5.2.1 – Explore the External environmental forces at the global level
For global leaders and managers the necessity to manage the cultural differences that exist is of significance and they need to participate effectively in the global environment. Cultural differences and managerial differences exist within the people in different parts of the world. The leaders of today need to engage the human resources of the specific country they are operating in, understand them and also ensure that they are able to negotiate with them. They must have an understanding of their culture, society, religion and political differences.
For example:
1. Japanese culture promotes a sense of group identity. Creates ambiguity and leads foreigners to draw false
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Leaders are able to use their power in a positive way to influence people through role modelling which is the reason many researchers emphasise that the leaders must possess a strong character to survive within the organisation. For a leader to be considered ethical he must:
1. Establish high standards of ethical communication.
2. Establish quality standards and quality delivery of service.
3. Ethical leaders collaborate to reduce risks at every level and ensure best practices
4. Ethical leaders enable others to develop their leadership skills and exercise them.
2. Political systems: The political systems of a country shapes its economic and legal systems. The political systems could be either democratic or totalitarian. A democratic system elects their representatives and these representatives form a government and make decisions on behalf of the people of the country. In a democratic system, the representatives of the people are accountable to the nation and in a totalitarian regime, the freedom to express , free media and a choice of leaders is denied to the
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Cultural diversity: leaders must be aware of the cultural diversity and be able to accelerate change and understand the differences that exist between the countries. The cultural influences and management practices developed in one culture may not be easily transferable to another country. Leaders must create cultural synergy by collaborating and emphasising on the differences that exist and by integrating those differences to enrich human activities and systems.
One of the most important problems of global leadership is the possibility that the leaders may be ill-informed about the cultural, social, political and religious norms which operate in the country of interest.
For example : For an American employee operating in Germany , the practice of calling the seniormost of managers by their first name may be considered rude and unacceptable as Germans take time to get people on first-name basis and they may find it uncomfortable when an employee addresses the managers by their first name.
The Global leaders need to adapt and conform to the value systems that exist in the country of operation. The way in which the ideas and policies are communicated, deals are negotiated, the incentive systems that exist, the structure of the organisation, the name of the product, the relationship between management and labour, the customer reaction are some of the aspects which are sensitive to cultural
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way,” as said by John C. Maxwell. This reminds people about what it takes to be a great leader and has raised many controversies as to what a great leader is. Qualities like decisiveness, confidence, focus, and consistency are necessary to make a leader. Virtue, which is a behavior showing high moral standards , is not one of the necessary qualities. By analyzing literature and history, a person can still be a good and effective leader without virtue because they are consistent, credible, and have a vision of their goals.
Anticipate the ethical conflict: after the resolution of the conflict, it is important to find out how future conflicts can be prevented (Nelson, 2015, p. 48). PHMC’s CEO should implement standards of ethical conduct and become a role model of it (Perry, 2014, p. 35). By exercising leadership many of the ethical conflict can be avoided and the whole organization is impacted positively. The textbook quotes Bennis and Namus (1985, 186) to define a leader: “leaders are persons who are able to influence others; this influence helps to establish the organizational climate for ethical conduct; ethical conduct generates trust; and trust contributes substantially to the long term success of the organization” (Perry, 2014, p. 36).
The three cultural dimensions are professional identity, community and hierarchy. The author suggests that these cultural dimensions will never be in balance and it is the challenge of leadership to manage them and find new and innovative ways to solve new problems (Army, 2010, p.
Winston and Fields (2015) note that a servant leader consist of three main characteristics placing followers ahead, demonstrating ethics in decision-making and actions, and creating value. By placing followers first, the leader demonstrates that the followers are more important that the position he or she holds. The leader is there because of the followers. Therefore, it is appropriate to take care of the interests of the followers at all times so that the organization can thrive. Ethical decision-making is all about doing the right thing at the right time.
Management or leaders will need to demonstrate a priority on ethics, thoroughly communicate the expectations on ethical practice, have ethical decision making. And support the local ethical programs. Having a manager or leader that has accountability with ethical consideration has a balance of holding one true to its values and having ethical considerations on the different cultural backgrounds. This is a critical and key factor to a successful health care organization. Knowing, and understanding as a manager and influencing employees to follow standards that when something is misunderstood or unknown, owning up to its behavior on the situation can be corrected and guided to what is expected from the leader or manager and down to the employees.
