A review of current trends in the development of future leaders: cross-cultural studies of leadership

The regular seminar of the International Scientific-Educational Laboratory of Socio-Cultural Research “Culture matters” took place on 23th September. The lecture was delivered by Meena Surie Wilson (PhD, Senior Enterprise Associate, CCL), a member of the research team of the international consulting company CCL (Center for Creative Leadership), known worldwide for its leadership development programs. Meena Surie Wilson made a presentation "Development of future leaders today from the standpoint of China, India, Singapore and the United States". Another short report at the seminar was made by Regina Eckert (PhD, Senior Research Associate, CCL EMEA). Her theme was also associated with cross-cultural psychology: "The Importance of Expectation-Perception Fit for Leadership Effectiveness across Cultures".

Meena Surie Wilson made a presentation "Development of future leaders today from the standpoint of China, India, Singapore and the United States". The main thesis of the report is that leadership can be trained in leadership experience. Meena mentioned her book "Developing Tomorrow's Leaders Today: Insights from Corporate India". She introduced the concept of basic five elements which make up the leadership experience: bosses & superiors, turnaround, increased job scope, horizontal move, a new initiative. Studies have shown that cross-cultural differences manifest themselves in additional elements: thus, for the United States these additional elements are errors and ethical issues, for China - a personal experience and mistakes, for Singapore - obligations of stakeholders and crisis, for India - a personal experience and the intersection of cultures.

CCL is building its training on the principle that leadership can be learned, and training should be based on an analysis of some aspects of past experiences – “learn from experiences”. Meena offered participants of the seminar an exercise "Experience Explorer" developed by the Center of Creative Leadership to illustrate this. They had to choose a card describing their career experience of the most significance (eg. change of work, mentoring, etc.) from the set of cards and exchange their experiences within 5 minutes. This lively "exchange of meaningful experiences" provides an opportunity to broaden understanding of the leadership.

Individuals have deeply embedded assumptions as to what characterizes outstanding (good/effective) leaders. Leadership effectiveness emerges from the fit between what others expect of an effective leader and the perception they have of the occupant of a leadership position. Some elements of leadership expectations - charismatic and team-oriented - are strongly endorsed across all cultures (“universal”) and some others (hierarchical, autonomous) are culturally contingent (“culture-specific”). Data from 502 direct report subordinates from 64 countries, rating 159 managers, was used in the research. The researchers developed 360-degree feedback tool “Global Leader View” measuring leadership expectations (in analogy to GLOBE) and perceptions of a target leader. The main implication for practice is that good cross-cultural leadership is a mix of being charismatic and team-oriented and responding to others’ expectations. It confirms that there’s no cook-book style of global leadership.

Olga Pavlenko
Trainee researcher