Cultural Influences on Leadership: Western-Dominated Leadership and Non-Western Conceptualizations of Leadership

Abstract

While the phenomenon of leadership is widely considered to be universal across cultures, how it is operationalized is usually viewed as culturally specific. Conflicting viewpoints exist in the leadership literature concerning the transferability of specific leader behaviors and processes across cultures. This study explored commonalities and differences in effective leadership processes, across - cultures in western – dominated leadership and non-western conceptualization of leadership. GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) is a research program focusing on culture and leadership in 61 nations to provide core attributes of cultural dimensions on cross-culture and evidence for conceptual and measurement equivalence for all six leader behaviors in viewpoints of globalization. Data for the study is drawn principally from analytic literature reviews in leadership theory and its implication on cross-culture perspectives.