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16Culture and
Leadership
Description
As the title suggests, this chapter is about culture and leadership. Like the
previous chapter, this one is multifaceted and focuses on a collection of
related ideas rather than on a single unified theory. Our discussion in this
chapter will center on research that describes culture, its dimensions, and
the effects of culture on the leadership process.
Since World War II, globalization has been advancing throughout the world.
Globalization is the increased interdependence (economic, social, technical,
and political) between nations. People are becoming more interconnected.
There is more international trade, cultural exchange, and use of worldwide
telecommunication systems. In the past 10 years, our schools, organizations,
and communities have become far more global than in the past. Increased
globalization has created many challenges, including the need to design
effective multinational organizations, to identify and select appropriate lead-
ers for these entities, and to manage organizations with culturally diverse
employees (House & Javidan, 2004). Globalization has created a need to
understand how cultural differences affect leadership performance.
Globalization has also created the need for leaders to become competent in
cross-cultural awareness and practice. Adler and Bartholomew (1992) con-
tended that global leaders need to develop five cross-cultural competencies:
First, leaders need to understand business, political, and cultural environ-
ments worldwide. Second, they need to learn the perspectives, tastes, trends,
and technologies of many other cultures. Third, they need to be able to work
Culture and Leadership Globalization
,428 Leadership Theory and Practice
simultaneously with people from many cultures. Fourth, leaders must be able
to adapt to living and communicating in other cultures. Fifth, they need to
learn to relate to people from other cultures from a position of equality
rather than cultural superiority (Adler & Bartholomew, 1992, p. 53).
Additionally, Ting-Toomey (1999) said that global leaders need to be skilled
in creating transcultural visions. They need to develop communication com-
petencies that will enable them to articulate and implement their vision in a
diverse workplace. In sum, today’s leaders need to acquire a challenging set
of competencies if they intend to be effective in present-day global societies.
Culture Defined
Anthropologists, sociologists, and many others have debated the meaning of
the word culture. Because it is an abstract term, it is hard to define, and dif-
ferent people often define it in dissimilar ways. For our purposes, culture is
defined as the learned beliefs, values, rules, norms, symbols, and traditions
that are common to a group of people. It is these shared qualities of a group
that make them unique. Culture is dynamic and transmitted to others. In
short, culture is the way of life, customs, and script of a group of people
(Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988).
Related to culture are the terms multicultural and diversity. Multicultural
implies an approach or a system that takes more than one culture into
account. It refers to the existence of multiple cultures such as African,
American, Asian, European, and Middle Eastern. Multicultural can also
refer to a set of subcultures defined by race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orienta-
tion, or age. Diversity refers to the existence of different cultures or ethnici-
ties within a group or an organization.
Related Concepts
Before beginning our discussion of the various facets of culture, this section
describes two concepts that are closely related to culture and leadership:
ethnocentrism and prejudice. Both of these concepts can have impacts on how
leaders influence others.
Ethnocentrism
As the word suggests, ethnocentrism is the tendency for individuals to place
their own group (ethnic, racial, or cultural) at the center of their observations
Global VS Local Leadership and Cultural Diversity
, Chapter 16 Culture and Leadership 429
of others and the world. People tend to give priority and value to their own
beliefs, attitudes, and values, over and above those of other groups.
Ethnocentrism is the perception that one’s own culture is better or more
natural than the culture of others. It may include the failure to recognize the
unique perspectives of others. Ethnocentrism is a universal tendency, and
each of us is ethnocentric to some degree.
Ethnocentrism is like a perceptual window through which people from one
culture make subjective or critical evaluations of people from another culture
(Porter & Samovar, 1997). For example, some Americans think that the dem-
ocratic principles of the United States are superior to the political beliefs of
other cultures; they often fail to understand the complexities of other cultures.
Ethnocentrism accounts for our tendency to think our own cultural values and
ways of doing things are right and natural (Gudykunst & Kim, 1997).
Ethnocentrism can be a major obstacle to effective leadership because it
prevents people from fully understanding or respecting the viewpoints of
others. For example, if one person’s culture values individual achievement, it
may be difficult for that person to understand another person whose culture
emphasizes collectivity (i.e., people working together as a whole). Similarly,
if one person believes strongly in respecting authority, that person may find
it difficult to understand someone who challenges authority or does not eas-
ily defer to authority figures. The more ethnocentric we are, the less open or
tolerant we are of other people’s cultural traditions or practices.
A skilled leader cannot avoid issues related to ethnocentrism. Even though
she recognizes her own ethnocentrism, a leader also needs to understand—
and to a degree tolerate—the ethnocentrism of others. In reality, it is a bal-
ancing act for leaders. On the one hand, they need to promote and be
confident in their own ways of doing things; on the other hand, they need
to be sensitive to the legitimacy of the ways of other cultures. Skilled leaders
are able to negotiate the fine line between trying to overcome ethnocentrism
and knowing when to remain grounded in their own cultural values.
Prejudice
Closely related to ethnocentrism is prejudice. Prejudice is a largely fixed atti-
tude, belief, or emotion held by an individual about another individual or
group that is based on faulty or unsubstantiated data. It refers to judgments
about others based on previous decisions or experiences. Prejudice involves
inflexible generalizations that are resistant to change or evidence to the con-
trary (Ponterotto & Pedersen, 1993). Prejudice often is thought of in the
Reducing Ethnocentrism
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