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.
