Impact of Leadership Styles on Cross-Cultural Communication

This article discusses the impact of leadership styles on cross-cultural communication and explores how leaders can effectively manage diverse cultural backgrounds in the workplace. It covers various leadership models such as autocratic, participative, laissez-faire, and transactional leadership, as well as cross-cultural models like the Lewis Model. The article also highlights the importance of understanding and respecting different cultures in order to promote effective communication and collaboration.

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An area of the research as well as a practical skill incorporating the ability of an individual or
company to lead other persons, is known as leadership. According to the research, leadership has
produced theories which consist of traits, function, situational interaction, vision, values,
charisma, power as well as intelligence (Eun and Resnick, 2017). The leadership has many styles
which vary from autocratic to transformational. People with their differences in culture joins
organizations and works there. It has been found that social problems were seen in most of the
organizations. For example, two person works in a company, one came from the Christian
religion, and the other one is from a Muslim background. Clashes can occur between them
regarding their cultural backgrounds. Therefore, leadership plays a significant role in the
organization. Here, instead of considering an organization, a team is chosen. Leadership effects
and styles would be implemented on that particular team. Moreover, ethical issues also occur in
the workplace (Giuliani and Kurson, 2007). The ethical issues in a group vary from antisocial
personalities to acutely paranoid individuals. These ethical issues are also solved by a leader. The
leaders implement leadership styles and theories on groups to bring out the efficient performance
of the employees. Apart from it, ethical issues such as communication problems occur between
the individuals who are a serious challenge for a group work. First of all, it is significant to know
the difference between leadership and management in a team. Leadership is an interpersonal
process which is concerned about influencing the group. Management is concerned with the
techniques used by a person for managing and dealing individuals of different age group
(International management, 2005). The control is significant so that people work together in a
friendly way for achieving a common objective of an organization. Leadership requires trust of
followers on his leaders. Management needs the control of manager over its subordinates.
Besides that, leadership demands foresightedness of leader but management has a short range
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vision. Leadership is proactive, and management is reactive in nature. Now, cross-cultural
leadership has developed as a way for understanding leaders who work in the newly globalized
market. Today, the organizations need leaders who can adjust to various environments quickly as
well as collaborate with the employees and partners of other cultures. Aside from, it cannot be
assumed that a manager who is successful in one country will be successful in another (Daft,
2011). The leadership models along with the cross-cultural models have some strengths and
weakness. The leaders who practice the above leadership models encourages them to utilize and
possess social and emotion intelligence based on skills and talent. On the other hand, the
leadership models and theories place a high value on the characteristics of leaders which includes
personality traits.
Leadership models
The implementation of leadership models in business is very significant for a particular
organization. Some leaders are prone to use one general style in almost all circumstances.
Moreover, other leaders flex their style and models to meet the specific needs of each situation
encountered. However, in both cases, it is vital for the leaders to know what their original style
preference are (Smith and Cockburn, 2013). Therefore, they can evaluate the similar effectiveness
of that method in a given set of circumstances. The leadership models are described below:
Autocratic leadership: The leaders of this style allows managers to take decisions alone without
the input of others. Moreover, the managers have the total authority and control over the
employees. The decisions of autocratic leaders are very strict, and no one challenges them. North
Korea, as well as Cuba, are two countries where autocratic leadership is practiced. The
employees get benefits from this leadership style (Hollenbeck, McCall and Silzer, 2006). The
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employees who require close supervision receives benefits from these type of leaders. Creative
employees who thrive in group functions despite this leadership style.
Participative leadership: Participative leadership is also known as a democratic leadership style.
This leadership style values the input of team peers and members, but the obligation of creating
the final decisions rests with these type of leaders. Additionally, these leaders increase the
morale of the employee because the workers make a contribution to the decision-making
procedure (Sorlie, 2007). As a result, it causes them to feel as if their judgment matters to the
group. When a team needs to make alterations within the group, the participative leadership style
helps the delegates accept changes easily because they play a significant role in the procedure.
When a team needs to make decisions within a short period, this type of leadership style benefits
the team.
Laissez-Faire Leadership: These type of leaders lacks the direct control of the workers. They fail
to give regular feedbacks to those under his supervision. Moreover, highly trained as well as
experienced employees require little supervision fall under this particular leadership style. It
hampers the production of employees requiring monitoring.
Transactional leadership: The leaders of this style receive certain task for performing and
providing rewards to the team members. The awards are provided according to the performance
results (Woolfe, 2002). The team members and the leaders set programmed objectives. The
employees agree to follow the leadership and its direction for accomplishing those goals.
Besides, the managers retain power for reviewing the results and train them according to the
objectives. When they achieve goals, the employees are given rewards such as bonuses and
incentives.
