Abstract

The performance of modern companies operating internationally is highly dependent on their ability to adapt their management and leadership style to diverse cultural environment. Leaders of such companies need to take into consideration such factors as cultural differences, gender-related issues, power distance, future performance, individualistic or collectivist inclinations of employees, uncertainty avoidance and others. The extent to which leader succeeds in elaborating organization culture that meets all the factors mentioned above of all employees will define the success of the leader and the entire organization.
Modern companies operating internationally often face serious problems caused by cultural differences between employees who are working together within one and the same organization. Often, leaders of organizations operating internationally need to work in extremely diverse cultural environment, when employees from Greece, Singapore, Germany and Iran are working together. Cultural differences between employees can evoke conflicts within the organization and decrease the effectiveness of management and leadership if the leader proves to be unable to adapt his or her leadership style to a multicultural environment of the organization.

First of all, the leader needs to focus on cultural differences of employees. Greek employees get used to liberal leadership style and management, while German employees are more accustomed to discipline, though they still stick to a democratic leadership style, which allow them realizing their own potential. In contrast, Singaporean employees are more inclined to the authoritarian leadership style and they will hardly be able to accept the liberalism of Greek and democratic style of German employees. As for Iranian employees, their cultural life is, to a significant extent, determined by their religious views and often religious is primary for them compared to their professional work and career. For instance, they may have some religious holidays, such as Ramadan, and they may have special demands concerning respect of their religious views and beliefs from the part of other employees as well as the leader. Consequently, the leader should balance democratic and authoritarian leadership style and promote tolerance within the organization to meet cultural needs of all employees.

Furthermore, gender issues may be also of the utmost importance since German and Greeks are consistently more liberal and democratic in this regard compared to Singaporean and Iranian. German and Greeks are more accustomed to gender equality and neutral relations between genders, while Iranians as well as Singaporeans often tend to emphasize gender differences that may lead to situations when European women may feel discriminated, even though it will be a norm for Iranian or Singaporean employees (Noble, 2005). Hence, the leader needs to establish clear rule of gender relations and inform all employees that inter-gender relationships should be constructed on the principles of equality since all employees are likely to accept this approach because the mutual respect of both genders is commonly accepted in all cultures.

At the same time, the leader needs to balance the power distance (Fidelus, 2003) because German and Greek employees are inclines to democratic relations between the leader and employees that means rather close distance between them, while Singaporean and Iranian employees tend to the authoritarian leadership and the power distance should be consistently larger for them. Therefore, the leader should adapt different models of behavior with different employees but, in general, he or she needs to balance between democratic close relations and power distance. In other words, it is important to stay in-between so that Iranian and Singaporean employees kept feeling respect to the leader as the top authority of the organization, while Germans and Greek would not feel superiority of the leader.

In addition, German and Greek employees are highly individualistic, while Iranian and especially Singaporean employees are collectivist (Koch, 2004). As a result, the leader needs to provide opportunities for Germans and Greeks to succeed individually, through the elaboration of a system of individual rewards for individual successes. At the same time, the leader needs to develop team management to make Iranian and Singaporean employees feel that they are members of a team and their individual contribution is the contribution to the well-being of the entire organization. Hence, the future prospects should be defined.

To put it more precisely, Greek and German employees need to see clear prospects of their career growth, while Singaporean as well as Iranian employees are more concerned with the development of the organization. Therefore, the leader needs to define the vision and mission of the company and explain employees that their individual contribution stimulates the progress of the entire organization. Thus, Germans and Greeks will be able to their individual career, while Singaporean and Iranian employees will feel confident in their organization.

Finally, assertiveness and uncertainty avoidance is equally important to all employees, but the leader should remember about cultural differences of German, Singaporean, Greek and Iranian employees. The leader should ensure employees in great prospects of the organization and ascertain them that they will have good career prospect. Also, the leader needs to take decisions quickly but taking into consideration the position of employees.

Thus, it is possible to conclude that the effective leadership implies that the leader takes into account cultural diversity of employees. Each cultural group has its own peculiarities. Therefore, the leader should pay attention to various cultural issues which can affect work of employees and organizational culture. Eventually, the leader needs to create a tolerant and balanced cultural environment.

References:

Fidelus, L. (2003, Fall). “Servant-leadership: Leading by serving.” Crossroads Center Program Catalog (Chicago, IL), pp. 20-21.

Greenleaf, R. K. (1986). “The leadership crisis: A message for College and University Faculty.” In Humanitas, Journal for the Institute of Man (pp. 1-12). Pittsburg, Pa: Humanitas.

Hesselbein, F. and P. M. Cohen. (1999). Leader to leader. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Koch, C. (2004., July 5-12). “Servant leadership: Can the bishops learn from Southwest Airlines?” America, pp. 17-19.

Lussier and Achua. (2005). Leadership Theory, Application and Skill Development. New York: Random House.

Noble, J. (2005, February). “Servant-leadership.” Organisations & People (UK), 12(1), pp.22-30.

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