On Becoming a Leader in Asia and America by Claudia Peus, Susanne Braun, and Kristin Knipfer - Article Example

International Leadership and Management work From “On Becoming A Leader In Asia And America: Empirical Evidence From Women Managers” By ClaudiaPeus, Susanne Braun, And Kristin Knipfer Name: Institution: International Leadership and Management Coursework From “On Becoming A Leader In Asia And America: Empirical Evidence From Women Managers” By Claudia Peus, Susanne Braun, And Kristin Knipfer 1. One of the major conclusions that are being made by the paper is that women leadership and the leadership styles that are practiced by women are more successful in the attainment of high levels of organizational success when compared to those places where less women leaders are represented in board meetings and take part in the executive committees. However, there are a number of factors that act as barriers against the achievement of these goals, objectives and abilities to help women improve on the functions and duties. Mainly, they are based on those factors that have a great influence on the perspectives and feelings of the women towards their own achievements. They depend on both the internal resources available as well as the interactions that the women have with other peers and workmates within the organization. As such, it is important that organizational leadership is not considered in terms of gender roles in order to allow the women to fully exercise their unique leadership skills (55). 2. It is imperative to say that the study of gender studies in cross cultural leadership is likely to lead to different results when compared to the conduct of studies based on cross cultural leadership that disregards gender issues because different countries in the region have their own set placement of leadership positions in the organizations. At times, this is a result of the cultural and social practices in different societies (58). There is a lack of consistence in the way that women tend to take up leadership position in varied areas. For example this leads to fewer women in the corporate activities in China when compared to Singapore. For this reason, it is difficult to apply the findings from one region into another since different countries have different gender role expectations especially towards women. Therefore, with the varied leadership skills there are bound to be a wide range of disparities (60). 3. The other leadership style that is not mentioned in the article and would have been appropriate to study women leadership is the shared leadership style. It is not directly the democratic and relationship related leadership styles that are associated with women in the text. Instead, it is unique in the way that it is broadly distributed to the extent that the people who are within the organization and the team are able to lead each other. This would have been appropriate in the study of women leadership since it would have helped to determine the level of disparity between women and men in the delegation of duty and their ability to have the different duties and tasks within the organization shared so that each of the employees have equal roles and decision tasks to make within the organization (61). 4. According to the article women leadership styles, there are differences between the Asian and the US women leadership styles. In Asia, they tend to be more salient when compared to the United States because of the different leadership styles that are practiced in the varied regions (57). Asian regions focus more on the task oriented kind of leadership styles. These ones still focus on the tradition gender roles where despite the fact that women are in charge of leadership positions, they are still expected to take care of their homes. This presents a big challenge to them as they are expected to have a balance between their jobs and the home chores. This notion is opposed to the United States where the leadership styles applies are nurture oriented. This means that they aim at nurturing the competence and capabilities of the improvement. With this, they help to enhance the performance of the women leaders. They are therefore able to focus more on their careers as they make efforts to attain their goals and career aspirations. For this reason, the salient nature between the women leaders in Asia and those in the United States continues to become persistent (62). 5. The individual success factors in the US are clarified in terms of “individualism” in the US while the same individual success factors in China are classified in the form of “collectivism” because of the different notions that the Western countries have regarding leadership when compared to the Asian countries (59). While the Western countries have a culture that fosters on the focus towards leadership as an individual assertion the Asian culture is based on the concept that leadership should be approached as a group focused action. In the U.S most of the women had revealed that they were driven into their careers by the presence of the self dominance career dominance. This meant that for a majority of them, they had followed their individual visions towards the attainment of the leadership positions. In order for them to become the leaders that they were, they had made the decision to take risks, taking continuous lesson and seeking the companies that had the greatest potential of meeting their leadership needs and their own goals (58). It was a major significant revelation that women leadership is primarily the result of their personal values. In essence, is is founded on the premises of self awareness. This is opposed to the Asian countries where leadership is considered as group affair where although the concept of individualism exists, leadership in women is also a product of the facilitation of their followers towards the development. This is one of the steps that contribute to the achievement of their organizational goals and the ability to achieve their tasks. This is an indication that in the Asian countries there is a collective responsibility towards leadership. They focus on the paternalistic leadership where the contribution towards subordinates is attached positively to the leadership skills of the leader (63). 