Leadership in High Power Distance Cultures

 

          Post investigating plethora of academic literature based on empirical evidences and anecdotal evidences it is inferred that leadership in high power distance cultures does face significant challenges particularly in case of leaders who do not belong to the land. Globalized organizations operating in radical cultures such as China and Saudi Arabia have to encounter challenges in various aspects of organizational functioning and leadership practice when delivering their service. A key point to note there is thatleadership has evolved efficiently and favorably without many hassles in cultures that are similar to host culture of the leadership. It can be understandthat western leadership evolves faster and in a more effective way when it operates in countries that are secular, liberal, open to innovative ideas, and incorporate cultural diversity than cultures that are radical, fundamentalist, rigid, and unopened to meaningful cross-cultural interactions.Anecdotal evidences suggests that Australian managers find no major challenges in their roles and leadership practices when operating in UK or USA because of the socio-cultural similarities and demographic similarities that allows them to further improvise and refine their leadership skills abroad. On the contrary, USA or Australian managers working in China may have to encounter varied challenges throughout their career with the organization particularly during the processes of communication, people management, leadership practices, team working, training and development, ensuring performance efficiency, maintaining work discipline, ensuring organizational integrity, and fostering meaningful cross-cultural interactions among workforce.

          Evidence suggests that high power distance culture in today’s globalized society limits its development and advancement due to the linear path adopted by the societal or organizational setup to that lays emphasis on adhering to leadership protocols without incorporating people’s views. On the other hand, low power distance cultures enjoy autonomy and liberty at workplace and are able to leverage maximum benefit of their candidature for the welfare of their organization.  

          Based on the information and discussion about high power distance societies it can be inferred that such societies are conservative, lack superior knowledge and skills, exhibit narrower perspective and mind towards learning new things and innovation that eventually limits organizational growth and expansion. On the contrary, culturally diverse, liberal, open cultures and low power distance societies there is greater autonomy granted to every organizational stakeholder that lets them perform better, bring out innovation, implement ideas into practice for organizational betterment and eventually derive optimum benefit form knowledge, learning, skills and cross-cultural interactions.

          Anecdotal evidence suggests that leadership practice within a cross-cultural context in today’s globalized business environment can prove to be effective and succeed in deriving expected human resource advantage only by adapting and adopting local culture, social norms, and language in some cases to ensure any glitches that may occur due to communication gaps, behavioral gap or common misunderstandings are effectively overcome. In this context, this study is of the opinion that a leadership that fosters positive cross-cultural interaction and brings out the best of inter-cultural employee performance and productivity for common business advantage must be adopted by business organizations.