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9 - Understanding leadership across cultures
- Edited by Rabi S. Bhagat, University of Memphis, Richard M. Steers, University of Oregon
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- Book:
- Cambridge Handbook of Culture, Organizations, and Work
- Published online:
- 15 December 2009
- Print publication:
- 04 June 2009, pp 219-244
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Summary
[c]ulture, in the sense of the inner values and attitudes that guide a population, freightens scholars
David Lander (2000, p. 2)Recent polls suggested that vladimir Putin, then President of Russia, maintained relatively high levels of popularity within Russia over several years. North Americans and western Europeans do not understand why (Pew Research Center, 2007). The 2008 Presidential election campaign in the US was heavily influenced by candidates' religious beliefs, and Europeans do not understand why (Wells, 2007). Terror attacks in Madrid in 2004 were quickly followed by the election of new national leadership that had campaigned on a promise to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq – Spanish citizenry largely celebrated the withdrawal of troops as fulfillment of the new leadership's promise to bring troops home if the UN was not in control in Iraq, while American politicians and citizens described Spanish national leadership as capitulating to terrorists (Simons et al., 2004). In each of these cases, cultural differences in the ways in which people think about leadership led to misunderstanding and incorrect attributions about those in other cultures. Clearly, leadership and culture are a potent combination, and it is not surprising that scholars might be fearful of testing their well-established intra-culturally validated leadership theories across cultural boundaries.
Of course, when we look closely at the extant literature on leadership that has been conducted intra-culturally, there is quite a bit there that is none too clear. There is no consistently agreed-upon definition of “leadership,” and consequently no clear understanding of the boundaries of the leadership construct space (e.g., Bass, 1997; Chemers, 1997). Thus, the study of leadership is already complex – adding a cultural component makes it infinitely more so.
19 - Ethical leadership: The socially responsible use of power
- Edited by Dean Tjosvold, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, Barbara Wisse, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
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- Book:
- Power and Interdependence in Organizations
- Published online:
- 19 January 2010
- Print publication:
- 26 February 2009, pp 338-354
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Summary
Powerful leaders can have a substantial impact on the lives of followers and the fate of groups, organizations, and even societies. The potential for beneficial use or misuse of power has led researchers to focus on the ethical aspects of leadership. A recent series of unprecedented media scandals regarding ethical lapses of high-level business managers has placed the ethical aspects of leadership at the forefront of everyone's attention. Despite this growing interest, however, there is very little theoretically driven research that examines which types of leader behavior should be seen as ethical. Moreover, although preliminary research on ethical leadership suggests positive effects of such leadership (e.g., Brown et al. 2005), it does not yet explain when and why ethical leadership has its effects. Finally, why some people in a leadership situation choose to behave in a principled and ethical manner whilst others (at times) do not, is not yet sufficiently clear. Here, we deal with these points from a power and influence perspective.
The use of power and leadership are intertwined concepts, the power to influence others forms a part of most definitions of leadership. Thus, not surprisingly, the power concept contributes to our understanding of ethical leadership in important ways. First, the socially responsible use of power is a key element of ethical leadership, and, in this chapter, we discuss ethical leadership from this perspective.