Leadership Across the Globe

Vipin Gupta, Montgomery Van Wart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317481782
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Leadership Across the Globe aims to serve a growing interest in how to lead in a global or cross-cultural environment. This book focuses on the corporate setting, with illustrations, theories, and evidence from various regions around the world. The book includes coverage of culture and diversity issues in leadership, as well as a comprehensive, detailed exploration of the comparative aspects of leadership.

Generously illustrated with cases, boxed profiles, figures, and examples from a wide range of organizations, this is a relevant resource for anyone seeking a leadership career on a global scale, in multinational enterprises, or in a multi-cultural context.

Part I

Introduction to Leadership Studies

1 Introduction

MEET JAPAN’S ZUCKERBERG

Born in Tokyo in 1977, Yoshikazu Tanaka is the youngest self-made billionaire in Asia. In 2014, his personal wealth was valued at $1.6 billion, and Gree—a start-up he founded in 2004—had a market value of about $7 billion.

In his teens, Tanaka did not have much interest in computers. His life changed after reading Powershift—a futuristic book. He browsed the Internet for the first time during his short visit to the US in 1996. In 2003, Tanaka learned about Friendster, an American social networking website that allowed its users to play free online games. He decided to create a Japanese equivalent and learned programming to do so. In February 2004, he launched Gree to the public as his personal website (the same year when Zuckerberg launched Facebook). Within one month, more than 10,000 users joined, and by December, the number exceeded 100,000, and Tanaka established GREE Inc.

Tanaka told his newly hired team, “In terms of making products, it shouldn’t be about this year or next year, it should be five, 10 years ahead.” Initially, Gree was primarily a social networking site, similar to Friendster. To attract users, he decided to amplify the entertainment aspect. Tanaka had grown up with Nintendo and PlayStation, and saw in games the kind of content that will hook the users. He also believed in the power of the e-mobile to drive the world (“Not everyone has a PC but pretty much everyone has a mobile phone”).

In 2007, Gree launched its first game, a social fishing game called Tsuri-Sta. Tsuri-Sta was the world’s first mobile social game, in which players collected equipment, organized fishing parties with friends, and competed with each other. The game remains popular even today. When Gree launched its initial public offering in 2008, the 33-year-old Tanaka became “Asia’s Youngest and Fastest Self-Made Billionaire.”

Tanaka puts in long hours, but warns, “It’s not the case that as long as you put in the effort then the time you spend ends up as a better product.” Larger console-based Japanese gaming companies spend large amounts of time with large workforces on developing games, but have not been as successful. Japan, as a nation, is now in its third decade of recession. Tanaka hopes Gree will be a role model, as it has indeed become, for successful start-ups. He notes, “Facebook became very big; big enough to change society. I think we can change society as well, but in our own way.”

Source: Adapted from Boykoff (2012), Edge (2012), and Saha (2012)

In a flat or borderless world, global leaders deal with problems and challenges using ethically integrated global approaches and solutions. In a world highly stratified in terms of power, resources, and opportunities, global leaders also need to consider local issues using responsive local approaches and solutions. In a world that is becoming more borderless by the day as well as more locally stratified, global leaders need approaches and influences that not only integrate across boundaries, but also respond to diversities. For Tanaka in Japan, this meant fusing the local culture of gaming that he had grown up with, Japanese love for fishing, and the emerging global craze for mobile and social networking. The tremendous success of this fusion is inspiring new experiments for leadership throughout Japan, and indeed around the globe.

The effect of leaders on our lives is omnipresent. Leaders affect us on a grand scale in that they determine the success or failure of our businesses, economies, societies, and nations. The leaders of Enron in the US and Satyam Computers in India destroyed highly successful companies with their unwise behaviors, while those of Facebook and Gree have revolutionized our lives forever. Leaders affect us just as much in our personal lives. A bad supervisor sends us scurrying for a new job. A good team leader makes a difficult assignment seem easy with solid organization and encouragement.

Since leaders do affect us so profoundly on both a grand and a personal scale, it is important to understand how leadership functions. It is true that great leaders often start with great talents, but these abilities rarely find expression without study, mentoring, cultural sensitivity, and practice. It is an explicit purpose of this book to help readers become both better analysts of leadership as well as better practitioners in global and multicultural settings.

Next, we turn to leadership discourse. This will provide a brief introduction to the major schools of thought on the subject, which will be expanded upon in later chapters.

History of the Mainstream Discourse on Organizational Leadership

Although the modern scientific study of leadership dates only from the turn of the twentieth century, interest in leadership defines history from its earliest writings. Indeed, one can go back further by examining the biological antecedents of leadership.

In fact, the popular reference to the “pecking order” comes from Murchison (1935), who investigated social status in Gallus domesticus (roosters). By placing roosters in successive pairings and establishing their relationships, he identified a clear and consistent pattern of dominance—a primitive form of leadership. Studies of primates showed dominant males eat sooner and better, thus maintaining their strength and status. They also have preference in mating, thus ensuring a Darwinian selection bias. The presence of dominant males reduces intra-group fighting, while leadership succession temporarily increases it. Significantly, a strong dominant male substantially increases the group’s territory, establishes the direction that the group takes in its meandering, and regulates the group’s interactions with outside groups.

