Introduction of Leadership and Culture

Even after a lot of research has been conducted on the topic of Leadership,
the researchers have failed to come up with a universally accepted definition of
leadership. However a research done by about more than 170 researchers on this
topic came up with a definition for organizational leadership as the ability of an
individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the
effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members.
A culture on the other hand is a set of values, behaviors and attitudes that
differentiates groups or individuals from each other in a given setting. The question
our hand was, whether culture plays any role in the leadership styles when
managing an organization or not. A lot of empirical research has been carried out
previously (GLOBE), these show that how the styles and functions of leadership vary
from culture to culture and across borders. The world is quickly moving towards
becoming a global world (McFarland, Senen, & Childress, 1993). Firstly the
leadership styles are challenged by the ever increasing cultural diversity at
workplace. The managers have to be tactically strong in order to tackle the
subordinates in a way to demonstrate the ability to develop a strategy of making
the workplace a cross-culturally effective workplace. It is often said that ways which
are effective in one culture may not be effective in another culture. Culture plays a
very important role in setting up the tone for the leader at work. In future it is
expected that a broader range of variables will be added to this research of crosscultural issues, like language, ethnic background, religion (Dorfman, 1996). A
research conducted by Global Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness (GLOBE)
focused on three main domains of leadership domain (GLOBE, 2002)

1) Behaviors, attitudes and organizational practices of leaders that are accepted

universally.
2) Behaviors, attitudes and organizational practices of leaders that are accepted
in limited cultures.
3) What are the factors of society and culture that will affect the leadership
style?

The culture defines the behavior demonstrated at the workplace. The Leadership
behavior can be categorized into several behaviors, Directive leadership, supportive
leadership, Achievement oriented leadership, Participative leadership and upward
influencing leadership. These traits can be associated with leaders from crosscultural organizations. A leader has to be equipped with these traits when managing
a culturally diverse organization. Employees from different cultures demonstrate
different working demands. In which they may want autonomy, need a helping hand
where they would need a direction to work and reach a goal rather than setting a
goal. Employees may want their leader/manager to be friendly with them at work
and care for their welfare and wellbeing. The culture and leadership have an impact

on factors which are important for bringing out a positive result while working for an
organization. These factors include behavior of employees, motivation of
employees, performance of employees, teamwork and cooperation and intergroup
and interdepartmental relationships (Kousar, Saif, Saleem, Ishtiaq, 2011). These
factors are important to any organizations success. Therefore, a leader should try
to become a role model for his employees from which ever culture they belong to.
The leader should be the one to formulate strategies to make his/her employees of
different cultures gel in which each other to observe team work and to remove any
misunderstandings that may arise due to different cultural orientations.

To achieve the strategic fit, the leader has to align his/her organizations
structure to the goals of the organization. Organizational culture plays a pivotal role
in achieving that strategic fit. If the employees in an organization want to work
towards a collective goal, it will only be possible if the organizational culture as a
whole would suit the employees. It is the organizational culture sets the working
environment for employees. Leadership alone is nothing. It has to be coupled with
behavior of the leader at work. According to a research conducted Organizational
cultures were significantly (positively) correlated with leadership behavior and job
satisfaction, and leadership behavior was significantly (positively) correlated with
job satisfaction (Tsai, 2011).
Moreover, there can be situations where the subordinates are of the same
culture and the leader is from a different culture. A lot of foreign businesses in
Pakistan are following this pattern. Majority of the employees are from the Pakistani
culture and their leader/manager is from a foreign origin. This creates problems of
communication gap, different point of views, cultural differences and then this may
all affect overall organizational performance. As a result of this, there might rise a
sense of insecurity and restlessness among employees that may result in high
turnover rate or any other such factor for the organization. Therefore, it can be
concluded that culture and leadership should go hand in hand with each other. A
leader should be careful in assessing the culture that he/she has to deal with. As
with improper judgment of the leader the organization may not work to its fullest
potential. As every employee has a different requirement and these requirements
can be attributed to the culture he/she belongs to. The leader has to be vigilant and
act accordingly.