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Cross-cultural models
The Lewis Model: In the middle of the twentieth century, comparative studies, analysis, and
scrutiny of the world's social orders were, as it were, matters for academicians. The globalization
of global business in the latest five decades has declared in a period when social complexities
have ended up being urgently fundamental to leaders, executive, and managers on the
international and multinational associations (Pye, 2005). Some data of the subject was valuable in
the activities abroad or while welcoming foreign guests to the shores. The complexities of
joining corporate social orders, issues of activity, planning, central administration, enlistment
and errand assignment are generally exchanged off by the nation attributes of the overall public
included. The Lewis Model is the latest to build general affirmation, being made in the 1990s
and clarified in Richard Lewis' blockbuster, When Cultures Collide (1996), which won the US
Book of the Month Award in 1997. Lewis, in the wake of going to 135 countries and working in
more than 20 of them, landed at the conclusion that individuals can be separated into three clear
characterizations, build not as for nationality or religion but instead on Behavior. He named his
typologies Linear-dynamic, Multi-dynamic, and Reactive. Lewis considered that past cross-
culturists, in the social occasion the assortment of estimations recorded in the preceding section,
gambled making perplexity for the people who searched for clearness and succinctness (Keller,
2006). Additionally, he pointed out that the experts' diversion with north/south,
mono-incessant/poly-relentless divisions, had made them disregard or nonchalance the
compelling Asian attitude.
Cross cultural communication
The modern technology and internet have opened up new marketplaces that allow the companies
to promote the businesses to new geographic locations as well as cultures. The field of study that
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looks at how individuals from different cultural backgrounds communicate in different and
similar ways among themselves and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Cross
cultural communications helps to bring together such relatively unrelated areas as cultural
anthropology and established areas of communication (Skelton, Kai and Loudon, 2008). Moreover,
its core objective is to establish and understand how individuals from various cultures
communicate with each other.
Impact of leadership styles on national culture
When a leader is appointed for the team that time the leader should understand the needs,
demands and the culture diversification of the employers and the consumers Because if the
culture is understandable by the leader that time it will become easier for the leader to control the
team and understand the language or the culture of his employers. We refer culture is one of our
social; interaction in the society. It includes values, languages, interaction and also from which
nation we belong to (Schmid, 2006). When a leader leads a team that time the leader should have a
secular mentality and he should build the same attitude in his team mates so they can easily
interact with the customer of different culture and from a different language. As per as the
secularism the team always maintain a single language which will be understandable by all
because there are the lot of employers who speaks the different language because they have a
different cultural background and any one language is maintained in the organisation then it will
be very much easy for the employers to communicate smoothly with each other. It will be
fruitful when the employers communicate with the customer. For example, if English is used as
the common language inside the organisation because English is an international language which
is understandable by everyone.
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The leader should look after the cultural issues such as the religion factor because every
employer has a different religion and different cultures. So the leader should have kept all these
things in his mind. If an employer comes from a Christian background then as per as the system
the employer should communicate with a Christian customer because both of them will be
comfortable to communicate easily and smoothly and the demands of the customer can
understandable (Ulmer Jr., 2005).
Above than all these a global leader should be capable of communicating with all types of
diverse cultural people around the world. In autocratic leadership, the manager is the only person
takes who takes the decision without taking any suggestion from the other person. In this
leadership, there are many employers who are not satisfied because sometimes it hurts the
cultural sentiments of the employers, but in some point t helped, the team to become secular and
neutral in all forms to go ahead in the business. In transformational leadership, the leader
motivates the employers and look after to all there demand and needs and also look after the
cultural issues among the employers (Tichy and Devanna, 2004). This is a high-level
communication leadership system. This type of leadership helps the team to achieve these goals
in a simple way. For diverse cultural background, this is the best process of leadership.
Participative leadership is the Democratic leadership and also very much friendly among the
employers in this leadership the leader use to participate in all types of activities with the
employers. In participative leadership, the leader includes the team member during the time of
decision making. During the time decision, the leader looks after the cultural issues of the
employers and try to keep them satisfied by the decision and the decision should be universal for
the organisation.
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In the above essay, I have tried to give the impact of the leadership on the diverse cultural by
collecting the data by the thorough process of data collection from the company and other
references given in the essay. The data was collected in 18th December 2012 from the company
to understand the impact of the leadership(Uzonwanne, 2014). The data has been collected in the
qualitative method. As per as the information I have collected the data from the leader and the
employer of the company. Here qualitative method means asking the question or getting the
information from the leader and the employers of the company. The leader will never give the
answer in a simple formation but every time he will try to give information in a diplomatic way
which will give the detail information of the company, and the answer will vary as per as the
people. Here I have asked the leader about its leadership inside the company and how he is
handling the cultural issues of the company and the employer because he is not communicating
with the employer who is having same background and culture so for them the communication
approach will be different from the other communication process(Cox, 2015). It is a big challenge
for the leader to maintain the system and also look after the diverse culture in and around the
office. From the employers, I got to know that they are happy with their leader and his process
of leadership. The process in which I have collected the data those are the simple process which
is used in the organisation for collecting the data. There are two types of data one is primary data
which is collected by a person, and the data fresh data has been collected which includes the
detail of a person or product and another one is secondary data which is already has been
processed by the statistical process, and the data include further detail about the person or the
product. The process of collecting the primary data is observing the market or the product or
taking the direct interview of the leader of the company to collect the data. The process of
collecting the secondary data is by researching the primary data and gathering lot of information
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which was missing in the primary data. This process comes under the qualitative data collection
which is the best process for collecting the information of the company(Bush, 2014).
In this summary, we come to know that the leadership is a most and vast responsibility for the
person who is getting the responsibility. The leader have to look after the work progress in and
around the office and above than all the leader has to look after the cultural diversification of the
employers and the customer also. From the above project, you can see that I have collected the
data of the company and its information by taking the interview from the employers and as well
as the leader process of data collection is the qualitative data collection method. Hope this article
fully will help the university students and the university in the further process.
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