History is full of references to leaders in different cultures of the world. Ancient Egyptians had hieroglyphics representing leadership, leader, and follower; pharaohs were exhorted to be authoritative, perceptive, and just. Early Chinese philosophers such as Confucius focused on the instruction of emperors, enjoining them to be fair and focused on the needs of the people. In ancient India, Kautilya’s Arthashastra provided kingship theory of leadership noting the responsibilities of a good king. In ancient Europe, Plato in The Republic examined the traits of the ideal philosopher king, Aristotle examined the need to cultivate virtue and encourage education for good leadership, and Plutarch showed the similarities between great Greek and Roman leaders in The Parallel Lives. Most of the great early stories of the world—the Babylonian Gilgamesh, the Homeric Iliad, the Norse Beowulf, the French Chanson de Roland, the Indian Mahabharata, and the more recent Spanish classic Don Quixote—are about the virtues and weaknesses of leaders. In fact, characteristics associated with leadership typify all human societies from tribal to urban (Lewis 1974), although they are considered more pronounced in societies with greater role specialization (Bass 1990).

The modern discourse of leadership emerged in the nineteenth century, driven by the notion of the “great man” thesis. Particular great men somehow move history forward due to their exceptional characteristics as leaders. The stronger version of this theory holds that history is handmaiden to men; great men actually change the shape and direction of history. Thomas Carlyle’s 1841 essay on heroes and hero worship is an early popular version of this theory, as was Galton’s 1869 study of hereditary genius (cited in Bass 1990, 37–38). Great women around the globe were invariably overlooked, notwithstanding popular stories about women leaders in different nations over the course of history (see brief profiles of some in Exhibit 1.1).

Similarly, failures of heroic leadership led to disaster. Tuchman (1984) identifies four reasons for the failure of heroic leadership in history: tyranny or oppression, excessive ambition, incompetence or decadence, and folly or perversity (i.e., pursuit of policies contrary to the self-interests of the constituents or the nation).

A milder version of the great man theory is that as history proceeds in its irrevocable course, a few men will move history forward substantially and dramatically because of their greatness, especially in moments of crisis or great social need. This sentiment was expressed by Hegel, who thought that the great man was an expression of his times. Today, “hero worship” is certainly alive and well in popular culture and in the biographies and autobiographies of many societies. Notably, Anglo cultures have, as their core, a belief that only a few, very rare individuals in any society at any time have the unique characteristics to shape or express history.

The notion of “great” business leaders evolved in the nineteenth century. In the past, great leadership was based on military power, title, and religious rank first and foremost. Land ownership was next most influential. Wealth through trading was held in relatively low regard, and wealth through finance and moneylending was frequently frowned upon as usurious. Several factors changed this concept in the seventeenth century. Most of the world was becoming more democratized, more mercantile, and less dependent on titled aristocracy. The French Revolution ushered in powerful political and economic examples of more dispersed power and wealth. The decline of the influence and power of hereditary nobility was seen as Houses of Lords declined in power, and aristocrats ceased to monopolize senior roles in government and churches. As more wealth came to be owned by those without aristocratic and religious roots, the notion of great business leaders grew in the nineteenth century until today. The association of leadership with business became the defining feature of the American model, which was based on Protestant notions of hard work leading to salvation (as well as success in this world). For an example of the rise of capitalism, and therefore the rise of business leaders, see Exhibit 1.2 on the Rothschild family.

The scientific mood of the Western early twentieth century fostered a more focused search for the basis of leadership. Researchers developed personality tests and compared the results of average individuals with those perceived to be leaders. By the 1940s, researchers had amassed very long lists of traits from numerous psychologically oriented studies (Bird 1940; Jenkins 1947). This tactic had two problems. First, the lists became longer and longer as research continued. Second, and more importantly, the traits and characteristics identified were not powerful predictors across situations. For example, leaders have to be decisive but they must also be flexible and inclusive. On the surface, these traits are contradictory. Without situational specificity, the endless list of traits offered little prescriptive assistance, and descriptively, it became a laundry list. In 1948, Ralph Stogdill published a devastating critique of pure trait theory, as being too unidimensional to account for the complexity of leadership.

EXHIBIT 1.1

Great Women Leaders from Popular History Around the Globe

Place	Great Women	Time	Leadership Profile
Sweden	Queen Christina	1626–1689	She attracted the finest minds to Sweden, turning it into an empire that dominated the Baltics.
England	Queen Elizabeth I	1533–1603	She turned England into a strong European power and a vibrant commercial force by promoting tolerance, government reforms, currency strengthening, and a capitalist economy agenda.
Native America	Princess Pocahontas	1596–1617	She protected English traders from her tribe, and promoted k...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• PART I Introduction to Leadership Studies
• PART II Mainstream Leadership Discourse
• PART III New Leadership Discourse
• PART IV Competency-Based Leadership Practice
• PART V Responsibility-Based Leadership Practice
• Appendix A: Reflective Leadership Assessments
• Appendix B: Global Leadership Assessment
• Appendix C: Tally Sheet for the Global Assessment Leadership Cycle
• Index