Understanding paternalistic leadership: a guide for managers considering foreign assignments

Many leadership theories currently competing for our attention – for example, authentic leadership, transformational leadership and servant leadership – are familiar models to anyone educated in a business institution that, broadly speaking, follows a Western curriculum. However, as managers who do business globally can attest, human interaction and relations, and especially leadership, are directly linked to culture and cultural expectations. What works for a leader depends to a large extent on his or her organization’s cultural context. For instance, in Scandinavian countries, leaders act more as facilitators, yet in Arab countries leaders are expected to make all decisions, give orders and be obeyed. One of the best known researchers into such national differences in their norms of leadership and followership, Geert Hofstede, identified six dimensions: Power Distance (how power is distributed), Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism/Collectivism, Masculinity/Femininity, Long/Short Term Orientation and Indulgence/Restraint. All of these are relevant to managers from outside the culture seeking to appreciate its particular expectation of what makes a good leader and a good follower. Failure to recognize how these dimensions determine an organization’s normative behavior will undoubtedly lead to misunderstandings, and perhaps to conflict and poor performanc