Introduction
This essay is a literature based discussion of the cross-cultural challenges faced by modern management. It begins with a theoretical discussion of various leadership styles adapted by managers in regards to their respective characteristics, merits, and drawbacks. Then followed by a discussion of cultural specific leadership traits observed in Laos, Chinese, and Nigerian cultures, which are presenting in my student team. Moreover, the objective of this essay is to relate relevant leadership, management, and cross-cultural models to highlight how cross-cultural issues can arise and how such could be effectively dealt with. The ultimate of the essay will discuss the leader approaches that have been applied to our team.
Literature …show more content…
In particular, an autocratic leader is one that ‘tends to centralize authority and deliver power from position, controls of rewards and coercion’ (Daft and Pirola-Merlo, 2009, pp. 42). Such demonstrate a trend for the manager to make key decisions on their own without consulting the followers who are merely given instructions to work with. Some scholars, such as Gill (2011), expressed the opinion that an autocratic leadership style falls short in the long term as it fails to improve the followers and their work performance. In contrast, a democratic leader is one that who is holding for the last responsibility, however, it also delegates authority or power to subordination who can help to decide work assignments as well as communication is still active upward and downward (Pride, Hughes, and Kapoor, 2011). Under this leadership style the followers constantly have the opportunity to provide their own thoughts for the decision-making process and in turn have the opportunity to improve in their own abilities. Similarly, a participative leader engages everyone involved to collectively work towards identifying objectives and devising a working strategy for such objectives (Pride, Hughes, and Kapoor, 2010). In this case, the focus of the participative leader is on making sure the objectives are fulfilled …show more content…
Regarding my student team is consisted of people from different countries and the cultural differences are at times evident. This part of the essay first of all introduces standout leadership styles commonly adopted in Laos, Chinese, and Nigerian cultures as per existing literature indicate.
Firstly, a study by Nel et al. (2014) has provided much insight into how Lao managers tend to conduct their leadership tasks. First and foremost, it has been suggested that the Lao managers are not at all uniform in their choice of the leadership styles as the six leadership styles indicated in the last section have all been observed in the empirical study. Nevertheless, the majority of the Lao banking managers who were investigated demonstrated their preference for using the autocratic leadership style (Nel et al., 2014). At the same time, it is also reported that some of the Lao managers would use participative leadership to an extent as they in some cases hand out advice to followers as well as direct instructions. An interesting finding from the study of Nel et al. (2014) was that although the authentic leadership style is not widely adapted among Lao managers, it is in fact the most appreciated approach from the perspective of the employees. It should be noted that this study was focusing on the Lao banking sector therefore its results
This essay is a literature based discussion of the cross-cultural challenges faced by modern management. It begins with a theoretical discussion of various leadership styles adapted by managers in regards to their respective characteristics, merits, and drawbacks. Then followed by a discussion of cultural specific leadership traits observed in Laos, Chinese, and Nigerian cultures, which are presenting in my student team. Moreover, the objective of this essay is to relate relevant leadership, management, and cross-cultural models to highlight how cross-cultural issues can arise and how such could be effectively dealt with. The ultimate of the essay will discuss the leader approaches that have been applied to our team.
Literature …show more content…
In particular, an autocratic leader is one that ‘tends to centralize authority and deliver power from position, controls of rewards and coercion’ (Daft and Pirola-Merlo, 2009, pp. 42). Such demonstrate a trend for the manager to make key decisions on their own without consulting the followers who are merely given instructions to work with. Some scholars, such as Gill (2011), expressed the opinion that an autocratic leadership style falls short in the long term as it fails to improve the followers and their work performance. In contrast, a democratic leader is one that who is holding for the last responsibility, however, it also delegates authority or power to subordination who can help to decide work assignments as well as communication is still active upward and downward (Pride, Hughes, and Kapoor, 2011). Under this leadership style the followers constantly have the opportunity to provide their own thoughts for the decision-making process and in turn have the opportunity to improve in their own abilities. Similarly, a participative leader engages everyone involved to collectively work towards identifying objectives and devising a working strategy for such objectives (Pride, Hughes, and Kapoor, 2010). In this case, the focus of the participative leader is on making sure the objectives are fulfilled …show more content…
Regarding my student team is consisted of people from different countries and the cultural differences are at times evident. This part of the essay first of all introduces standout leadership styles commonly adopted in Laos, Chinese, and Nigerian cultures as per existing literature indicate.
Firstly, a study by Nel et al. (2014) has provided much insight into how Lao managers tend to conduct their leadership tasks. First and foremost, it has been suggested that the Lao managers are not at all uniform in their choice of the leadership styles as the six leadership styles indicated in the last section have all been observed in the empirical study. Nevertheless, the majority of the Lao banking managers who were investigated demonstrated their preference for using the autocratic leadership style (Nel et al., 2014). At the same time, it is also reported that some of the Lao managers would use participative leadership to an extent as they in some cases hand out advice to followers as well as direct instructions. An interesting finding from the study of Nel et al. (2014) was that although the authentic leadership style is not widely adapted among Lao managers, it is in fact the most appreciated approach from the perspective of the employees. It should be noted that this study was focusing on the Lao banking sector therefore its results