Leadership Across Gender, Generation, and Culture: Practical Implications From a Multi-National Study

• In Event: Inclusivity in the 21st Century Workplace: Leveraging Diversity and Multi-Generational Perspectives

Short Description

This study of more than 800 leaders in 14 countries revealed some interesting gender differences on how leaders perceive effective leader roles, practices, and behaviors. Presenters will highlight noted differences and their absence, areas of similarity, and national perspectives to provide insight into organizational behavior and decision making in businesses and in government entities.

Detailed Abstract

A study of more than 800 leaders in 14 countries, many unexplored in previous studies and many presently in or recovering from conflict, revealed some interesting differences in how leaders of each gender perceive effective leader roles, practices, and behaviors in a 74-item instrument. Some countries are increasingly intentional about expanding the role of women in elected leadership, a trend also observed in business. Data from the 14 countries presented in the current study offer more than anecdotal evidence for the soundness of this intentionality. Women lead and believe differently about leadership than men. Those differences and their absence, the areas of similarity, may provide insight into organizational behavior and decision making in businesses and in government entities.
Gender differences may appear without respect to national or cultural identity. However, in many cases, the differences only emerge usefully when filtered through other demographic lenses. In some of the 74 items on the instrument, national identity was a useful lens. For other items, generational identity proved similarly useful, while in other instances, the useful filter might be educational achievement.
The current season of unrest in many countries is exacerbating the already-large challenge of refugees and at-risk people globally. Parallel to this refugee phenomenon is a rather dynamic period of globalization in business and an apparent realignment of nations as political allies. In a dynamic global environment, knowing what and how people think about leadership may be useful for resolving or mitigating conflict. As nations wrestle with the implications of resettling refugees from countries near and far, incumbent leaders may want to know how the new arrivals will lead themselves, but also how they expect to be led.
The importance of gender or national origin as factors in the perception of effective leadership are relevant in obvious and less-than-obvious scenarios. Does it matter if males from Syria perceive leadership and lead differently than males in neighboring Jordan or Turkey? What difference might it make if international negotiators knew that leaders in Libya do not necessarily lead or view leadership in the same way that their counterparts in neighboring Egypt and Tunisia do? Might it matter that female leaders in Kenya and Uganda do not have the same mental image of leadership as their male counterparts?
The roles of gender, generation, culture, national origin, and education in how leaders view leadership is misunderstood or, perhaps, simply unknown. Those five factors, alone or in combination, may provide significant insight into how to develop the next generation of leaders for an increasingly complex world.

Representative Discussion Topics
In business and international politics, knowing that men in Syria perceive leadership differently from men in the US, the UK, and Turkey could alter the conversations. Similarly, business and political conversations in Kenya might proceed differently if the participants understood that women and men do not hold the same beliefs about leadership. Outcomes might be different if participants recognized that men in the United States may hold different beliefs about leadership than their counterparts in Canada and the UK.
What are the implications for negotiations and organizational and international relations of presuming a common understanding of leadership and of appropriate roles, practices, and behaviors of leaders, particularly when data indicates that such an understanding is less than universal? Should scholars and practitioners expect a leadership development program in the United States to automatically apply in other contexts? What role do leadership scholars have in identifying and addressing statistically significant distinctions in the perception of leadership across cultures, generations, and genders?

While numerous references will be cited, the data is original and not currently published.

Participants

• John R Bryan, eProcesses Consulting, Inc.

• Donna C Graham, Concordia University

• Dana Shelton, Grand Canyon University