6. The “glass ceilings” that are implicitly mentioned in the article as a barrier for achieving leadership position in each of the different countries include those factors that are related to gender stereotypes and the cultural values and roles assigned to each of the genders and especially the women. For instance, the cross cultural stereotypes that are mostly related to the notion of think-manager-think-male phenomena are greatly exhibited in the United States. However, this attitude is even more pronounced in Asia. It is for this reason that the women in Asia are mostly faced with the challenging tasks of struggling to combine the commitments that are required towards their families as well as the duties that are available at their workplaces (65). The other glass ceiling that has been found to dominate the three countries is that of cultural values that influence gender stereotypes. These cultural values are shown to impact on the attitudes of the gender roles in the different organizational contexts. As such, in case of a national leader, the nation’s power distance is likely to be influenced by the attitude of the manager towards traditional gender roles. In addition, there is a great impact that is caused by the macro environment on the ways that individuals pursue their career aspirations. In this respect, the different barriers are presented in varied forms in each of the countries under study. For instance, in China, the greatest glass ceiling that needs to be broken to allow individuals attain their maximum potential as women leaders is the aspect of the existence of traditional gender roles especially in the rural areas. On the other hand, in Singapore, there is the glass ceiling that is related to the traditional gender roles that present challenges to the women who are forced to combine the hectic family roles with the work duties. Therefore, it presents burdensome pressure on the women. In the same sense, there is the glass ceiling that is related to the role of women in India despite the success rates that are experienced as a result of their unique leadership styles. Although there is an increased rate at which women are gaining entry into professional careers, there is still a greater degree of salience in relation to their need to commit to their family roles, which are so much emphasized within the Indian culture as the central element of every being still remains constant (66). 7. In the article, a distinction is made between the success factors at four levels of analysis. These are individual, interpersonal, organization and social systems. These four levels may be interdependent since they all play a part in relation to the ability of the individual to achieve the ultimate orientation and their career aspirations. It is shown that the relationship that the individual has with others in the organization, the way that they are selected and promoted as well as the gender stereotypes in a particular area are the factors that largely lead to the success rates in the attainment of career aspirations and orientations. In this case, it may have a great impact on the conclusion of the article in the sense that they all focus on the aspect of the use of the resources that are found within the individual. Therefore, they are all dependent on the characteristics and the capability of the individual. In essence, the other three; interpersonal, organizational and social systems are related to the individual level of analysis because they are founded on the ability of the individual to interact with other people within the organizational setup to achieve success (66). It may thus be difficult for one of the levels to be successful without the other. It is also notable to say that the other levels of analysis also lead to the attainment of the objectives and the goals of the individual level. It is the way through which the individual interacts and interrelates with the subordinates, peers and the supervisors that enable them to achieve different rates of success and hence the variation in the selection and promotion sectors as well as the availability of gender stereotypes. In this sense, the conclusion would have been different because in most areas women tend to face such barriers more than the men. It would therefore not be easy to practice effective leadership skills under such conditions and attain organizational success (67). 8. The title of the article can be considered to be inappropriate because instead of looking at the differences that occur when leadership is considered on the basis of gender; it discusses how the women can be leaders in the different countries. It is, therefore, inappropriate due to the fact that it mainly focuses on the ways with which one can become a leader in Asia and the US. It also states that it is an empirical study from the women leaders. On the contrary the title should have been made to compare the success rates between the women leaders in Asia, China and Singapore in comparison to that which is used in the US. In this case, the information should not have been compared from the women leaders but through the research on the impact of the various leadership styles on the success rates in relation to innovation and competitiveness of the Asian economies. In this sense, it should have brought about the differences that are created in the economies using the different leadership styles (67). The most appropriate title for this article would have been “The achievement of higher organizational success by applying women leadership: An empirical study between Asia and America”. Bibliography Peus, C., Braun, S. & Knipfer, K. (2014). On becoming a leader in Asia and America: Empirical evidence from women managers. The Leadership Quarterly, 26; 55-67. 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