Cross-cultural leadership in international business management

¶ … Leadership Theory for the Rapidly Changing World and Diverse Global Culture

With the increased competitiveness in the international business world it has become very important for the businesses to be accommodating enough so that they could operate in a successful manner in places with different norms, ethics, attitudes and culture. Today it is very important for the business managers to have an accommodating attitude towards the various local cultures and try to take part in the events of the local community that their business is working in, in order to increase the successfulness of the business (Gannon, 2004).

An important thing in running and managing business on an international level requires the management of multi-cultural workforce in a successful manner, along with this it also requires for the managers to bring variety to the services being provided by them according to the needs and wants of the people of that area and not just market what is being told to them from the outside. An example here can be the way that a phone is used in various cultures. An American turns on his/her answering machine the moment that they walk in the door whereas, the first thing an Italian will do is call his mother. The American would need an add-on device to go with the phone so that he could get his messages saved on it whereas; the Italian would need some package supporting favored number discounts or single number dialing. Although these differences might not appear to be of great importance however they are driven merely by the culture (Gannon, 2004).

There is a need for organization to have room for diversity that the managers can bring into the products and services being provided by them if they want their companies to be successful transnational business organizations. There might be the presence of a "national" cultural diversity among the nations, ethnic groups or race (such as in joint venture involving companies from two-nations), or there can be cultural diversity within the organization where the managers will have to transact with transnational companies that are owned by foreigners in their own country (such as telecom manager who is British and who is dealing in UK with a Korean manufacturer) (Yukl, 2008). Although all these factors have long been identified and talked about and there is a huge amount of literature present on them but this matter of cultural diversity is a lot more complex than just dealing with various attitudes or minding the manner. These are minor issues that are indicative of much stronger mental structure differences (Javidan et al., 2006).

An appropriate example here would be the negotiating alliances conducted in diverse cultural environments. Today when it is very important for the international businesses to have cross-cultural alliances and joint ventures there are a lot of problems related to ethics and trust in general. International businesses should be able to figure out a way through which they can incorporate flexibility between the need to adjust to the local conditions and the strong corporate ethics as; this will promote more trust among the organizations. There is a need for answers to the questions like how to prepare the managers who are going to negotiate deals for the various situations that they might face? How to develop a trust relationship that would last with the people belonging to various cultures? It is not just important to have the answers to all these questions just to set bargaining ranges, following rules that have been established previously or toning the confrontational styles down. (Javidan et al., 2006).

These above mentioned questions can help in finalizing deals but they can't help in developing relations of long-term nature. In order to develop long-lasting relations it is important to understand the religious, ethnic, social and ethical values and norms of other cultures that influence the thinking and behavior of the people belonging to them. This will help the managers in not only understanding these people in a better manner but it will also enable them to be prepared for how these people will react in various situations and how those situations should be handled (Javidan et al., 2006).

Leadership at Workplace: The Old School

The organizations in the earlier days had leaders who were only used to giving orders. These leaders used to take independent decisions, would assign responsibilities to the subordinates themselves. There was a defined work pattern that would offer only limited growth to the subordinates. There wasn't any sort of emotional attachment that the employees had with their workplace as it was just considered a workplace and nothing more. Innovativeness was hardly ever appreciated and expected (House and Javidan, 2004).

The organization was like a well oiled machine in which everyone had their own set of responsibilities that they would do in exactly the same manner every single day and get the same output like in the assembly-line output. An individual functioned according to a set of orders that were pre-determined for him/her and that individual and his work's impact on the whole company was never actually paid a lot of importance and neither was it actually a focus. It was expected by the individual that he would only be concerned with his own role (House and Javidan, 2004).

Transformational Leadership as a model for dealing with 21ST century challenges

Transformational leaders are considered to be the ones who have the capability to motivate their followers to do more than their assigned duties and to actually put the interests of the team or organization before their own. One of the important characteristics of the transformational leader is to have a huge personal impact on the followers' way of thinking, values, interpreting events and aspirations. The followers are transformed by the transformational leaders in such a manner that shape the beliefs and values of their followers.

Transformational leadership has 4 dimensions as it said by Korver (2008). These dimensions are:

1. Charisma: The leader provides the followers with a strong sense of mission, he/she makes them feel proud and in this manner is able to gain their trust and respect.

2. Communication: Directs efforts by using symbols to communicate with his followers and expresses essential purposes in very simple ways.

3. Intellectual stimulation: Problem solving, intelligence and rationality are promoted by him.

4. Individualized consideration: Pays individual attention to all the employees, advice and coaches them whenever they need any kind of guidance.

A subdued or passive follower was formed with the traditional method whereas, it is important that the development of leadership should take place with the help of conscious (as well as unconscious) and mature decisions that are taken over a longer period of time with the help of various events. Dominance is being gained by the entrepreneurial ventures on a continuous basis and visionaries are transforming the way that the organizations used to conduct businesses before. There is Mr. Narayana Murthy or the Tatas of Infosys who have incorporated virtues in their business that were never appreciated before. It is not unheard of for these organizations to do their business in an ethical manner and this is being done by these organizations in such a manner that they aren't hurting their stakeholders' interests or the profits of the company. The question does arise that how are these organizations doing so well? Is it because they have an excellent workforce working for them? Is it because of the way that the company has been taken forward by their leaders? Or is it all according to the way that they had envisioned it? (Korver, 2008).

Furthermore, work-based pursuits have got to be considered, as well as, the incorporation of a potent organizational culture of learning goes far in developing new leadership potential (Yukl, 2010). Times are changing and preparing the workforce to be better equipped in the future is what the transformative leadership style is all about. New avenues will be provided by this leadership style and these avenues will allow the individual to experiment with the leadership activities and actions in order to further develop his/her abilities to lead. Now is the time to start putting workforce efforts together in order to excel as a team and an organization. The presence of a leader is very important for any kind of job however, he/she can't handle all the tasks and therefore, the presence of a diligent team is very important for the success of that leader and his team (Korver, 2008).

For transformative leadership theory to be effective every member should be given a set of responsibilities and one member in every team can be made a leader who would lead the team, share his visions and goals with the team, listen to their opinions and suggestions and then make strategies and decisions in the light of those suggestions and opinions. In today's business world everything in an organization is linked and therefore, when something goes wrong in one department it greatly impacts the whole organization. Therefore, it is very important for the transformative leader to communicate with the employees properly and regularly so that they remain clear about their roles and responsibility and the probability for errors and mistakes could be minimized (Korver, 2008).

Conclusion

Many today are leading the kind of comfortable life that could never have been dreamt off by previous generations. Many opportunities to promote growth have arose in the past century but these opportunities have also brought with them chaos too. When it comes to the globalized world, the growth opportunities and scope of growth is larger than it ever was. Importance is now being given to the issues like mental well-being, development of the society in holistic terms; these are the issues that were never given much importance in the past. Today one has the ability to decide how it is that one should govern oneself.

In order to have a brighter future it has become important to make appropriate decisions at appropriate time. It is time to decide upon the answers to hard questions like should we put more focus on economic profits and ignore problems of global warming? We have to make decisions about how things should be handled by us. Should we focus on their broader perspective or should we look at the short-term benefits? We have to make our decisions very carefully in today's changing world as one wrong decision can have very serious repercussions. There aren't any easy answers to all these questions but it is high time now for us to make decisions about what is important to us and how we want to shape our tomorrows (Korver, 2008).