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The challenges of managing a multicultural team
Leadership Style
Leadership Style
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Inclusive Leadership Advancing the mission and effectiveness of a multicultural organization relies on the ability for a leader to understand the personality traits and individual differences of his/her workforce or team. House, Hanges, Javidan, and Gupta (2004), noted that managers of global organizations are being forced to make critical decisions at alarming rates due to the advancement of globalized competition. Makela, Andersson and Seppala (2012) postulated that a multicultural or global organization expands its capabilities to grow by its ability to distribute and assimilate knowledge across different geographical, cultural and social contexts as expressed through the lens of their global team members. Maria and Lozano (2010) posited …show more content…
Effective inclusive leaders possess a genuine caring for the respect and opinions of others. Carmeli, Reiter-Palmon, and Ziv (2010) described an inclusive leader as a leader who exhibit openness, accessibility, and availability in their interactions with followers. Hollander (2012) stated that inclusive leadership is engaging and motivating, and the traits of an inclusive leader is that of a relational leader who focuses on the needs of their followers and possess the ability or skills needed to engage the followers so that the followers feel authentically valued and respected. Hollander continued by adding that inclusive leaders are team oriented and are exceptional in creating effective two-way communication and they are true people persons full of charm and charisma. Effective communication is another critical trait possessed by inclusive …show more content…
Multinational or multicultural organizations are the forefront for the global race (Rosenblatt, 2011). The characteristics of a global organization according to Rosenblatt (2011) is one that operates with a presence of work values, customer orientation and openness to cultural diversity. Attempting to decide on an effective leadership style for the global countries of Greece, Singapore, Germany and Iran, Chhokar et al. (2008) examined the GLOBE and the leadership style that displayed a highest level of charisma and team-orientation was best suited. Inclusive leaders according to the GLOBE are most suited to effectively lead an organization that is located in the host country or in the US with a diverse workforce of the listed countries. Albeit Iran showed a lower score in Assertiveness 4.04, and Greece 3.40 and Iran 3.70 in Future Orientation the inclusive leaders are still better equipped to effectively motivate and create a global
The modern world has experienced tremendous changes, which have contributed to changes in people living in the global world. These changes have mainly been brought by globalization, which is a major phenomenon in the 21st Century. Leaders across various professions, businesses, and governments need to cope with globalization since it forces them to cross borders more often and communicate or conduct business with people from other cultures. This process involves developing necessary skills for working effectively in the modern complex world. Actually, the ability of these leaders to work effectively not only requires the development of essential skills but the application of leadership principles in the global work environment. In essence, leaders must develop their ability to apply leadership principles across culturally diverse workforce in today’s global work environment.
“One of the difficulties of accommodating multiculturalism is that defining a multicultural society or institution seems to be determined by one's perspective. A commonly held view suggests that being multicultural involves tolerance towards racial and ethnic minorities, mainly in the areas of dress, language, food, religious beliefs, and other cultural manifestations.” Most organizations nowadays have to deal with multiculturalism in one way or another. The globalization phenomenon has reached most of the civilized world, and organizations that don’t understand or don’t realize multicultural workforces are the way of the future are going to be displaced and left behind.
Leadership, no doubt, is one the key aspects of creating a culture and climate that extracts the best performance from employees. It is a significant contributor to long term sustained employee engagement and satisfaction. It is a key building block to creating a high performing organization. When a trained and successful leader from one culture attempts to use these same skill sets and experience, which made them successful, on employees of different cultures or cultural backgrounds and fails; is he now a bad leader? If the leader does not take into account the diversity at hand and understand the differences in perception then he will not be able to successfully influence his employees. Leadership is defined as “a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal” (Kruse, 2013). Who is it that defines good leadership? Is it the leader’s supervisor or is it the manager training course instructor or is it the employees/peers/ supervisors collectively who determine good leadership? Leaders must understand that they must earn the respect of the group in order for them to allow him to influence them. Leaders who do not accept or understand that this is, among other traits, the perception of leadership that counts, will fail or at the very least not be able to extract the full potential of the group, or perhaps create a toxic work environment. As stated in the book Classical Readings in Organizational Behavior, “power will be defined as any force that results in behavior that would not have occurred if the force had not been present” (Ott, Parkes, & Simpson, 2008, p. 355). Leaders within an organization have certain powers that enable them to manage their organization effectivel...
In taking a further look into the article Ten Traits of effective leaders, leaders are often taught skills to help create a successful leadership style. An effective leadership style is supportive in addition to directive. As a leader it’s not enough to have leadership sense. You must understand your employees. Once you have established a connection as a leader you gain a strong logic of what employees are looking for in a company. For exa...
