Cross-cultural

Leadership

A presentation for the

Full time MBA, October 2018

Claudia Müller

CIM consulting

Berkaer Str. 5, 14199 Berlin;
Tel.: (49) 30 40756950
Mobil: (49) 151 40429384
email: c.mueller@cimconsulting.de
www.cimconsulting.de
 Claudia Müller

•  Master in International Management EAP/ESCP 1984
Various educations in training and organisational development

•  Management experience:
15 years, Unilever and Braun/Gillette
Line management and leadership positions across Europe, Asia,
Middle East and Africa

•  Since 1999 Consultant, Facilitator, Trainer

Focus on International Collaboration:
Seminars/ workshops for intercultural leadership competence
Intercultural and virtual team leadership and team facilitation
Geographical expertise China, India
Diagnostics in international teams and partnerships
Corporate culture development and change projects
Global local integration

•  Contact: c.mueller@cimconsulting.de; www.cimconsulting.de; Tel. 49 151 40429384

Objectives of course:

•  Get better understanding of impact of culture on leadership

•  Learn about similarities and differences regarding
expected leadership behaviour across cultures
•  Reflect about yourself in intercultural roles
•  Develop options to act, adapt or bridge intercultural situations
and motivate collaborators
 Explosion of
international
schooling / university

Increasing population
Companies: where "outside" is
•  From expats to impats different from "inside",
•  Diversity desired The modern growing up in culture
•  "Global nomads" from all international manager: different from original
kinds of origins family roots
•  Strong ww corporate
culture
A polycultural
self?
Review Culture: a programming of the mind?
A system of beliefs, values and behaviours shared by
groups of interacting people learned through
socialization, that are seen to be „the right way“ or to
interact in the world
We are a unique blend of
these factors

Culture(s)

Personality

Humanity
Challenges:

•  People are polycultural to degrees – not visible from the outside

•  Corporate culture is becoming more important
•  Is there something like a "global business culture" emerging?
•  What gives identity to polycultural managers?
•  The broad mass of people is still in a monocultural environment
•  As leaders, we still need to understand monocultural environments
and we tend to minimize the impact of cultural differences
–  what drives markets, customers?
–  what drives collaborators?
•  We also need to be able to lead in multicultural environments
Are "national cultures" particularly sticky?

•  Passport
•  Language
•  Communication through the media
•  National history, political history / the narratives about them
•  Religion
P. Ghemawat: "the world isn't flat:
•  Agriculture / Food, the fruits of the earth International:
- less than 5 % of all phone calls
•  Celebrations and rituals - 16 % of FB friends
•  Art - 25 % of twitter followers
(14 from other language)
- 26% of TV coverage

Not just national, but also regional, also ethnic

cultures tend to strengthen their identities when outside of their home
culture and huddling together
 The only definition of a leader is someone
who has followers. Some people are thinkers.
Leadership Some are prophets. Both roles are important
and badly needed.
But without followers there can be no leaders.
•  WHY do we need leaders? Peter Drucker

"The process of influencing other people to achieve shared objectives"(Gary Yuki)

•  WHAT do leaders do?

–  give orientation and direction
–  create alignment and identity/belonging
–  motivate/inspire people to give their best to the common cause
–  help people develop, recognize people
–  organize the team, rules of co-laboration, decisionmaking, communicating
–  use their followers as source of learning


•  HOW do leaders do it?
–  more directive or more delegating? - how much to involve in decisionmaking?
–  more caring or empowering? - how to develop trust?
–  more confrontational or more cooperative? ........
Value dimensions have a great impact on different aspects of
management:

Power & Hierarchy

Leading, Delegating
Group membership Collaborating
Deciding
Rule/Task orientation
vs. Relationship orientation Building Relationships
Trusting
Sequential or synchronous Scheduling, Structuring work
time orientation
Achieving, Competing
Masculinity - Femininity
Performing
Direct – indirect Disagreeing
emotional – neutral Evaluating
Communication
Controlling
Attitude to uncertainty, risk Error and Risk Management
Example from Scandinavia:
Some examples in this
presentation are taken
Ulrich Jepsen: from
„in Denmark, it is understood that "The Culture Map" by
the MD is one of the guys, just two Erin Meyer,
small steps up from the janitor. I First published 1/2016
worked hard to be the type of leader
who is a facilitator amongst equals
rather than a director giving orders
from up high. I dressed just as -  Flat hierarchies
casually as every other member of
my team, so they did not feel I was
-  Informal style, very accessible
arrogant or consider myself to be -  First amongst equals, coffee shop principal
above them. Danes call everyone by -  Downplay status and individual achievement
their first name and I would not feel
-  Push power down, step aside
confortable being called anything
but Ulrich. In my staff meetings the -  Trust based on reliability and honesty
voices of the interns and admin -  Clear, direct, honest feedback, consensus
assistants count as much as mine or
any of the directors. This is quite
common in Denmark.“
Example Russia

