Leadership, Ethics, Power, and Cultural Influences Explained

Cultural and Societal Influences on Leadership

The content, manner of manifestation, and efficiency of leadership are the result of several determining factors. The education a leader benefits from represents one of these factors. Education's contribution to leadership development is studied on three distinct levels: general education, professional education, and managerial education.

General education builds the foundation of individual and social behavior and provides a general knowledge base with important effects at the communicational level. Professional education in technical, economic, or information technology fields ensures the personal competency and prestige of specialists, which is of great importance in relationships with others in the same domain. Managerial education primarily focuses on developing the innate abilities that leadership is based on. Such education also emphasizes developing and improving the ability to influence the decisions, actions, and behavior of other people.

The combined result of these training processes has a significant impact on social abilities, technical knowledge, decisional and communicational ability, and managerial behavior — all essential factors for effective leadership. During the last few decades, as a consequence of the numerous positive implications of leadership, managerial education has granted considerable specific attention to elements that affect leadership development. This has had practical effects: the number of managers who exercise efficient leadership based on techniques developed through managerial training has increased in developed countries.

As experts in the field note, given the current turbulent global conditions, leadership has become more important than management techniques alone (De Woot, 1992). Societal and cultural factors shape leadership in complex and distinct ways, and their influence is closely tied to the degree of civilization and development of the country in question.

It has been observed that "founders of organizations, the organizations' original leaders, are immersed in their own societal culture, and they are most likely to enact the global leader behavior patterns that are favored in that culture" (House et al., 1999). In other words, the founders or leaders of an organization establish themselves as role models, setting a general leadership style that is subsequently embraced by subordinate leaders. This style is passed on to subordinates through role modeling and socialization.

Because a founder's presence in organizational activity allows for a constant influence on subordinate leaders, there is no coercive pressure for subordinates to follow that example — they are influenced in a natural manner and accept the founder's leadership style without negative response. As a consequence, the behavior of leaders reflects broader leadership patterns that are themselves a reflection of the entire societal culture.

Culture also affects the general vision of leaders. For example, Chinese individuals expect their leaders to be more action-oriented and to limit lengthy verbal speeches, which is more common in Western civilization. The Indian culture differs significantly from the Chinese, as Indians tend to prefer leaders who take risks (Wharton Network, 1999). The importance of gender and cultural background on leadership style varies by region. The effect of these factors is moderate in Anglo, Nordic, Germanic, and Eastern European contexts, as well as in South Asia, though with different implications in each setting (Van Emmerick et al., 2009).