Leading across Cultures

In Singapore this week I attended a very interesting lecture by Prof. Yee of Nanyang Technologicial University regarding Cultural Intelligence. In essence, in order to lead across cultures it is not only “local” cultural knowledge which is required but “global” cultural intelligence. Comprised of “drive”, “motivation” and “action” (as well as “knowledge”), cultural intelligence is particularly pertinent for global leaders who may have to adapt to many different and varied cultures, by either location and/or by team composition. In this context, Prof. Yee further referenced an article from Rockstuchl et al, “Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) and Culture: a Meta-Analysis of Correlates of LMX across 23 Countries”, 2012, American Psychological Association.

Rockstuchl et al. performed a meta-analysis of the quality of leadership (low, medium or high) as per various LMX studies according to the national cultural values of where the study had been conducted. The results were further synthesized according to “horizontal-individualistic” cultures (low power-distance acceptance and individualistic, read “Western”) and “vertical-collectivist” cultures (high power-distance acceptance and collectivist, read “Asian”). In summary, the quality of the leadership has a higher impact in Western rather than Asian cultures regarding the followers’ sense of justice, leader trust, job satisfaction and turnover intention (being mainly attributed to collectivist tendencies in Asian cultures). Moreover, focusing on cultural intelligence, there were some further observations…

Here’s a summary of leadership quality assessment which was NOT different according to culture, followed by further implications (“et alors”):

Leading across Cultures

The research showed “three intriguing” findings which highlighted that “the way in which cultural values affect the leader-member relationship is very complex.” The findings were that the relationship between LMX and the following three items were NOT different in Western and Asian cultures:

1.       Task Performance

The results showed that members of both cultural configurations appear to require the necessary work-related information and resources afforded by higher quality leadership to perform well.

2.       Commitment

It appears that followers from both cultures perceive their leaders to be acting as agents of their organizations, thus commitment appears to be inspired by the quality of the leadership.

3.       Transformational Leadership

The conjecture is that because of their “appeal”, transformational rather than “transactional” leaders are more effective across cultures. Accordingly, leader-member relations are good in both cultures.

Et alors?

The central tenet of the LMX is that leaders do not treat each subordinate the same. This is the very essence of leadership both by and with diversity. Cultural intelligence is therefore very important even if it is to be aware that good quality leadership does NOT necessarily increase the sense of justice, leader trust, job satisfaction and turnover intention amongst all followers in collectivist cultures. This in itself is useful information for global leaders to know so that they can adapt accordingly! When it comes to task performance, building commitment and making transformations, the leadership has to be of good quality in all cultures. The challenges for the global leader are therefore twofold: having to be both a good leader and culturally intelligent!