American and French Leadership

Can American-style leadership work in France and vice versa? Hofstede considered this in some of his early work focusing exclusively on his review of “power distance” (the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally) and “uncertainty avoidance” (the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these). In “Motivation, Leadership and Organisation: Do American Theories Apply Abroad?” in Organisational Dynamics, Summer 1980, Hofstede surveyed and then plotted the power distance and uncertainty avoidance of 40 national cultures which resulted in 6 different clusters. If we further assume that leadership is related to organizational culture, then by cross-referencing Hofstede’s work with Mintzberg’s organizational cultural categories, we can address the question: can American-style leadership work in France and vice versa?

 

Here’s an overview of Hofstede’s and Mintzberg’s work focusing on American and French cultures before answering the question (in “et alors”).

 

American and French Leadership

 

The American and French national cultures (Hofstede) appear to relate to certain organizational cultures (Mintzberg) as follows:

 

American

 

With a low power distance (40%), hierarchy is only established for convenience, superiors are always accessible and managers rely on individual employees and teams for their expertise. Both managers and employees expect to be consulted and information is shared frequently. At the same time, communication is informal, direct and participative.

 

American culture is uncertainty accepting (46%). Consequently, there is a larger degree of acceptance for new ideas, innovative products and a willingness to try something new or different, whether it pertains to technology, business practices, or foodstuffs. Americans tend to be more tolerant of ideas or opinions from anyone and allow the freedom of expression.

 

Clustered with Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries (which all exhibit low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance), American culture tends to correspond with Mintzberg’s “Adhocracy” organizational configuration. The “key part” of this configuration rests with the managers and support staff who ensure there is a “mechanism” of mutual adjustment (i.e. continually adapting).

 

French

 

With a high power distance (68%) power is highly centralized and hierarchy is needed if not existential; the superiors may have privileges and are often inaccessible. In management, the attitude towards managers is more formal, the information flow is hierarchical. Even the way information is controlled is associated with power and therefore unequally distributed.

 

France exhibits one of the highest uncertainty avoiding cultures (86%). Certainty is often reached through academic work and concepts that can respond for the need of detail, context, and background. Teachings and trainings are more inductive. In management structure, rules and security are welcome and if lacking, can create stress. Therefore planning is favored and some level of expertise is welcome; however change is often considered stressful.

 

Clustered with Latin counties (which all exhibit high power distance and high uncertainty avoidance), French culture tends to correspond with Mintzberg’s “Simple Structure” organizational configuration. Like a “family”, the “key part” of this configuration rests with the “strategic apex” (top management) who ensure there is a “mechanism” of hierarchical supervision (and is generally conservative).

 

Et alors?

 

The reason Hofstede focused his early work on power distance and uncertainty avoidance was to answer the question, “do American theories apply abroad?” Given the above, it is clear that in France the answer is no and this equally applies to French theories (relating to motivation, leadership and organization) in the USA. Given the cultural context there is little, if any, compatibility meaning that it is unlikely that American-style leadership will work in France and vice versa.

 

In Mintzberg’s “adhocracy” American-style leaders will have full delegation to advance in a pragmatic manner with projects and will be rewarded for not only succeeding but learning from failure. In the “simple structure” the French-style leaders will revert all decisions to the strategic apex and constantly pass detailed information up the hierarchy (and failure is not tolerated). The differences between these two organizations suggest that is unlikely that the leadership-styles are transferrable!

 

With both Hofstede and Mintzbeg’s work there are some similarities and overlaps with other cultures. For example Latin cultures might find it easier to engage and work with Asian cultures which exhibit high power distance (even though they generally exhibit a different attitude towards uncertainty avoidance). Whilst there are overlaps with some cultures, there is no overlap with American and French cultures making it difficult for leaders of either culture to operate effectively in the other.