The Invariance of Leadership Styles across Four Countries

Leadership involves the ability to inspire and influence the thinking, attitudes, and behavior of other people (Adler, 1991; Bass, 1985; Bass and Stogdill, 1989; Bennis and Nanus, 1985; Kotter, 1988). Diverse theories of leadership can be found in the organizational literature. These theories can be distinguished by several historically distinct approaches that focus on either traits, behaviors, situational contingencies, or transformational leadership. A fifth, more recent approach that has gained momentum over the last ten years can be characterized by an integration of previous approaches. In this new approach, an issue that has received considerable attention is the examination of how values and beliefs of followers influence leadership styles and behaviors. Studies designed to investigate this issue often compare leadership across nations with different cultural value orientations. Thus, this fifth approach to leadership can be characterized as the "cultural contingency approach. " Unfortunately, cultural contingency research has failed to provide conclusive evidence for universal properties of leadership. Researchers are still uncertain as to whether nations with particular value orientations can be characterized by certain leadership styles. Knowledge of leadership styles for managers from different cultures will expand our understanding of managerial effectiveness and action. The purpose of this paper is to examine the structure of a leadership model across different countries. The paper is divided into several sections. The first section discusses previous leadership research in terms of each of the five approaches. In the second section the limitations of this research are delineated. In the third section a study that was designed to address these limitations is described. The study explored the structure of a previously validated leadership model across four countries (U.S., Australia, Norway, and Sweden). These countries were selected based on a review of the literature concerning cultural value orientations and leadership. Australia was chosen due to its cultural similarity to the United States. Norway and Sweden were chosen because they are quite different from the U.S. and Australia, but are similar to one another. Thus, the four countries formed two dyads across which the leadership model could be compared and contrasted. The comparison was conducted utilizing covariance modeling techniques. Following a description of this analysis, detailed results are presented and discussed. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for both practice and future research. Approaches to Leadership The Trait Approach. The trait approach to leadership was first mentioned by Sir Francis Galton in his book Hereditary Genius (1860). Galton believed that leader qualities were genetic characteristics of a family. Leadership research, in accordance with this view, placed considerable emphasis on characteristics which might distinguish leaders from followers. Specific personality traits and physical characteristics were investigated, including "courage," and "wisdom," as well as gender, height, weight, and appearance. Such factors were considered characteristic of effective leadership. Nevertheless, because many of the systematic studies of differences between leaders and their followers were inconclusive (e.g., Stogdill, 1948; Mann, 1959), this approach was short-lived. The Behavioral Approach. The behavioral approach to leadership prevailed between 1940 and 1960. This approach is best characterized by the major line of behavioral research conducted by the Personnel Research Board at Ohio State University. The Ohio State researchers developed a questionnaire that was administered to members of numerous organizations across the United States. The questionnaire required respondents to describe their leaders by the frequency with which they performed nine behaviors (initiation, membership, representation, integration, organization, domination, communication, recognition, and production). …