant impact on the behavior and actions of a leader. Based on this, it becomes quite obvious that these differences are usually reflected in the ways of distributing working time, decision making, and methods of motivation. The concept of leadership is an integral element in the system of international relations, which largely determines the course of the world political and economic processes.
The GLOBE studies helped me understand that my cultural biases have a very real place in my own leadership process, as the culture I have grown in influenced heavily my approach to work. Wang et al.’s (p. 19, 2021) study results show that “female followers could react more favorably to same-sex leaders than male followers” – and I have personally witnessed such an issue in my own culture. Thus, to improve my leadership approach, I could learn, for example, to recognize how different cultural experiences influence team’s perception of themselves and their colleagues, and adapt the managing process accordingly.
Points for Personal Improvement
It is clear that an ethical approach to the leadership process is strongly suggested, and I would have to adapt my own approach to match it. Shakeel et al. (p. 616, 2019) support that claim, stating that “authentic and positive leaders succeed virtuous leaders in the timeline as they are assumed to be more externally oriented”. Different cultural settings require, of course, different approaches to leadership. According to Ratanjee (para. 2, 2021), “the topic of developing a global mindset and exposing leaders to multicountry and multicultural experiences is gaining increasing interest”. The globalization of the world influences a perfect leader’s image significantly everywhere.
Reviewing the list of cross-cultural competencies presented by Adler and Bartholomew (1992), I would rate myself to be on the third competence now. Northouse (p. 621, 2019) refers to it as “being able to work simultaneously with people from many cultures”. A good example of that is my study environment – I constantly meet people from different cultures and communicate with them successfully. My strong point is that I understand quite well, as well as accept almost fully cultural differences between people, and I do my best to study the variety of world cultures comprehensively. However, I am yet struggling to develop a method for myself to learn how to maintain detailed knowledge about different cultures to act according with their designated cultural rules. I could improve my approach to learning about cultural differences to be perhaps more practical and people-oriented.
Reference List
Northouse, P.G., 2019. Leadership: Theory and practice, Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Ratanjee, V., 2021. The future of Leadership development: A global mindset. Gallup.com. Web.
Sacavém, A. et al., 2017. Charismatic leadership: A study on Delivery styles, mood, and performance. Journal of Leadership Studies, 11(3), pp.21–38.
Shakeel, F., Kruyen, P.M. & Van Thiel, S., 2019. Ethical leadership as process: A conceptual proposition. Public Integrity, 21(6), pp.613–624.
Tseng, S.T. & Levy, P.E., 2019. A multilevel leadership process framework of performance management. Human Resource Management Review, 29(4), p.100668.
Wang, G. et al., 2021. Does leader same-sex sexual orientation matter to Leadership Effectiveness? A Four-study Model-testing Investigation. Journal of Business and Psychology.