Intercultural leadership

If a manager is tasked with leading employees from a different culture, intercultural competence makes a significant contribution to ensuring that communication and interaction lead to the desired success. A cross-cultural guide refers to cross-cultural context in which the personnel management takes place, with a guide in the application of styles, management tools and management guidelines.

Definition

Under leadership acting on own and other activities commonly understood ( leadership ). In organizational psychology, leadership can be understood as "direct, deliberate and goal-related influence by the owner of managerial positions on subordinates through communication". The term intercultural refers to the meeting of people of two or more cultures in which the participants fall back on different conventions, attitudes and forms of behavior and experience the other side as alien.

The term intercultural leadership describes the management of employees in a cultural context. On the one hand, this can concern the relationship between manager and employee in external relationships (seconded workers in foreign companies, management tasks abroad) and, on the other hand, internal interactions (e.g. formation of a multicultural team, merger of two companies with locations in different countries).

The employees of a company, be it at home or abroad, are always influenced by the respective organizational culture - a structure of basic assumptions that are within an organization and thus also within a culture. The thinking, evaluating, feeling and everyday actions of employees are therefore culturally shaped.

Intercultural leadership situations

Typical intercultural leadership situations include the selection and assessment for international tasks, the integration of employees in multi-cultural work groups, the control of intercultural communication in the company, the moderation in intercultural conflict situations, the promotion of the intercultural skills of the employees or the preparation of employees for tasks in an international context.

Leadership styles in an international environment

Different leadership styles , which in industrial psychology range between an authoritarian leadership style and a cooperative-participatory leadership style, are assessed differently in different countries, depending on the prevailing human image and the cultural and social character of the employees:

According to an international study, a more authoritarian leadership style is advantageous in Spain and France. Because here employees expect their supervisor to tell them exactly what to do. To be asked for their opinion in decision-making processes is not very motivating for them and is interpreted by the boss as a weak leadership. Against this background, it seems natural that many French and Spanish companies are based on a strong hierarchy that is generally accepted. Leadership is defined quite differently in Sweden and its Scandinavian neighboring countries, where equality and solidarity are important social pillars. Here superiors maintain a partnership with their employees and demand participation. Team-oriented executives are preferred who only provide rough guidelines and ensure equal treatment and a good working atmosphere. In Poland and most other Eastern European countries, the personal level plays an important role in the management of employees: for almost all employees in a company, cooperation with their superiors is one of the decisive factors for their job satisfaction . In many Asian countries, employees primarily strive for harmony, which is maintained, among other things, through submission to their superiors and their authority. In an international comparison, employees from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea are therefore the least likely to be able to criticize their superiors if they have different opinions. The Chinese respondents also think that managers should strive for consensus above all else. German employees expect their bosses to be decisive and assertive. Similar to the Swedes, they like to work independently and want sufficient freedom of decision and action.

In addition, empirical analyzes of around 200 cross- cultural studies show that the efficiency of the management style is heavily dependent on the culturally shaped participation expectations of employees. If the subjectively expected discrepancy between the participation expectations of the employees and the management style of the supervisor increases, employee satisfaction decreases and the conflicts increase.

Based on the study results listed, it can be seen that a leadership style cannot be implemented equally successfully in all countries. In contrast to the application of a preferred management style or the management guidelines defined in the company, intercultural leadership is intended to control the attitudes and behavior of employees who work together. In doing so, the manager must be aware that their behavior in the management of employees abroad or within a multicultural group, which may have been tried and tested in the same cultural context, does not have the usual effect. Instead, management guidelines, management tools and management behavior must be adapted to the cultural context and used flexibly, depending on the nationality and cultural affiliation of the employees to be led.

See also

• Diversity management

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rosenstiel, L. v. (1993). Change in values. Challenges for company policy in the 1990s, p. 337.
2. ↑ Bruck, PA (1994), Intercultural Development and Conflict Resolution, in: K. Luger / R. Renger: Dialogue of Cultures, p. 345.
3. ↑ Blom, H., Meier, H. (2002), Interkulturelles Management, pp. 215, 216.
4. ^ [1] Job satisfaction and leadership styles in 25 countries: Country portraits Spain, France, Sweden, Poland, Japan, China, Germany.
5. ↑ Blom, H., Meier, H. (2002), Interkulturelles Management, p. 227.

Web links

• International study: job satisfaction and leadership styles in 25 countries
• Dimensions of intercultural differences

further reading

• Maletzke, G. (1996), Intercultural Communication.
• Thomas, A., u. a. (2003), Handbook of Intercultural Communication and Cooperation.
• Thomas, A. (1996), Psychology of Intercultural Action.
• Voigt, Connie (Ed.): Intercultural Leadership. Diversity 2.0 as a competitive advantage. Gabal-Verlag, Offenbach 2009. ISBN 978-3-86936-004-1
• Merz, Marion (2010): Leadership in an intercultural environment - the special features of employee appraisals, GrinVerlag, March 2010;
• Stock-Homburg, Ruth (2010): Personnel Management: Theories - Instruments - Concepts, Gabler Verlag, Wiesbaden. ISBN 978-3-8349-1986-1