Cultural Differences of Effective Leadership

Motivation: Cultural Differences of Effective Leadership

1. Executive Summary

This concept is concentrated on important aspects of cultural dimensions of the effective leadership. The key idea behind this study is to examine or know about different cultures. Describing the different cultures of leadership between England and France countries.

Describing briefly about different behaviours and skills of the effective leadership in England and France. This study gives the differences among leaders, as they are from two different countries.

McClelland’s Research on motivation is used find cultures of countries. The important fact, relationship and activities about leadership for effectiveness.

The Hofstedes’s five dimensional theory is used to explain the cultural differences of two different countries. Explaining the cultural differences of England and France. Lastly the conclusion part describes or summarizes the outcome or result of the theory and differences of effective leadership between two countries.

2. Terms of Reference

I am working as a leadership trainer expert who trains people to become the good and effective leaders so that they are successful in their jobs as leaders. I have done my masters on cultures, language and Identity.

My client is a Consultancy called VASA which helps people with the recruitment process in England and France. They also provide other kinds of suggestion and consultancy services like further studies to students coming from abroad, like recruiting people from abroad. VAS is a very well known name in the UK in terms of reputation as organization.

They have consulted me with the need of proper assessment of leadership qualities with different cultures mainly England and France. They have chosen me because I have been training the leader from both the countries for a long time. They need the assessment regarding what the different leadership differences are there culturally according to background of the country. The cultural aspects which can help the manager to manage the organization in a much better way and simple steps take advantage of such situations. The client requires this information to implement in their organization and also help their partners achieve better performance from their managers with the help of this assessment.

3. Overview of the situation

Introduction

The introduction starts with good back ground information about motivation to study and research. Then discusses about the problems with a conclusion for the research question. After this we discuss about the objectives of the motivation.

Background

Now we are in modern computer age and we are thinking to get computer system to communication the economic, political, cultural, technological industries have come together. The management skills and abilities for every organization or management are important to study. We are searching more activities of the leader among the different culture. This interest will be helpful for the managers to explain about the cultural differences. We are Living in a different cultural backgrounds and identifying the culture difference between effective leaders is necessary. These days the European managers understand many ideas and values for their country business and management and they understand the cultures of others.

Problem Discussion

The reasons for effective leadership are similar theories. The approaches are based on attribute, behaviour, power, conditions that are integrated. These approaches focus on the characteristics’ of effective leader, the groups and condition. The above five approaches shows the important dimensions of effective leadership and also interrelated or connected to the cultural dimension of effective leadership. Today the analysis of culture is deciding factor for leadership. The culture of effective leadership has infinite dimensions. The individual, supporters and the organization are inclined by different culture in the particular environments.

The many different approaches interrelated to the cultural dimension of leadership. The cross-cultural studies are very important field of research. Today analyses of cultures have no supporting theories and also reactions with organization and leadership practices.

“This cultural difficulty or complexity perspective suggests that culture in management settings is much more difficult, different, and contradictory than previously assumed acknowledged.”

The effective leadership needed for more study. The many cultural theories are written by Americans. There are many questions are exists for managers to place on local managements that describes on leadership and cultures. The questions which are arise for managers to place leadership to sub managements as follows:

• What is background culture of leader and of the management?
• What are the cultures of effective leader?
• How can manger can the manger should decide for the organization?

The skills and behaviour differ between the cultures. The effective leader should required good management skills and behaviour to mange an organization.

The study problem

What are the cultures the effective leader?

What essential determents necessary for a good leadership describe between England and france?

Objectives

I can easily find out by taking two different countries. We are mainly focused on the determining which is essential in one country and not essential in other country for effective leadership.

We will compare our own results with theories of cultural leadership in order to find proof for this assessment. Finally we will conclude some related and the different cultures of the leader.

4. Analysis of the situation:

Preunderstanding

The preunderstanding is an essential concept for conducting a research. The pre-understanding is done by handling with some responsibilities and challenges. Gaining of individual facts and experience which may provide problem before starting to examine. The lack of information to research on preunderstanding will force the researcher to put more time and effort to analyze particular problem.

