Effective Leadership Styles In Different Cultural Contexts

Leadership in today’s organizations is a difficult job, especially when across borders.Managers of global firms are facing unprecedented fierce and rapidly changingcompetition. Therefore, the effectiveness of leadership styles in different culturalcontexts has been widely discussed in the social psychological and businessmanagement in recent years.Ample evidence shows that cultures of the world are getting more and moreinter-connected, the business world is becoming increasingly global, competitive anddemands more change, it also demands more diverse leadership. They include thedesign of multinational organizational structures, the identification and selection ofleaders appropriate to the cultures, in which they will be functioning in themanagement of organizations with culturally diverse employees, as well ascross-border negotiations, sales, and mergers and acquisitions. After careful literaturereview on cultural contexts, cultural dimensions, acculturation, leadership, andGLOBE effective leadership framework, the author enriches the management gridinto Task-People-Acculturation (TPA) model.To see whether the model works in real companies, the author chooses two companies,General Electric Company (GE) of the U.S. and Shenzhen Huawei Investment&Holding Co., Ltd (Huawei) of People’s Republic of China, to analyze corporatecultures, major leadership styles presented, achievements made and challengessuffered in overseas markets due to different efforts of acculturation. The result showsthese two companies differ a lot in both corporate cultures and leadership styles, butfacing fast-changing global competition, both companies have realized the necessityand importance of empowerment, humane-orientation and transformational/charismatic leadership, and acculturation, to name just a few. Finally, the author hasrealized the limitations of this thesis, and makes some outlook for future research.