Module - Case
VISIONARY LEADERSHIP, CROSS-CULTURAL LEADERSHIP, FACILITATING CHANGE
Background
Leaders of today can be categorized by their various leadership styles, but all successful leaders have one thing in common: they are visionaries.
For example, Presidents Bill Clinton, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan; high-tech giants Steve Jobs and Bill Gates; and world figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King all had visions far larger than themselves and the role they played.
For example, Gandhi is single-handedly responsible for returning India to home-rule after centuries of being ruled by Great Britain. Martin Luther King is considered to be the father of the civil rights movement in the United States. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs revolutionized the technology industry with their MS-DOS and Windows software, and the iPhone, respectively.
Each of these leaders constructed a vision that was creative, clear, and concise, and that also complemented the organization's culture and strategy. They all possessed the foresight to plan strategically for potential opportunities and threats, and once they constructed their vision, they were able to influence people, implement policies and procedures, and execute on the vision (i.e., turn that vision into action).
One key thing with visionary leaders is that they are the creative geniuses behind the vision, and nearly all of them lead by example. Which brings us to the next point: Microsoft certainly isn't the company that it was after Bill Gates stepped down - will that same fate happen with Apple now that Steve Jobs is no longer running the company?
Required Reading
Please review The 100 most influential people according to TIME. To see the full list, click on "Full List" on the top banner, or choose from one of the selected lists such as "Pioneers", "Titans" or "Leaders". The 100 Most Influential People (2016). TIME.
Module - SLP
VISIONARY LEADERSHIP, CROSS-CULTURAL LEADERSHIP, FACILITATING CHANGE
Background
The most well-known framework on cultural values was derived from a landmark study in the late 1960s and early 1970s by Geert Hofstede, who analyzed data from 88,000 IBM employees from 72 countries in 20 languages.
His research showed that employees working in different countries tended to prioritize different values, and those values clustered into several distinct dimensions. Those dimensions began with just four categories, but have been expanded in recent years to include:
• individualism-collectivism
• power distance
• uncertainty avoidance
• masculinity-femininity
• short-term vs. long-term orientation (or pragmatic vs. normative) and most recently
• indulgence vs. restraint
Required Reading
Begin the SLP by reading:
Hofstede, G. (1993). Cultural constraints in management theories. Academy of Management Executive, 7(1), 81-94.
Session Long Project
First, choose a country outside of the United States. Then, drawing on the material in the background readings and doing additional research, please prepare a paper that addresses how you would adapt your leadership approach to lead a group based upon Geert Hofstede's six dimensions if you were the CEO of a multinational organization. For example, how would you adapt your behavior if it was an individualistic or collectivist environment?
Would you implement a flat structure if it was a high or low power distance policy? What leadership style would be most appropriate for that culture? Make sure to address all six of Hofstede's dimensions. Please be creative and provide examples to justify why you would make such decisions.
Your paper should be short (2-3 pages, not including the cover sheet and references) and to the point. You are expected to deal with these issues in an integrated fashion, rather than treating them as a series of individual questions to be answered one by one and left at that.