Cross-Cultural Management: Providing Motivation and Leadership

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What are the roles of a manager as a leader in his/her ability to provide motivation and leadership across cultural borders?

Cross-cultural leadership demands that leaders motivate and influence individuals from diverse groups to attain a valued result by appealing to the meaning systems and shared knowledge of such individuals. Adair (2006) argues that the modern day transcultural manager differs from the traditional international manager with respect to the cross-border nature of the skills and tasks that he/she is required to perform.

As good team leaders, managers should also be in a position to motivate their subordinates. This is important so that they can expand their horizons of vision, goals and acceptance. However, the incorporation of cross-cultural considerations complicates the definition and role of a leader.

For example, some things might be acceptable in one culture but totally unacceptable in yet another culture. These variations compel managers to adapt various solutions to the challenges and dilemmas that they could be faced with in the various countries.

Research studies on expatriate managers reveal that factors like openness and flexibility go a long way in enabling managers to institute such solutions. These research findings are in line with the concept of universal practices or cultures that are often adapted by effective leaders across the globe (Adair, 2006).

They include being decisive, motivational, and honest. Leaders should also endevours to impact the same practices to their subordinates. At the same time, we need to be aware of the fact that such universal practices are also indicative of cultural specifics.

What this means is that whereas some leadership practices like instating on subordinates being team oriented or taking part in decision making can be readily implemented in certain cultures, this is not the case with other cultures. Leadership might also call for ambiguity management and polarity leadership. A manager operating across cultural borders might at times be faced with a hard time in identifying the aforementioned choice.

For this reason, different leadership traits work for different cultural settings. For example, in the market-pricing and developed countries, the key focus is on transformational as well as visionary leadership that can help organizations reach new levels of success (Adair, 2006).

In this case, transformational leadership underlies the ability of a leader to change the culture of an organization and its profitability as well. On the other hand, a market-pricing culture requires an instrumental type of leadership in which the leader motivates his/her subordinates by rewarding them for having achieved the set goals.

Conclusion

Global managers have to contend with a multitude of challenges in trying to execute their duties. For example, they need to ensure that resources have been allocated uniformly, employees have been selected using the due process and that potential mergers are scrutinized adequately. They also need to consider cultural influences of the decisions that they make.

Bounded rationality concepts indicate that global managers arrive at their decisions following certain rational models. They are also affected by motivations while making their decisions.

For instance, social motives affect their decisions. When global mangers cross from one cultural boundary to another, this is likely to influence their moral compass and as such, they need to draw from ethical guidance models in arriving at ethical decisions.

A manager should be a good negotiator and communicator so as to negotiate well across cultural boundaries. They must first demonstrate openness in handling business strategies. Nonverbal communication such as the use of various ambiguous gestures, touch behavior and eye distance can all influence negotiations and there is need for the manager to be aware of these.

A manager who is dealing with cross cultural issues needs to posies leadership skills. In addition, they need to motivate their subordinates accordingly. Various cultures require different types of leadership styles and as such some leaders are better suited for handling certain cultures, and not others.

Reference List

Adair, J. E. (2006). Leadership and motivation: the fifty-fifty rule and the eight key principles of motivating others. London: Kogan Page.

Leo, C., Bennett, R., & Hartel, C. (2005). Cross-Cultural Differences in Consumer Decision-Making Styles. Cross Cultural Management, 12(3), 32-62.

Phatak, A., & Habib, M. (1998). How should managers treat ethics in international business? Thunderbird International Business Review, 40(2), 101–117.

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Cross-Cultural Management: Providing Motivation and Leadership

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