The general knowledge, personal attributes these are the different categories of Preunderstanding required for researchers. The real experience gained by exact knowledge also we can see the technical background. The exact knowledge getting via good circumstances. The general knowledge and exact knowledge is helpful when writing our opinion.

Our background means creativity, strength, feeling contributing the term preunderstanding. The personal attributes categories are good for understanding and determination of the problem. Today we are studying in abroad so we can easily identifying the cultural differences in daily life. This experience will help us for analysis.

According to Gummesson preunderstanding is “a part of understanding as a complete. The output after analyzing the problem is called as experience.” The researcher can understand the problem more by process of studying getting a new knowledge. Therefore preunderstanding is an understanding the product output, results and outcomes.

Theories in effective leadership

The important theories about effective leadership and cross-cultural differences are analysed here. First I am going to concentrate on theories about leader facts and behaviour and also Hofstadter’s cultural five dimensions for explaining the cross-cultural studies.

Leadership and Leadership Effectiveness

“There is more different description or explanation regarding the leadership as the people who have tried to describe the concept of leadership.”

There are many ways to describe the concept of leadership with different meanings but researchers can explain according to their opinion. The common definition for leadership is “as a process of planning control by the leader on other people to structure of organization, guide lines and making possible relationships and performance in an organization.”

“Leadership is a process to achieve particular goal with a group of individuals”

The above definition indicates the goals and achievements of an effective leader in an organization. Effective leadership in an organization provides the good performance. The different hypothetical approaches are used to explain or describe the effective leadership.

The attributes of the effective leader.

The personal attributes of leader includes the leader’s behaviour and skills and also relationship to success. The many researchers who point out the attributes of effective leadership for an organization. All the attributes of leader from the researchers should be variety of different attributes. The researches on attributes of the good leader. These modern theories test the importance of the attribute and skill approach.

McClelland’s Research on Managerial Motivation

McClelland analysed and studied the leader’s motivation theory and he classified in to three different needs of managers required for organization that control their performance. The three types of needs are as follows:

• Need for affiliation (relationship).
• Need for achievement (successes).
• Need for power (authority).

The need for affiliation identifies manager or head of the organization the leader wants to be liked and he is avoiding problems between his subordinates and supervisors in an organization.

The need for achievement is connected with happiness (satisfaction); there is an aim to solve the difficult task to achieve some organizational goal. McClelland and winter describe about the need for successes “as a key for economic growth it promotes entrepreneurship.” finally McClelland and winter come to the conclusion that “the need for success is a great value for the leadership.”

A person who has high need for power he is interested to acquire the higher power (authority) positions in an organization. He has capable to resolve or solving the problems with others. The need for power (authority) and achievement both are highly related if the power increases automatically we achieve the goal or specific task.

The types of managers distinguished by McClelland and Burnham during their research as follows:

• Institutional managers

– a person who have a high power (authority) and low need for affiliation.

• Affiliation managers

– a person who have more need for affiliation than the need for power (authority).

• Personal power managers

– a person who have more power and low need for affiliation.

After comparing different types of managers the Institutional managers are more effective than the Personal power managers.

Three Skill Approach

The skills of an Effective administrator or manager categorized in to three types:

1. Human skills (social skills)
2. Technical skills (Decision making, problem solving, structuring)
3. Conceptual skills (Conceptual skills)

The leadership depends upon above three general skills the technical skills includes the knowledge about some activities, process, procedures (rules), different methods. The technical skills depend on the experiences, education and training. The human skill includes personal skills or social skills working with people. Human skills are related to the relational behaviour. The conceptual skill describes the ability to distinguish the different dependencies between the functions of the management.

Behaviour of the Leader and Effectiveness

Many researchers focused on leader’s behaviour with different skills and behaviour approaches of the organization performance. CPE (change production employee model)-model introduced by Ekvall and Arvonen. This model consists of three categories for the different leadership behaviours as follows:

• Task-oriented behaviours
• Relations-oriented behaviour
• Change-oriented behaviour

The task-oriented behaviours are also called as structure-oriented behaviour identifies the all behaviour to improve the task. The relations-oriented behaviour also called as employee-oriented behaviour. This identifies the relation between manager and subordinates, this is mainly focus on understanding their problems, providing the solution and helping them to develop in an organization. The change-oriented behaviour is latest category contains behaviour concerned with encouragement and management development.

