How does culture impact leadership and can culture be seen as a constraint on leadership?
How does culture impact leadership and can culture be seen as a constraint on leadership? Culture affects almost every aspect of leadership. Leadership behavior, objectives and strategies of organizations are affected by the values, beliefs, norms and ideals embedded in a culture. North Americans, for instance, emphasize individual capacity and effort as a foundation for promotions. Progress is attributed in India to externalities such as marriage, friends, family and corruption. Some years ago, while conducting a workshop for ninety men in Canada, I was duly informed that there would be ten men from a local native tribe at the workshop and that two of them were' elders.' Many of the workshop's leadership protocols were thrown out or significantly modified to accommodate the cultural requirement for elderly respect and an increase in overall modesty. I mastered the leadership tool known as tossing away the rule book, when conducting a works...