Cultural Dimensions of Leadership
April 3, 2025
Introduction Leadership in organizations is dictated and determined according to a variety of reasons and factors including personality, cultural, and country and regional aspects. Among the various factors, the cultural dimension of leadership is often not highlighted as it is taken as a given. However, with globalization and the advent of tighter integration and interconnectedness,…
The leadership continuum was originally written in 1958 by Tannenbaum and Schmidt and was later updated in the year 1973. Their work suggests a continuum of possible leadership behavior available to a manager and along which many leadership styles may be placed. The continuum presents a range of action related to the degree of authority…
Loss of Trust and Faith and the Rise of Populists Public trust and faith in institutions is at an all time low. Starting with the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 in the United States and then the Sovereign Debt Crisis in Europe in 2009, including the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, and the election…
Without an effective leadership strategy, it is believed, that the organizational strategies do not work.
Best players in a team do not guarantee success without a great coach, similarly, work teams may not function effectively if leaders do not follow an appropriate leadership strategy.
To understand leadership styles here are three scenarios:
Scenario 1 - A Teacher gives a question to the class full of students, however, solves it for them;
Scenario 2 - A Teacher gives the question to the students and observes how students solve them;
Scenario 3 - A Teacher gives a question to the students and moves around the class, observes the students, and helps wherever required.
Scenario 1 was “Leading from the Front”, Scenario 2 was “Supportive Leadership Style”, and Scenario 3 was “Interactive Leadership Style”. Besides this the leadership styles/strategies could be based on personality traits like Directive Leadership, Structured Leadership, Intuitive Leadership, or Process Driven leadership.
Here are some tips while selecting leadership strategy/style:
Situational Leadership helps addressing varied needs/expectations of the followers as the leader adopts a strategy based on a situation he/she is in. In case a leader has a self-reliant team, he/she needs to be using a directive leadership style or lead form the front. He/She could instead delegate and provide inputs where necessary.
It is often said that good leaders are born and not made; however, good leaders are those who are aware of their personality traits and also of their followers. They know which leadership style is to be adopted in a particular situation. Once this is done, there is a little challenge left for a leader to become a “good/great” leader.
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