Culture

The culture helps to identify the different peoples from the world. This culture enables the people who have same values and same way of life (attitude). The culture is learned by own and this concept starts building through interface with others. This concept builds from the people who are living in the same culture. Organizational and national cultures are different concepts in which the national cultures differ more in values but in organizational level differ in symbols. When analyzing the different national cultural concepts through Hofstede dimensions the national culture is complicated due to ethical, regional groups.

Hofstede’s Five Dimensions

Hofstede conducted information about the cross-cultural management. The main aim of Hofsted’s was to identify the employee values in different countries from the world. The Hofstede’s five dimensions which is used to identify the characteristics of every country. The five dimensions are a frame work to explain the different cultures of the every country.

The Hofstedes’s Five Dimensions are as follows:

1. Power distance Index
2. Uncertainty avoidance Index
3. Individualistic or collectivistic beliefs
4. Masculinity and femininity
5. long-term orientation vs. short-term-orientation

The first dimension called as power distance Index (PDI) and provides the relationship between the countries. The definition for power distance according to Hofstede “The degree to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.” The France is at 68th rank and England is at 35th rank according to theory. The low power distance shows low dependence between the subordinate and superior in an organization. If the result after identification the PDI is high means the dependence high between the superior and subordinates.

The 2nd dimension is called uncertainty avoidance Index and uncertainty avoidance . This dimension defines uncertainty about future need for technology, laws and rules for reducing the uncertainty. The ratio of uncertainty avoidance between England and France, the France is at 68th rank and England at 35th rank. So the uncertainty avoidance in England is higher than the France.

The third dimension is called individualistic or collectivistic beliefs. The individualism refers to single but collectivism refers to groups. The groups are important compare to individual. The England is at 90th rank and France is at 71th rank. So the individualistic are higher dimensional value in England compare to France.

The fourth dimension is called Masculinity and femininity. It describes the varieties between work and goals existing between genders. The masculinity culture is related to work and describes the roles of gender. The masculinity culture gives more importance to relations. Then England is at 66th rank and France is at 43th rank in comparison of masculinity and femininity. England is in lower dimension value compare to France.

The fifth and last dimension is called long-term orientation vs. Short-term orientation enables whether a culture is future-oriented or present-oriented. Comparison between England and France, the England (25th rank) is in higher dimension value according to Hofstedes’s theory.

5. Solutions and recommendations (conclusion)

Lets specify conclusions about effective leaders in England and france. I have described the leadership attributes differ between these two countries. The differences are identified and analyzed with a cultural analysis. Concerning McClelland’s difference among three types of needs of a leader, I concluded that effective leaders are having low need for affiliation, a high need for achievement and strong social power orientation. In England the need for achievement even more important than in France. The effective French managers have a strong socialized power.

I am also explained the three skill dimensions for an effective leadership. But French effective leader required most technical skills to solve the problem. The French leaders are friendly and worried about relationships. The results for cultural differences of the effective leader performance are slightly different in the skills. We could use Hofsted’s theory to match the results to the cultural difference in England and France. The results are explained by using the Hofstede’s theory. The France country have higher rank in uncertainty avoidance compare to England, this indicate a high need for structure to reduce irregularity. The Hofsted’s five dimensions often give a way towards behaviour but do not cover information regarding leadership behaviour. This five dimension theory has been proved as highly significant to certain behaviour skills. This theory very useful to understand the cultures of different countries.

6. Forecast and Outcomes :

From this study we can understand that the importance of different cultures and their diversity which has to be considered for becoming a good leader of the people with that cultural background. We can see in the future that there will be a lot of research to be done on the field of cultural leadership qualities. The possible outcome of this is that it will help us understand and manage people as leader in a much better and efficient way so that we can be more effective in the management.

7. References:

Leaders who make a Difference. European ManagementJournal

Hofstede Cultural Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors,Institutions and Organizations across Nations.

pentice hall Europe .sondergaard,m(1994),hofsteds consequences:a study reviews citations and replications

leadershipcrossroads.com/mat/Effective leeiwan.wordpress.com/2007/05/28/motivation-not-the-leaders

www.essays.se/about/thesis+on+motivation+and+performance