How Is Leadership Affected by National Culture - China and Australia - Case Study Example

How is leadership affected by national culture? Name: Tutor: Subject: Date: Executive Summary The issue of leadership and culture has been an interest of many academic researchers and even various leaders of different organizations according to (Northouse, 2015). This topic will evaluate the impact of leadership cultures and national cultures on the effective commitment of employees in an organization or people of a certain nationality. The results of the research indicate that the assumption made that leadership affect the commitment of the people is true. The different types of leadership affect the commitment of the people. Participative leadership cultures and authoritative leadership affect the commitment of the people in an organization. Workers commitment is always attained when supportive leadership culture to various national cultures. When leaders use participative kind of leadership, they should be well versed with the national culture of his/her employees. Introduction Leadership is the process by which somebody motivates and influence the social, economic and political state of a group of people to achieve various targets (Northouse, 2015). This where a leader manages to get the best out of an individual or a follower of his/her towards the achievement of particular targets in the most appropriate way possible. In many countries leaders influence the performance of its citizens, when the leaders are not responsible to the required limit then the possibility of getting a responsible follower of that leader will be very low. There are many thing that affect the leadership spirit of someone; national culture is one of the factors that affect the leadership style of someone in various nationalities. National culture is a set of beliefs, customs, behaviors and norms that are conversant with the people from the same sovereign nation. This set of cultures is the ones that define the leadership qualities of a certain nation. Primary difference of leadership (China and Australia) Background of leadership (both China and Australia) According to Dickson, et al. (2012). In China and Australia, there are some differences on their style of leadership, and also there are some similarities. The Cultural background of China and Australia affect the significance of different values about leadership efficiencies. Australian culture is well known for equalitarianism compared to the Chinese culture that embraces an authority oriented kind of leadership. In Australian culture, traits of leadership like humorous, friendly, communicative, respectful and participative unlike in Chinese culture of leadership where Confucian values and collectivism. The similarities that exist among the two leadership styles are that they value the followers interests, persuasive, inspirational, innovative, team-player and diplomatic. Effects of cultural difference on leadership There is a clear difference between the leadership of the two countries and the different cultural traits that cause the difference (Dunn 2012). The difference in leadership culture affects the decision making and negotiations between the country and the other. In China, negotiations are affected by the lack of friendly culture in their type of leadership. When leaders want to negotiate there must be a friendly environment created between the two conflicting countries. China’s culture of leadership does not allow negotiations hence leaders cannot reach an agreement when they come together and negotiate. In Australia, the culture gives room for a friendly leadership whereby there involves persuasion, which is a key factor in negotiation hence Australian leaders will be in a position to engage in successful negotiations, unlike China. Australians considered the communicative culture of leadership as a significant tool in negotiations, unlike Chinese leaders who considered it rather a low leadership trait and thus leading to unsuccessful negotiations (Daft, 2014). The difference between the two leadership cultures adopted by both Chinese and Australians portrays their abilities to make negotiations successful (Morténius 2015). Chinese regard being modest as the best leadership style that they find it helpful during their negotiation, but the Australians do not find being modest as a factor towards a successful negotiation. When Australians are in a negotiation, they tend to maintain their modality as low as possible since they consider it as ineffective when they want to persuade someone to accept their offer. The Chinese in the other hand consider being modest in their quest for a successful negotiation regardless of their hierarchical leadership. The Chinese see their kind of authoritative leadership as being friendly and thus embrace that culture during negotiations. Decision making is another factor that is affected by the type of leadership culture portrayed by certain nation (Daft, 2014). The ability to make informed decisions lies majorly on the side that can consider all suggestions put across by the participants. Leaders who make a decision without basing on the alternative brought forward by other people tend to make wrong and inappropriate decisions. In Australia, they consider all participants during a decision-making process unlike Chinese whose leadership culture does not consider their subjects in decision making. A leadership culture where the minors are not respected will always make decisions that tend to favor themselves alone leaving the servants with their issues to solve. This kind of leadership does not go well with people who have the potential of fighting for what is rightfully theirs. The Chinese leadership is based on Confucius ethics that make leaders always to think that they are always right in any decision that they make for their subjects. Unlike Australian leadership culture where they believe mostly in Aristotle values, they can make decisions based on the argument of every individual who is affected (Goethals, et al., 2014). Annotated bibliographies Morténius, H., Baigi, A., Palm, L., Fridlund, B., Björkelund, C., & Hedberg, B. (2015). The impact of the organizational culture on primary care staff members’ intention to engage in research and development. Journal of health organization and management, 29(2), 234-251. These scholars argue that different forms of communication that are used to compliment explicitly and intentional forms exist in a various line of leadership (Morténius, et al., 2015). The type of communication used can be supporting the initial organizational information or either unintentional. When information is communicated in a rather explicit and implicit way to the people in the organization, they tend to be in an unstable state. They will not be able to know which path they will take in their line of duty. The organizational leadership will have failed in their duty of communicating the correct information to the employees. The scholars analyzed the how implicit information that does not address the appropriate culture of the organization affected its operations, employee culture, and the leadership culture. When employees receive inappropriate information from their leaders, they tend to react in different ways. This shows the impact of leadership on the decisions made by the employees. The behavior of employee about the implicit message passes to them will always determine the relationship between them and their leaders. The type of leadership culture is clear in this context and explains how that culture influences people. The scholars’ research indicates clearly that the explicit and implicit organizational message is significant in affecting the employees’ behavior toward the leadership style applied by their leaders (Morténius, 2015). They went further to explain that the relationship between the leaders and employees affect the culture of the organization. This indicate the importance of understanding the influence of implicit information on the people so as to reduce the confusion between the leaders and employees in an organization. Dunn, M. W., Dastoor, B., & Sims, R. L. (2012). Transformational leadership and organizational commitment: A cross-cultural perspective. Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 4(1), 45. This study takes into account the link between transformational leadership and the commitment of the employee to the organizations leadership cultures. The use of leadership practice inventory and Meyer and Allen’s three-dimensional organizational commitment scale. The research done by these scholars indicate that there is a strong relationship between the employee behavior and commitment on the leadership culture used by their leaders. The organization’s commitment towards serving its employee determines the organizational performance. According to Dunn, et al, (2012), the decree of organization’s commitment is determined by the way in which the employees in the organization identifies with the values of the organization and the objectives and the need to keep his/her membership so as to reach those objectives. The employee commitment towards an organization’s objectives can be explained in various forms. Through this forms, the researchers will be able to predict accurately on the effect of commitment on behavior. Analysis of the employee commitment using the three-component model of organizational commitment was performed by these scholars to determine whether the commitment is a psychological state that makes the employee maintain his or her membership in the organization. Effective organizational commitment is the preferred form of commitment to study. This type of commitment reflects the worker’s attitude to the organizational culture of leadership. However, there are specific leadership styles that affect the worker’s commitment. Effective motivation is the key to making employees be more involved in their work areas thus displaying a high order of organizational commitment. It is appropriate to say that there exist a relationship between the effective leadership and commitment of the employees from different cultures. Dickson, M. W., Castaño, N., Magomaeva, A., & Den Hartog, D. N. (2012). Conceptualizing leadership across cultures. Journal of World Business, 47(4), 483-492. The leadership of various cultures affect the employees on an organization according to Dickson, et al. (2012). When leadership fails to include employees’ demands on its decision making, it will end up clashing with the employees. According to these scholars, they argue that leadership cultures used by the organization determines the employees trust on the objectives of the organization. Various ways that leaders use to remunerate their employees determine their ability to explore fully their potentials to help the organization to achieve certain targets set by the management. When employees are paid their salaries and wages in an appropriate time, they will tend to be motivated always to deliver as the company delivers to them. When employees understand the reasons for compensation, they will be willing to deliver as they are required to since they know the sacrifices that the company made in order to compensate them. A firm that its leaders use different cultures like workers trips, recognitions and rewarding scheme in terms of compensating their employees might get an added advantage since its worker will always deliver to their maximum. Lee, K., Scandura, T. A., & Sharif, M. M. (2014). Cultures have consequences: A configurable approach to leadership across two cultures. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(4), 692-710. In any organization or a country, there have to be consequences of various leadership cultures. The leadership of an organization can use more than one leadership cultures in running the organization. It is only when the two cross cultures are effective and applicable to the people in that organization. When these cross cultures is applied, either task oriented or relationship oriented are applied, one of them will work well with people of various cultures. Relationship oriented culture of leadership will likely prevail in most countries and companies. This type of culture cares about the relationship of the workers with their leaders. When the good relationship between workers and leaders exist, the organization will likely achieve its goals. When task oriented leadership is used, there is a higher possibility of leaders clashing with their leaders thus unable to achieve their objectives. Indian-based leadership theory- NTL model was used by these scholars to compares the effect of country membership and cultural values also a model called the LMX and the organizational change was used. The results show that understanding the national culture and its influence on leadership may be incomplete when it is focused on mean differences at the country level to examine cross-cultural differences. The configurable approach can address the role of culture in a leadership model across two cultures. In conclusion, the leadership of an organization is affected by culture. In Australia, they believe in a kind of leadership where the leaders are persuasive and respectful. Unlike in Chinese culture where leaders are guided by values of Confucius, they cannot be able to offer a chance to the people when decision making is undertaken since they believe that they are always right. Various leadership culture affects the commitment of workers towards the achievement of organizations goals. When employees are motivated, they tend to deliver higher levels thus helping the organization to achieve its targets. Bibliography Daft, R. (2014). The leadership experience. Cengage Learning. Dickson, M. W., Castaño, N., Magomaeva, A., & Den Hartog, D. N. (2012). Conceptualizing leadership across cultures. Journal of World Business, 47(4), 483-492. Dunn, M. W., Dastoor, B., & Sims, R. L. (2012). Transformational leadership and organizational commitment: A cross-cultural perspective. Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 4(1), 45. Gnanlet, A., & Yayla-Kullu, H. M. (2014). Impact of national culture on the quality of information delivery in services. Service Business, 8(1), 135-169. Goethals, G. R., Allison, S. T., Kramer, R. M., & Messick, D. M. (Eds.). (2014). Conceptions of leadership: Enduring ideas and emerging insights. Palgrave Macmillan. Lee, K., Scandura, T. A., & Sharif, M. M. (2014). Cultures have consequences: A configural approach to leadership across two cultures. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(4), 692-710. Morténius, H., Baigi, A., Palm, L., Fridlund, B., Björkelund, C., & Hedberg, B. (2015). Impact of the organisational culture on primary care staff members’ intention to engage in research and development. Journal of health organization and management, 29(2), 234-251. Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications. Read More