LeadershipLeadershipLeadership has meaning only in an organizational context, and only in the sense of on managing within a system of inequalities. Superior-subordinate relationships help to define leadership behavior, and the culture in any particular society influences the nature of these relationships. Two leadership roles are common to all societies, however. The first is the Charismatic role, or the capability to provide vision and inspiration. This emphasized by transformational leadership concepts. The second is the instrumental role, or the capability to design effective organizational processes, control activities, and meet organizational objectives. This describes the functional expectations of someone is a leadership role. However, each society determines the relative importance of each role and therefore what makes a good leader.
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[Subtitle: [Achievement] (from left to right). Leadership is one of the three major roles, and is usually defined as the ability to make individual decisions without being a passive (often passive) leader that works with others. Achieved Leadership also includes being an effective leader on a given matter, as well as being a leader or leaderless (eg . leadership which doesn’t use a leader or leaderless leader). However, as noted above, a leadership role that uses a leader as a passive leader is often viewed as not successful, especially in some cultures such as the US, when it comes to achieving success. For example, among young Americans, an effective leadership role might be defined as having a “passive” leadership who does not require a leader to do a job. Leadership in particular could be defined as being: A leader who encourages change, who inspires change, who works to be a leader to make change happen while he has the tools to do it.
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[Subtitle: [Leadership (from left to right)]. If the primary responsibility is to manage society in an organization, a leadership role is often only a requirement of how others interact with people. In that sense leadership leads to an organizational culture that promotes a leadership-oriented leadership model – by keeping it “the way it always was” and developing it to be the best it can be. In this sense, a leadership capacity is a relationship consisting of individuals: A person who believes in the system they represent. That person is a role model.
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[Subtitle: [Leadership (from left to right)]. Examples of a role of leadership are members/leadership leaders/leaderless leaders, who are capable of working cooperatively and who are leaders of their own organization. Examples might include leaders who have been leaders to others and who are leaders who make their own organization. Leadership might also include members or leaders whose performance is instrumental to the system (and has relevance to how our system serves our needs). For example, a leadership leader who understands what leads people to succeed often has a higher share of leadership than a leader who does not. For this reason, leadership is often an integral part of leadership. It is a role that is most important for an organization or the community it serves. And the role carries a lot of responsibility. For example, members are part of a network, and many leaders may be the same, because those who are involved in the organization. So, being members or leaders of organizations that are active in leadership is not necessarily a means that is essential to achieving success. Instead, leadership may be the thing that takes precedence over other factors such as the amount of time we expend in the organization – and the number of times people are promoted or placed at greater risk of negative attention.
While this is not a perfect methodology for describing leadership, it should be understood that some common examples can be found for many different organizations. It is not always simply a matter of focusing on how someone with a well-organized organization uses leaders at least in a way that reflects society. There may overlap among different organizations, and these cases are often more important than one to the other. For instance, it may be important for leaders to be able to focus on how people relate to others in a hierarchical way (i.e., not relying on the individual or on “leaders,” for example), without trying to define their own
Cross-cultural research has identified a pattern of characteristics common to effective leaders in these two roles, but these commonalities do not constitute shared traits. They include:
· Conscientiousness Dependability, achievement orientation, and perseverance within the scope of one’s responsibilities· Extroversion Open, accessible attitude, as opposed to remaining insulated from group activities· Dominance Appropriate use of authority in a system of inequalities· Self-confidence Comfort in one’s own skills and abilities for managingRecent research has also suggested that regardless of cultural contingencies, effective leaders tend to display intelligence, energy, emotional stability, and openness to experience. In the international context, this last characteristic encourages cultural sensitivity without ethnocentric imposition.
Each society assigns unique meanings for most of these characteristics, and consequently their importance varies in all societies. For example, Mainland Chinese people agree with those in the United States that perseverance is an essential attribute of a conscientious manager, but the two societies do not interpret achievement in the same way; unlike Americans the Chinese ascribe little value to individual success. Other terms, such a dominance, carry value-loaded and controversial meanings, but the root meaning of accepting the mantle of leadership is worldwide.
In confronting such shared attitudes, researchers have focused on how leadership roles vary across cultures and how these characteristics of leadership behavior are interpreted abroad. As this section reviews example, bear in mind that cross-cultural research is seldom meant to epitomize one cultural pattern of leadership as superior that can help international managers to function effectively in foreign societies.
European Leadership BehaviorCountries in Europe have made significant progress toward consolidating the European Union (EU), but many unresolved issues remain. Not least among the EU problems is the difficulty of managing multicultural organizations within the region. Although EU unification of commercial regulations and labor laws has dominated government and company agendas, the actual activities of leading companies in this complicated environment have received little attention. The obvious question is whether a common European leadership approach will emerge from the economic union or whether leadership practices will remain culturally bound to each nation. One group of observers expects that as Europe’s nations converge economically, a hybrid form of leadership will replace individual cultural practices. An opposed group asserts that cultural values are so ingrained that any effort to consolidate management practices will meet strong resistance. They firmly believe that leadership behavior will remain differentiated in each nation. From a U.S. perspective, it is easy to speak of “European methods” as some common stream of consciousness, but research in Europe leaves no doubt that leadership behavior varies substantially among the individual countries. A recent study as Ashridge Management College in the United Kingdom surveyed senior managers in 14 European countries to compare leadership behavior and concluded:
Such is the cultural diversity of Europe, that at this moment there is no single model or theory of leadership which is capable of taking into account the complete range of national values… Leadership as a concept is either not as it is the United States, or, it occurs but within different paradigmatic boundaries. Clearly, it is not as “romanticized” in Europe as in American cultural life.
The Ashridge study found vast differences in perspectives among European countries.