Constant technological and global changes create challenges that forces leaders to manage different cultures in different countries. People, goods, services, and ideas are moving today at greater speeds which mean our labor force is becoming more diverse and multicultural by the day. Effective leaders need to understand such global dynamics in order to successfully manage organizational cultures. The cultures of leaders and their core assumptions might be different from the values and assumptions of employees in a different country. Two managers working for the same global company might see things differently due to their backgrounds and cultural values. The different countries, in which the organization operates, will have different cultures depending on the social, economic, and political history of the country. Managing and understanding these differences need an effective cross-cultural thinking leader (Yukl, 2013). Some research questions that Yukl, 2013 suggests are: 1) how behavior differs across cultural values and for different countries? 2) How values and behaviors are influenced by personality across company and country? 3) What types of traits, skills, and experience are most useful to prepare a leader being assigned to a new country? 4) How does the fast-changing culture in developing countries affect and relate to
Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran, S. V. (2007). Managing Cultural Differences, Seventh Edition: Global Leadership Strategies for the 21st Century (7th ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann.
Schein in his book “Organizational Culture and Leadership” explains how different believes and behaviors start to be logical when we understand their cultures by stating “When we learn to see the world through cultural lenses, all kinds of things begin to make sense that initially were mysterious, frustrating, or seemingly stupid” (2010, p. 13). This kind of foresight should be the starting point in order to manage the tremendously growing diversity in the workforce nowadays. Leaders and administrators of both public and private organizations through their influence are responsible to promote and manage diversity in an ethical manner.
Cox, T., and Blake, C. (1991). Managing Cultural Diversity: Implications for Organizational Competitiveness. Academy of Management Executive vol. 5 (3). Retrieved from (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4165021?uid=3738832&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101348728463).
The world is a forever changing climate of people. This requires companies to change with the times. The introduction of different cultures, beliefs, and diverse backgrounds requires a new approach for managing a larger arrange of people. People no longer work in a time of intolerance. Diversity is about the many things that make us individuals and also the similarities that bring us together. Companies should diversify the organizations because it is shown that diversification will increase profits, build a more cohesive work environment, and show appreciation for foreign culture.
Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225 in Roccasecca, Italy. He grew up with eight siblings and he was the youngest. When he was just five he was sent to go strain with monks and there he was describes as a very witty child. He went to school at a Benedictine house in Naples. While there he studied some of Aristotle’s work. Once he finished with all of his school he became committed to always going places, teaching, and writing. He grew up in a time period where people were trying to comprehend the difference between faith and reason. Since Thomas was a true believer he began to use all of the things he used while growing up and while in school to develop theories and reasons why God was real. One of his arguments was call the argument of motion.
Globalization has many implications for leadership today and in the future. Global perspectives are being spread to the farthest points in the world and to the most isolated people. People of different cultures come to the United States daily to live, travel, or engage in business. Leaders must respond to this challenge of globalization so they can effectively reach out to as many people as possible. Opening themselves to the world's changes allows leaders to compare and contrast their culture with the arts, language, beliefs, customs, philosophies, and ways of living of other people. By observing and questioning another culture, leaders can understand the origin of an individual's viewpoints and become more sensitive to the cultural needs of that individual. By continually exposing themselves to other cultures, young leaders can thoroughly develop this global perspective and devote themselves to making connections with the entire world.
The use of culturally diverse business teams is an increasingly common situation in today’s world; especially as the world continues to become a global village. Leveraging on the cultural diverse backgrounds and experiences of members of such teams can be a source of improved performance which can ultimately reflect a competitive advantage in the business market. As Symons and Stenzel (2007) aptly state, “culturally diverse teams are more likely to engage in innovative `out-of-the-box' thinking, given their different life experiences in diverse social environments.” Another pointer to suggest that multicultural teams tend to be a source of competitive advantage in business is found in the paper by Di Stefano and Maznevski (2000) where they state that “multicultural teams have an enormous wealth of material with which to create innovative approaches to complex organizational challenges.” They furthermore state that “today’s business cannot flourish without the creative value afforded by high performing global teams.”
...Harris, Sarah V. Moran (2011). Managing Cultural Differences, Leadership Skills and Strategies for Working in a Global World. 8th ed. UK: Elsevier Inc.. 10-25.
Leadership in organizations (4th Ed.). Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ.Morrison, A. J. (2000). Developing a global leadership model [Electronic Version]. Human Resource Management, 39, 117. Retrieved March 24, 2014 from LIRN
In today’s globalized world, multicultural teams accomplish a significant proportion of organizational work. Multicultural teams are formed because they improve organizational effectiveness in the global business environment. As such, multicultural teams offer huge potential to organizations. The most critical and practical challenge multicultural teams face is managing conflicts across members’ national cultural boundaries. Other cultural challenges in multicultural teams include dealing with coordination and control issues, maintaining communication richness, and developing and maintaining team cohesiveness. For multicultural teams to be effective, members must learn to address the challenges that arise from team members’ differing nationalities and cultural backgrounds.