This chapter discusses how different cultures impact the workplace. It is no longer a question of whether or not they are present but how to deal with the many variations of norms and traditions. Such concepts as participation, control, and coordination do not necessarily mean the same thing in every cultural context. These differences are important to recognize in order to have effective communication between different regions. What is seen as an effective leader may vary in different societies. How have cultural differences impacted your leadership experience or workplace culture? What are some things that can be done in order to deal with cultural differences?
Studies throughout different countries show what the generalized leadership practices are and how they compared to those in other countries. Several of the same qualities were identified as important cross culturally. For example, a study about leadership characteristics and behaviors in Dutch and Polish managers revealed that both held visionary qualities as one of the most important attributes of a leader. Many leadership studies are conducted in North America and as a result are not as reliably applicable to areas outside. This “North American bias” affected how these studies were enacted by various cultures. As we are coming upon the age of entering the workforce it is important to take these variables into consideration since many companies have expanded internationally.
The chapter outlines how different researchers conceptualize culture. There have been many attempts to be able to define the components of it. One of the most common is Hofstede’s framework. The study started looking at IBM managers in 40 different countries. From that he identified four dimensions of culture: individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, uncertainty avoidance and power distance. Future orientation was added later. Explain a situation where you have experienced or witnessed one of these dimensions and how it affected or contributed to the culture of the group. (i.e. women in management roles, group norms, career stability)
The GLOBE study is a report that is trying to cross culturally address leadership attributes that are universally recognized. Because countries have such different views it is difficult to identify characteristics that are work in so many different contexts. Are you surprised to find that leadership traits are not universal? Which of the 6 dimensions on pg 272 do you view as the most universal concept?
All of these factors taken into consideration help us to better realize what are appropriate methods of effective organizational leadership around the world. It is hard to get completely representative samples. But each study helps to achieve a better understanding of the world around us. What effect will cultural differences have on your leadership experience looking into the future?
When I studied abroad in Australia my junior year I was faced with many new cultures. I took a class called Cross Cultural Management, it taught students how to interact and do business across cultures. Out of the 30 students there were 26 different cultures represented. It was interesting having to work in groups and not have any other Americans represented. I learned over the course of the semester that it was crucial to be patient with the different group members.
ReplyDeleteGoing along with my study abroad experience I ran into one of the dimensions (masculinity-femininity) while I was working on a class project. I was paired with a man from Saudi Arabia who was very nice, but he was not used to a strong white woman like myself. Back in his country women always listen to men and go along with their ideas and opinions, it took awhile for him to get used to collaborating with a female.
After taking this Cross Cultural Management class I am not surprised that there are different leadership traits around the world. Just because Americans are known for being business people does not necessarily mean that they have all the right answers to how to lead a group. Different cultures have their own unique set of customs and traditions that might vary from how Americans lead.
Cultural differences are going to be present in our leadership experiences throughout our life. We are all going to have to work with people who come from different backgrounds and have different views on the world.
I feel like a broken record going back to my Cub Scout troop leader position, but I have been faced with a great deal of “cultural” differences. Although all my boys and their parents are of the same culture – we have to deal with the big obstacle of being mentally handicapped. I have had to (first) get used to the whole idea of working with people of a major handicap. Before August, I had only volunteered for a short amount of time with people of special needs. It was never anything as hands-on as what I do now. I also had to teach myself not to feel afraid to ask parents questions about their boys. I used to think it was taboo to be curious about the children and just keep acting like they are no different. Yes, they are different. They need special attention – but it doesn’t mean that they should be treated like they are mythical creatures. We have all come to an agreement to be open to answering questions and asking them of one another. It formed a strong community feeling.
ReplyDeleteWorking for my parents back in my hometown – I have witnessed a few very strong females being looked upon as being “too masculine” and it intimidated some men. My mom, for instance, has a mixture of masculine leadership traits and feminine leadership traits. She is definitely relationship oriented – but if you try to push her around, she will definitely stand up for herself. My mom understands that money is important – and she takes it very seriously. This would be considered “masculine” because women should be more interested in pleasing others and making everyone feel welcome compared to her own financial success. “Let the man take care of that.” But one last masculine/feminine mixed trait that my mom definitely has is living in order to work or working in order to live. My mom tends to get into habits of going strong for far too long and regretting it. She will wear herself out to succeed in the work place where if she were to just do what is necessary and from time-to-time go WAY above and beyond – she would be in an even better place-- both mentally and physically. She doesn’t enjoy working … but feels she has to.