Ulrich Jepsen was relocated to

St. Petersburg:
„Here they call me Mr. President, they
defer to my opinions; they are
reluctant to take initiative; they ask for
my constant approval; they treat me
•  Hierarchies and status very important
like I am the king.“
•  Status symbols and titles
•  Authoritarianism, patriarchal
This is what his Russian management •  Strength, also physical, stemina,
team thought: voice,.. Objectives and decisions as
„He is a weak, ineffective leader;
He doesn‘t know how to manage;
directives,
He gave up his corner office on the top •  Superiors get involved in every decision
floor, suggesting to the company that •  Trust based on relationships
our team is of no importance; he is
incompetent; we are just waiting for a
little bit of direction…“
Example Mexiko

Carloz Gomez, Heineken:

It is absolutely incredible to manage Dutch people,
nothing like my experience in leading Mexikan teams
– they do not care at all who is the boss in the room.
It‘s not funny: •  Paternalistic, patriarchal
I will schedule a meeting in order to roll out a new •  Loyalty to superiors
process, and during the meeting my team starts •  Emotional, treat people as
challenging the process, taking the meeting in
various unexpected directions, ignoring my process
family
altogether and paying no attention to the fact that •  Allow people to show passion
they work for me. My guys know me, I am not a •  Avoid harsh criticism
tyrant and I believe in leveraging creativity from
every team member. But where I come from we give
more respect to someone who is senior to us. We
show a little more deference to the person in charge.
I don‘t know how to lead a team if my team does not
treat me as their boss but simply one of them. It
makes me want to assert my authority more
vigorously than I would need to in Mexiko, but I
know this is the wrong approach.
 Example from China:
I used to be a sales director for an
American cosmetics company in Asia. One
of my team members, a young chinese -  Close supervision; no independent action
woman, was in charge of the sales in the
duty free counters in the airports. I -  Support and care against undivided loyalty
wanted her to develop a whole new
reporting and performance evaluation -  Status symbols, titles, special treatment
system for the beauty consultants there. I

explained the goal and told her to come
up with some proposals. After two weeks, -  No upward criticism or questioning
sitting down with her, she had not
prepared anything. I thought she was -  Boss takes all decisions
uncooperative, but she said "you are my
boss, you have to teach me". I gave her
some initial ideas and sent her off to think The "5 relationships"
again. Next time she presented exactly Father – son
those ideas, nicely prepared. Sovereign – ruled
Only after a few rounds of this I came to Older brother – younger brother
understand that her expectation was for Husband – wife
me to teach her, step by step. Friend - friend

 Example power distance:
An American manager can "jump" hierarchical levels,
this is highly unusual in India
Sandra Peter, the manager of an American Rajeev, group manager, Noida:
team of 8 in the US and an outsourced team in I honestly don‘t know what I have done to break
Noida, India: trust with Sandra. But things have become so bad
We develop the specifications for the software our between us that now she is unwilling to work with
clients need and we send it to Noida, where me. Sandra emails my staff directly. She seems to
Rajeev's team of about twenty-five complete the purposefully circumnavigate me. She should e-mail
work. The problem began a few months ago when me, not my staff. Of course, when my
I needed information from one of Rajeev‘s staff. I teammembers receive these emails, they are
emailed that person asking for information and paralyzed by the fact that someone at her level
got no answer. Three follow-up emails – still no would e-mail them directly. They certainly don‘t
answer. I called him to complain about the lack of want to be brought into this issue between her
communication from his team, but the situation and me. And then she complains that we are bad
did not improve. communicators.

- Hierarchical, somewhat deferential & subservient behaviour

- Formality (sir, madame...), no upwards criticism
- Boss gives orders, close supervision
- Intense debate and argumentation
- High degree of emotionality
* Source:the culture map, Erin Meyer
 China – Australia US – France

Power distance is in part related to signals and symbols that are used in an
organization to mark power and status.