These characteristics are integrity and authenticity; integrity can be defined in many ways, integrity encloses core values like honesty and justice, and it suggests a sense of moral soundness (Lawton & Páez, 2014). Leaders with integrity would do the right thing when nobody is looking, they would demonstrate exemplary moral behavior and they will keep a consistency between laws and codes. The virtue of integrity in an ethical leader has such a strong impact that when subordinates think about their leaders they think about their integrity and ethics. When leaders demonstrate their integrity daily, they gain credibility from his/ her
Multicultural leadership gets more and more important in today’s world, because of the new technologies in telecommunications, transportation, and social media which can bring us much closer. The leadership of multicultural need to have the deep concentration of different cultures in order to know the specific environment and values. The concentration we mentioned above should open their insight into how to best drive performance of organization, inspire staffs, and reach consumers. Leadership is unlike management. Management is relate to the routine, timetables, statistics, methods, an accurate calculation and mind, the practice of management is a science.
These political systems range from direct democracies to totalitarian regimes, such as military dictatorships. Common systems in the modern world include democratic republics, monarchies, and representative democracies. There are also primarily theoretical types of governments, like a strict meritocracy. One of the most often-talked about political system is a representative democracy. This is a system in which representatives are directly elected by the citizens, and these representatives then make political decisions for the people, with the assumption that their decisions will reflect the general will of the republic.
The first concerns is about the personal integrity of leader, which also termed as moral person. Ethical leadership mostly grounded on leaders’ moral values (Kaptein 2003) and moral courage to uphold values and principles in the face of external risks or pressures (Van Wart 2005). Ethical leaders have special interest in others’ well-being, enduring the needs of followers and broader common good (Van Wart 2005). Besides, ethical leaders committed higher purpose (Khuntiar and Ssuar 2004) embrace altruistic values (Brown,Treviño, and Harrison 2005). Ethical leaders are able to recognize the moral elements of the decision and able to predict the moral impacts of their decisions, the goals they set and the methods used to achieve them (Treviño, Brown, and Hartman
To be a moral leader, you have morality. Morality is known as knowing the difference between right and wrong. For example, if there is a group project for a construction company, the leader would make sure the measurements are done precisely, and not just estimates. Moral leaders make sure things are done right no matter what it takes.
Thus make being an ethical leader slightly harder than a normal ethical person. So, we must take a deep interest in this topic. Having to know the traits that describe ethical or unethical leadership will make us more careful in acting as a leader, or choosing someone as a leader. Of course we don’t want an unethical leadership or being an unethical leadership. Because the effects or consequences is not only on us, but to others, especially those who work under the
Some 66% of respondents were male, 34% female (mean age = 43). Only global leaders were included in the study. Some 80 NASA International Project Managers and their international colleagues were included. We defined a global leader as one who is engaged in managing people across cultures either on international assignment or working
Cultural identity plays a very vital role in cross cultural communication, people from a particular culture communicate with partners and employees from many different cultures and in this situation every individual strives to keep their cultural and individual identity. According to Gardiner and Kosmitzki, identity is defined as “a person 's self-definition as a separate and distinct individual, including behaviours, beliefs, and attitudes” (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2008, p. 154). Also, Ting-Toomey defines identity as a "reflective self-conception or self-image that we each derive from our family, gender, cultural, ethnic, and individual socialization process"( Ting-Toomey, 2005). Both definitions bring out the generalisation of cultural identity
There is need to pay more attention to an analysis of unethical behavior in leadership and its relation to corporate culture. Ethical leadership is a growing concept and many large companies are promoting business ethics as their corporate social responsibility. The behavior and the individual values of the leader provide the direction to the business. Leader’s actions in term of ethical behavior and unethical behavior gives ideas to the employee and other stakeholders that what need to follow and what values are aspired in an organization. The position of the leader with moral and ethical values is most important to provide the solutions to ethical issues in a workplace.
Culture is comprise of religion values ,economy ,languages ,class ,material items ,social institutions ,customs ,manners ,education, policies and attitudes (Czinkota & Ronkainen ,1993).Kirkman and Shapiro (2001) described that cultural diversity affect the management styles .He stated that managers with different cultural backgrounds showed different behavior, attitudes, beliefs and basic values. Moveoneinc (2013) stated that culture has prodigious impact over the management style. For example, in Japanese firms almost all employees are participating in the process of decision making. But in the society of America, only top management is involved in the decision making of important and vital matters. In the same way, reward systems are designed on individual performance in western countries and America whereas individual performance has less significance in Japanese firms.