I am not surprised that there are different leadership traits around the world. I think charismatic/value-based leadership is the most universal concept. I think as the world keep changing -- there will be much more cultural diversity that I will have to work with. I am willing to make it all work out. I'm sure it's going to be difficult for every culture, but hopefully by then everyone will be more accepting and understanding of the major differences.
When I worked as a tutor at Franklin Middle School in the AVID program I was exposed to a lot of different cultures and was forced to adapt my tutoring methods to these culture differences. One example is that there was a large Hmong population in my class, and the female students were all very quiet. I needed to make sure I set aside time to ask them for their insight because otherwise they were often overlooked. It is a cultural thing for Hmong women to be quiet and observe, so I had to make a point to gain their opinion too. The Hmong multicultural training Shelly encouraged us to attend at the beginning of the semester did a great job explaining why this occurs. Before I thought it must have been the way these Hmong girls were expected to act in their families, but now I know that it is a cultural expectation.
ReplyDeleteTo answer the second question, I will use the same example of the group of Hmong girls that I tutored in their AVID class. A lot of them would share stories with me about how they were expected to do a lot of chores around the house, as well as help to raise their younger siblings. There were very different expectations for Hmong girls than there are for Hmong boys. This shows a difference in masculinity-femininity in their culture compared to the current United States culture where women have basically the same opportunities and roles in the home as men.
I believe that having charismatic/value based leadership is the most universal of the leadership dimensions mentioned. I chose this one because I believe the other five can easily be disregarded by many cultures. For example, autonomous leadership, meaning being individualistic, independent, and unique, is not a trait that, for example, an Asian or Middle-Eastern culture would agree with.
In the future I definitely plan on broadening my horizons and gaining experience and knowledge about other cultures in order to more effectively work with people of those cultures. I am better able to understand people from the Hmong culture because of my experiences with students from that background and now the training that I did earlier in the semester. I plan on continuing my education about other cultures in order to better understand them. I will then be able to work with those people more effectively.
While working with the Packers I have experienced masculinity and feminine gaps. For example, most of the organization is made up of males. Men play football so the team is all guys, the staff that are in the locker room are all men, and the coaching staff are all men. In the scouting department this is different. There are women that coordinate that department. For example one is a travel agent, the other is a pro personnel coordinator. When these women are in the group of all the other male scouts, they are timid and do not get much respect. Their jobs are very important but there is a significant gap when in the large group of the organization.
ReplyDeleteThe second question I can answer from getting to know a friend at SNC, Anh Tran. The lifestyle that he lives in Vietnam is very similar to what Maura had to say. He says that the women are supposed to stay at home and make the house right while the males go out to the work force. He says that they have a huge thing with respect and the women need to respect the men. I don't think it goes both ways with the men always respecting the women. These culture gaps are very wide that what women have developed in recent years in the USA.
In my future, my leadership will have to be to remain open minded. If the job can be done by "person A" then the job should go to that person. It doesn't matter if it is a man or a women. There should be a dividers in leadership. A strong leader should be able to lead any group and make any person successful at what they do. They should be able to lead in any situation and with any person. So for me to be a successful leader, I will have to keep an open mind and go into any situation, no matter who I am dealing with, that I am going to come out the other end succeeding.
Throughout my leadership experience, cultural differences have had a large impact. I’ve had many different experiences with many different cultures, each having their own impact. Learning about cultural differences and working with people from different cultures have taught me new ways to look at life, and simply new ways to think and do things. Cultural differences have impacted the way I interact with people. In order to deal with cultural differences, I believe the best to do is to learn about them. When you learn about your differences, you can understand why they exist and how they impact yourself and others.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in Australia, my friends and I experienced a bit of uncertainty avoidance at the beginning of our time abroad. At first, we were uncertain of some of the things we noticed many people doing that seemed unusual to us. After avoiding taking part in the same activities, we realized that it was ok for us to expand and try new things. After trying out some new things, we felt more immerged into the culture, and even proud for stepping out of our comfort zone. This happened many times with many different things. An example of one of these situations is simply trying out new foods.
It doesn’t surprise me that leadership traits are not universal, since different traits are valued by different cultures. I think this especially does not surprise me since there isn’t even a universal definition of leadership. I view team-oriented leadership as one of the most universal concept, but someone from a different culture would probably guess a different dimension. In my culture, being a “team player” is very important, whereas in a different culture, it may not be a top priority.
Cultural differences will have a great effect on my future leadership experience. I will learn more and more from the differences, and it will mold the way I participate in leadership all together.
One of the leadership roles that I had had to deal with cultural differences was just on Tuesday when we had our leadership capstone project. We had 50 some students come into the PAC gym and do different tasks that helped them strengthen and practice their leadership abilities, one of the biggest points that we were trying to make with the project was the multi cultural inter communication that occurred between a number of different ethnicities. Many of these student would not have collaborated or even considered talking to one another outside the perameters of our project, yet each one was capable enough to work with each other to achieve a common goal.