Anne-Hélène Gutierres was a French

Steve Henning, a VP in the textile working in the US. One morning she came in
industry, was proud about a lifestyle to find that her computer was not working.
change that came about when he lived in As she panicked, having to finish an
Australia: he started to ride a bike to important presentation, her American
work and his Australian staff thought colleagues told her "why don't you sit in
that was great. Pam's office and use her computer. She isn't
here today and wouldn't mind. She has an
But when he was transferred to China, he open door policy.
eventually found out that his Chinese Anne-Hélène was flabbergasted: Pam was
team felt humiliated that their boss rode the president of the company!
a bike to work like a common person. Lateron she shared this with her french
Biking is for the lower classes, and his friends and they were trying to imagine how
Chinese team was embarassed. a president of a French company would have
reacted!
 Leading, delegating, independent action:

General traits of very egalitarian cultures: General traits of very hierarchical cultures:

It's ok to disagree with the boss openly even An effort is made to defer to the boss's
in front of others opinion especially in public
Objectives can be negociated Objectives are directives

Empowerment Command and control

People are more likely to move to People expect explicit direction from boss
independent action and do not move on their own initiative

If meeting with a client or supplier, there is If you send your boss, they will send their
less focus on matching hierarchical level boss. If your boss cancels, their boss also
may not come.
It's ok to e-mail or call people several levels Communication follows the hierarchical
below or above you chain.

Status differences are downplayed Status differences are emphasized
From: Erin Meyer: The Culture Map
 Leading, delegating, independent action:

General traits of individualist cultures: General traits of group oriented cultures:

Individuals try to stand out, Individuals fit in, group more important
competition collaboration

Independence and self-realization Interdependence and inclusion
"sell yourself" "wait for your turn to come"



Take initiative, independent action,
Fit in, do as expected
speak up

Initiative, individual ingenuity recognized Ideas are results of groups
individual achievement recognized group achievement recognized


Conflicts are adressed indirectly,
Conflicts are openly adressed avoiding loss of face

 Germany US
- fixed nature of hierarchical structure - informal, first name basis

- formal distance between boss and subordinate - bosses can be approached

- formal titles and status symbols - see themselves as egalitarian culture

but: but:

- high value on building consensus, involving - consensus slows things down,
and engaging people leads to mediocrity

- many structures that ask for consensus: - strong, charismatic leaders with
board of directors, no president; vision and optimism , strong in
work councils; trade union – employer talks. decisionmaking; unilateral decisions

- decisions, even agendas mostly through group - people fall in line "united we stand,
agreement divided we fall"

- decisions can be revised
Decisionmaking

 Japan – principles of ringi and nemawashi

Nemawashi: the practice of speaking with each indivdual stakeholder before a meeting in order to
shape the group decision and develop agreement in advance
RIngi: passing a proposal around level by level, starting at the bottom and then working through the
layers of middle and senior management before arriving at the top

Ø  An individual proposes an idea or project

Ø  The proposal gets circulated to all relevant sections / people.

Ø  Everybody comments on attached sheet.

Ø  Comments are worked in. In the end, everybody signs off.

Ø  The final decision is announced by the superior, but it is a shared decision.

Ø  The decision process takes long, but implementation is very fast.

Ø  There is no open disagreement, yet everyone has a say
 The situational leadership model (Ken Blanchard)
helps to adapt leadership style where necessary

highly supportive
high - provide objectives
- give room to try out
and experiment
Supporting Coaching - more dialogue,
encourage questions
low on directive, highly directive, - allow for mistakes
highly supportive highly supportive
- help to overcome them
supportive
- questions and answers
behaviour
- ample feedback, praise

highly directive
Delegating Directing - giving clear orders
- checking everything
low on directive, - intense contact
highly directive,
low on supportive - explaining behavioural
low low supportive
detail
low directive behaviour high - showing, doing together
Use the situational leadership model to structure your relationships:
with your six regional sales managers:

In your team you have 5 very different sales managers:

1.  David: is in charge of the Middle East. British national. Has lots of
experience, does this job for several years, has good client contact,
is proactive, independent, a very forceful character
2.  Khaled, a young Egyptian, well educated but without much work
experience. He is the new sales manager for Egypt
3.  Jack, a young dutch guy who goes as an expat to South Africa. Independent,
dynamic, eager to learn, does not know Africa
4.  Rajeev, a middle-aged Indian, very experienced, has already built up
a sales operation for another company in India. Forceful, competent.
5.  Marina, a Singaporean lady. Only 2 years initial experience in sales,
excellent relationships with clients, tough, not very structured, very "Asian"
Example Arabic world
Peter Schmidt had developed some
good contacts over time with his Arabic
distributors. When the Egyptian distributor needed
to be hospitalised he asked Peter's company to
recommend a hospital in Germany, which they did.
•  Deeply relationship orientated;
Mahmut Zahran had to undergo an operation, but it
was nothing major. Peter thought it was all in good relation is with person, not
hands. He did not hear from Mahmut for the next company
4 weeks, which was, of course, to be expected. •  Loyalty to family / clan
After 4 weeks Peter called and found Mahmut well
back in Egypt. But Mahmut was very cold and
•  Loyalty to hierarchical
distant. After a bit of small talk Mahmuth blurted relationships
out: you never once cared for me while I was in •  Relationships are not
hospital! I am so disappointed! How could you. segregated into "business" and
I thought we were friends!
"personal"
Saudi Arabia was also part of Peter's geographical •  Hospitality = deep value
responsibility. As his region grew, this market was
given to another sales manager. There was no time
for a personal handover. Relationships turned sour
immediately and the ongoing contract was put on ice
by the Saudis.
Cultures where trust is essentially Cultures where trust is more affective,
cognitive, through task focus: through the relationship:
Trust is built through business related Trust is built through a personal relationship
activities. Private subjects are avoided. that goes beyond business. No strict
separation between private and business

