How Leadership Styles Vary Around The World (Study)
For example, as an aspiring overseas leader, knowing what leadership style you can expect in a new territory can help you to benchmark your own managerial style against that of the new country? Will you fit right in? Will it put you at an advantage or disadvantage? Are some countries more suited to your leadership style than others? Will you prefer countries with certain leadership styles over others?
HR and Business leaders should also be interested in understanding the respective leadership styles of countries they are looking to expand into. It can help to inform your recruitment policy, e.g. whether you go local or expatriate and it can help you to build up a leadership success profile per country which can help you to build a more nationally and culturally targeted talent attraction and management programme.
Fortunately, the question of how leadership style varies around the world has just been answered in a recent Bersin by Deloitte Study. Using data provided by SHL,they looked at over 30,000 leadership assessments from 10 countries and identified the leadership characteristics by country. These countries were: Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, India, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK and US. The research looked at 8 areas of leadership, including strategy and execution.
Summary Findings: How Leadership Styles Vary Around The World (Study)
1. India and China
China
If you want to understand the mind-set and leadership style of one of China’ most successful entrepreneurs, read this book,‘The House That Jack Built‘ by Jack Ma, the founder and CEO of Alibaba.com, the fifth largest internet company by revenue in the world.
You could also try this book, China’s Disruptors: How Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent, and Other Companies are Changing the Rules of Business. This has excellent 4.5 out of 5 star review on Amazon and gives you a good, detailed overview of the entrepreneurial and leadership climate in modern china’s blue chip ecosystem, which contains in Xiaomi, Tencent and Alibaba some of the biggest and most influential companies in the world.
India
With a annual revenue of over $100 billion India’s Tata is one of the biggest companies in the world, so this book/case study on how Tata acquired and revitalized British car brands, Jaguar and Land Rover should give a great insight into India’s leadership approach.
Jewels in the Crown: How Tata of India Transformed Britain’s Jaguar and Land Rover
2.Benelux and Nordic Countries
In contrast to the emerging economies, Benelux and Nordic countries possess leaders with a focus on planning, strategy, communication and change management. This is because companies in these locations are more established, more global and thus need to bring an emphasis on common vision, values and long term thinking.
For insights into Swedish leadership why not try this book Johna Stenebo, the founder and CEO of Ikea: The Truth About IKEA: how to create a global brand and secretly become the world’s richest man
For more info, try this book: Dealing with the Dutch: The Cultural Context of Business & Work in the Netherlands:
The Bersin research found that the UK and US have a more hybrid leadership model with the US tending to adopt a more ‘driving’ style like Indian leaders and having a more ‘push orientated’ approach to change management.
For a good perspective on UK Leadership styles try these books from some of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs.
- Richard Branson, Finding My Virginity, The New Autobiography
- Alan Sugar, What You See is What You Get, My Autobiography.
- Anyone Can Do It: My Story, by Duncan Bannatyne: From Ice Cream Van Sales Man to multimillionaire
For the US, why not try these books from the late Steve Jobs (Apple) or Jeff Bezos (Amazon) for some insight into the American style of leadership:
- The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
- Becoming Steve Jobs: The evolution of a reckless upstart into a visionary leader
Although not part of the study, Bersin gave some insights of other locations and their leadership styles.
Russia
In Russia, the management style consists of one of rigorous debate, development and defense of a business case, and continuous critical examination of the ‘numbers’.
Putin and Gorbachev both exhibited very different, but nonetheless effective, styles of leadership.
For more insight in how these two leaders rose to power and maintained power in Russia, try these two books:
1.The New Tzar. The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin or
2.Gorbachev, His Life and Times by William Taubman
Middle Eastern countries tend to be patriarchal, which can make it more challenging for women leaders. Decisions are taken more slowly and are more autocratic.
For more info, try this book: Doing Business in the Middle East: A cultural and practical guide for all Business Professionals Paperback – 11 May 2015
Or try this book, Start-up Arabia, Stores and Advice From Top Tech Entrepreneurs in the Arab World. It features multiple case studies on the top tech entrepreneurs on how they conceived, grew and led their business over and around the challenges and obstacles of achieving success.
