Leadership and Management

German’s management style: In Germany, trade unions have and arbitration role to play through its representatives.

German companies requires great consensus within the companies decision making, the largest number of shares belong to a private shareholder, bank, county or town. But there is the trade unions that unify workers and as well have power in the decision making of the company. Gaining a consensus is facilitated by trade unions representatives not allowing the problems that company management may have with employees.

Trade unions are very powerful, in some sectors a works director elected by the workers and with trade union background can be part of the board of directors, which is the body in charge of the management, but this can only be replaced by the union. Also, workers can easily contribute with the strike, because the union provides them with 2/3 of their salaries as long as the strike takes.

Management and leadership

Scholars have been discussing differences in management style depending on of culture of each country, according to this, it appears to two theories:

The first one, it is known as Convergence, which Assumes that as countries develop, management systems will converge to a model found in developed countries.

The other one is named comparative cultural Approach, which is based on the assumption that a wider set of cultural norms in each society is a powerful force for differentiation across borders.

To point this out into examples we have the Japanese style, for them Market share always has been important, so that Japanese firm is often modeled as optimizing more that simple stockholder value, while still remaining the calculating economic actor. Meanwhile Koreans are deeply influenced by Japanese, so they seem to be a replica, and this represents the power of Japanese management.

However, Koreans lifetime employment is flexible and Korean workers change jobs more often, also managers tend to be authoritarian and the important decision is made by the top manager and there are many family companies

It is clear that Culture influences organizations through several paths such as legal, economic, and political systems as well as values, attitudes, behaviors goals and preferences of the participants.

While globalization does expose the firms a broader menu of cultural options, the firms can still use their cultural embeddedness for bringing fresh perspective and differentiated advantage to the established international strategic business models.

Besides, the culture and the technology cannot be called opposing forces, due to they both can work together and facilitate discovery and creation of new organizational foundations for competitive advantage.

Question

Discuss transformational, charismatic, and authentic leadership. Would you expect these styles of leadership to exist in all cultures? Differ across cultures? Explain.

I think that of course, there are these types of leaders in all cultures, because through time it have been appeared several totalitarian, charismatic leaders worldwide and also those transformational ones that are able to cover or to adapt depending the dynamics of certain moments.

I guess that authentic leadership is applied or owned by the person who is really concern and committed with the social stability and well being, and I guess also they are called authentic, due to leaders in politics tend to practice pragmatism rather than idealism.

On the other hand, charismatic leadership is more related to people who are able gather or “hypnotize” the masses easier with abilities. 

1) Image retrieved from google images

2) Lee, Jangho, Thomas W. Roehl & Soonkyoo Cho. 2000. What Makes Management Style Similar and Distinct Across Borders?. Growth, Experience and Culture in Korean and Japanese Firms. 631-52. 

3) Gupta, V , Wang, J (2003) Globalization and Convergence-Divergence Debate: Strategic Perspectives for Emerging Markets. Journal of business and economics research. Volumen 1, number 2

4) Imagw retrieved from google images

5) Piette, Jean-Jacques. 2004. "Understanding Management German style". Les amis de L'ecole de Paris