Culture and Leadership – lenses of understanding

I work on a programme for one of the large European telecoms groups, dealing with cross border management.  The delegates get two modules of input, one specifically dealing with the issues related to culture in a national sense, so one countries approach to life and work vs another, and the second module, the one I work on is about leading people and change in a cross border context.

What is interesting for me to see,  is how people who have to manage across borders struggle to recognize what it is that needs to be focused on. Without doubt managing people in remote offices from a central point is difficult, and demands more skill and forethought than an intact co -located team.  However, cultural differences are no more an issue than say, experience differences in two team members, or even personality differences. Culture is one lens for looking at diversity and not a separate and somehow special category of management science.  At least that’s is how I have always experienced it.  So a Japanese manager who really does not like to listen and does not value the opinion of his  staff, is not necessarily doing this because his culture says he is more senior and does not have to act on upward feedback and a senior manager should know his subject more than his juniors – it could be that he just ( as a fully paid up member of the human race) does not like to listen!!   Not all Americans are  go getting sales people who can talk the leg of a mule  – some are and others are quiet, considerate and thoughtful introverts.

So why the post? Well the way you consider a problem, the lens you view it through determines the clarity of what you see – so seeing culture, culture , culture as the problem means you will look for cultural solutions or  cultural explanations for behavior.  Now in some cases this might be right, but also the lens of personality type might be the right one, or the lens of skills and experience, or the lens of  pressure and stress, or the lens of corporate norms etc etc.  If we excuse behavior because it’s the cultural norm for a national group, then we are not helping the cause of developing better leaders.

If we can only see things from one perspective we can only apply a limited set of possible solutions.  Leadership is not something that can be compressed into a nice easily labeled box.  It is a multi faceted issue requiring some additional lenses to see it clearly.

I am all for training and workshops to expand the understanding of leadership, and the experience of those that we lead.  What I think we need to do is ensure we do not become myopic and only see what we want to see.