Eastern Europe – Success Across Cultures

An American company was looking to build an assembly plant in Eastern Europe.

In an attempt to be “fair and generous,” the company decided not to pay the average living wage of the area, which was much lower than the average living wage in America; rather, they offered to pay new laborers four times that average.

Sounds pretty generous, right?

Well, what they didn’t consider is the disharmony this would sow in the community.

The new lucrative jobs tore the town’s social fabric apart. Folks were anxious about which families would benefit. Things got cutthroat.

The company was now in a precarious position. What should they do in this situation?

Identify the Culture’s Values

With relationship-based cultures, the family unit is often the most important unit in society. Unlike in rule-based cultures, which are often individualist, the family is more important than the individual. In fact, the two are one.

Many in relationship-based cultures support the family financially. Not just parents taking care of their children, but sons taking care of their parents, older brothers and sisters financially responsible for their younger siblings.

In hearing of such a lucrative wage for labor, who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity? Especially when it meant you could better support your in-group financially.

Moreover, the families of potential workers were also invested in these top-paying jobs. Securing the work would mean more money to go around.

Considering this society’s cultural values, what did the company do?

Did they close up shop in Eastern Europe for fear of the consequences of their offer?

Did they take the initial offer off the table and put forth a more comparable living wage?

Nope, they found a cross-cultural solution.

Work within the Culture’s Values

Rather than cut their losses or go back on their word, the company identified the culture’s values and incorporated them into their own.

In order to preserve social harmony in the town, they hired one person from every family unit. The anxiety of potentially being refused this opportunity was spared, and each family was better supported.

This is just one example of a cross-cultural solution that works.

Identify the culture’s values and work within those values the best you can. If you know what your workers care about, what matters most to them, then you know how best to support them, which is mutually beneficial to you.

“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” – Jim Rohn

Sounds like a lot. But the worst part is that, when you lead across cultures, there’s even more nuance to leadership than Jim Rohn described.

Last week, we talked about the study done by GLOBE, which identified various types of leadership styles.

Universal preference went to the charismatic/value-based leader.

After all, a personable leader who can inspire and motivate his employees is someone anyone can get behind.

However, when it comes to the other styles of leadership, cultural preferences varied.

Good vs. Bad

Unsurprisingly, leadership preferences differed based on the values of the culture.

One example: ambition.

Some cultures see ambition as a good thing, while others see it as bad.

This was reflected in the study on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and in the breakdown of leadership preferences.

While the charismatic/value-based leader was tops in the US, the UK, and Australia (Anglo-Saxon countries), the same leadership style was least preferred in the Middle East and South Asia, both of which sought self-protective leadership.

Human-oriented leadership was not favored in Nordic Europe but was favored in South Asia, while Latin America preferred team-orientated leadership.

Eastern Europe liked an autonomous leader, which rings true when you look at their history of favoring strong leaders.

The Roads Diverge

The greatest divergence in leadership preferences was between the Middle East and Western cultures.

Charismatic/value-based or team-oriented leaderships were favored least in the Middle East, in comparison to other regions.

Instead, the Middle East views self-protective leadership as less problematic.

Localized research also showed that Middle Eastern cultures preferred leadership attributes to include: humility, faithfulness, and family-orientation. This suggests that Western management styles would not be easily embraced.

Conclusion

The strong insights into how global cultures view leadership and what various populations expect from a leader are what make the GLOBE project a super useful tool for cross-cultural management.

For instance, due to these differences in favored leadership styles, GLOBE researchers remarked that mergers and acquisitions between European and Middle Eastern countries may be difficult.

Knowing the favored leadership styles of another culture allows international managers a blueprint for what sort of patterns are expected of them.

Instead of applying the management style you’ve learned in your own country, when you work internationally, you might tweak how you lead, applying tactical patterns from the local blueprint.

The bottom line is: employees from another culture likely expect a different type of leadership from their boss than you do from your own. So, prepare accordingly.

Tag: Eastern Europe

The Six Styles of Leadership Across Cultures, PART II