ReplyDeleteI think that cultural differences are often looked upon in our society as a hurdle or obstacle, and granted, they can be trying, yet from what I have seen and experienced with other cultures, cultural differences are something to be celebrated and discussed between different culture. When you can become intercultural and discuss your differences and discuss similarities together it becomes a beautiful relationship between people.
This chapter was actually really interesting to me, because I had previously taken Dr. Neuliep’s class on intercultural communication, so a lot of these types of traits and ideas had already been exposed to me. I do however, think that understanding these differences and ideas about the differences among cultures serves in anyone’s best interest.
In the future, I would be thrilled if I could serve the U.S. abroad, not in a military aspect, but potential as a foreign service agent in the Middle East perhaps, but I thisnk that intercultural training is an effective tool to accomplish that goal.
Cultures are all around and I am faced with different cultures each day. Going to St.Norbert for example has some culture differences, but is not a very diverse campus. In all of my business classes, I seem to have a student who is studying abroad from another country. We often are assigned group projects and I usually have a foreign exchange student in my group. I have had to learn to understand their culture and the way they do things. Sometimes it is hard to understand them when they talk but they took the time to learn our language and I appreciate that. Another example of a cultural difference is at work. The majority of the kitchen staff where I work are hispanic people. Most of them do not even speak English so it is very difficult to communicate with them about food orders especially when your are trying to tell them what you need an they have no idea what you are talking about. Most of them do not ever eat our food at work either because they are not used to that kind of food. I think it should be required for them to speak fluent English if they are working there.
ReplyDeleteI can't think of a specific situation with one of cultural dimensions but I learned a lot about them in Intercultural Communication. For example in a Power Distance Culture there is significant difference in power. We learned about a student who studied in I think Guatemala and there the teaching style is different. It is very formal and the students respect what the teacher says they are discourage from asking questions. This is different than in the US, where classrooms are usually group discussion with participation from the students. I am not surprised to learn that traits are not universal because there are so many. I do believe that Leaders should have value in what they believe though.
Looking in to the future I think that culture will always effect my leadership. I feel that cultural difference will always be present especially in the workplace.
Unfortunately I haven’t had the opportunity to study abroad, but and I don’t think I have enough cultural experience to write an extremely informed answer. However, I do know that I become frustrated with our own cultural idea of leadership in that it privileges men as already having leadership traits (because many of the stereotypical leadership traits are held by men) and the women who try to behave in such a way are portrayed negatively. I think this is slowly beginning to change, but it still seems fairly prevalent. I have had experience working with people of other cultures, but I guess not directly in leadership positions, or not with someone who sees leadership differently because of their culture. I have worked with a woman from Africa during one of my summer jobs, and I understood that she did not enjoy working on our team. Not to make it sound like we did not work, but she had a different work ethic than we did. We were high school students working in housekeeping, so we just did the amount of work they gave us for the day, she always wanted to do more and preferred to work individually. It was something I assumed was her personality, but looking back some of it could have been cultural as well.
ReplyDeleteQuite often I deal with the dimension of masculinity-femininity. It might be because I see it all the time since I took Women and Gender Studies and see gender everywhere. However, there was one time in a group where I was being my assertive self. I’m not typically one to hold back in meetings especially when I’m passionate about the group or topic. I remember a male in the group becoming upset with me because I refused to lead in a feminine way. I thought it was very interesting and was in fact referred to as a bitch because I was merely portraying some of the same characteristics he had! It was a learning experience for me that some people cannot handle someone going against group norms.
I was not really surprised that leadership traits are not universal, particularly because in other classes I have been exposed to the way difference cultures communicate or live in a family and it became apparent that leadership looked different for them. I would say that the dimension I find as the most universal would be team oriented leadership. I would say that because I think that it is pretty easy to find out that one cannot lead if they don’t have a team, and one cannot do leadership alone. One must have a team in order to accomplish tasks. I think that there are always people who believe they can do it themselves and maybe aren’t team oriented, but I would envision that team oriented leadership would be the most universal. Especially because it allows participative decision making which makes a huge impact on organizations.
I think that moving to a bigger school for the next two years I will be faced with many more cultural differences. I’m actually really looking forward to my cohort in grad school because it is a really diverse group of students. Also, one of my cohort members is an international student so I am really interested in hearing the different perspectives from him. I think that because I will be working with students a lot in the future, I will learn about and be able to understand more about cultural differences and it will definitely make me a better, stronger leader.