Work relationships are built and dropped Work relationships build up over time,
easily based on the situation personal loyalty is important.

Collaborators expect room to operate Collaborators expect close contact, frequent
independently, focussing on task. They do not reminders, close mentoring
expect permanent contact, copying in mails,
and oversight

People expect to mainly look after their own People expect the boss to take a more
caring attitude and propose promotion etc.
interests and ask for promotion and training


Privileges for closeness are avoided Privileges for loyalty are accepted

Loyalty to the person, when the boss leaves,
Loyalty to the organization, not to the person.
employees may leave as well
 Communicating Urgency

When asked the following situation:

"Today is friday. You will need to get an important report from a colleague in
another office by next thursday afternoon latest. It is highly important that you get
it exactly at this time, since you need to compile the information of several markets
for a meeting on friday. How do you communicate to achieve this?"
People from different nationalities tend to answer differently...

Latin American:
Americans: oral, possibly written for proof;
oral, written follow-up emotional appeal, leave buffer,
Leave buffer, 1 or 2 reminders remind frequently

Germans & Scandinavians

Indians:
written, followed by oral check
oral, written for proof
Chinese: Once confirmed understood,
Leave lots of buffer,
mainly oral, but above all little or no buffer, no reminders
remind daily
through their hierarchy reliability: expectation that other
expect delays
Leave buffer, will communicate proactively in
remind frequently, towards case of problems
the end can be several times
per day; use "promise"
 What builds trust from your point of view?

Relationship building.......
Safety, support Connection
- develop strong, personal relationships
- mutual reliance / dependence

Sharing common Openness

Competence goals and practices - listening and
- sharing information and
exposing your own intentions

and Task orientation....

Reliability, consistency Respect
-sticking to plans and deadlines
-loyalty
-maintaining promises
Building trust across cultures

1.  Building connection

Develop personal knowledge of your people,
develop a "mentor" attitude, care for, respect and develop your people;
honest praise and (mostly positive) feedback

Reciprocity: Friendly behaviour, help and support given creates a positive response.
Find the right what: Information, interest & attention, listening, time is important
everywhere. Concrete and specific help and support;


 Building trust across cultures

1.  Building connection

2.  Active listening:

Ø  open questions
Ø  open, physical posture
Ø  small remarks indicating that you are listening
Ø  invitations to explain further
Ø  paraphrasing and summarizing, checking understanding

How do your people know you are really listening?

1.  accessible - do people know when and where to contact you?
2.  interested - what signals do you give that you are interested?
3.  listening - do you apply "active listening"? Do you make time to listen?
Do you plan this into your activities?
4.  calm confidence - refraining from defensive or aggressive communication patterns
5.  integrating - doing something about/with what you heard
 Building trust across cultures:
1.  Building Connection
2.  Active listening
3.  Clarity and exposing own intentions

Your goals and intentions; formulating clear expectations / deadlines,
assigning clear responsibilities.

Keeping people informed of overall company situation and progress and how they contribute, fit in

4.  Dependability and predictability

Being coherent and walking your talk, role modelling the behaviour you want people to follow

Keep agreements and admit and correct mistakes

 Building trust across cultures:

1.  Building Connection

2.  Reciprocity
3.  Active listening
4.  Clarity and exposing own intentions
5.  Dependability and predictability
6.  Respect:
Finding out what is respectful behaviour in the eyes of your partner

7.  Competence Sharing
Be prepared to share your competence. An investment in teaching takes time initially,
but pays off and saves time lateron.

Be patient when sharing your competence.Take a mentoring attitude.

Use several senses to teach people, particularly in difficult language
environments.


Building trust across cultures:
1.  Connections, Connections, Connections
2.  Active listening
3.  Clarity and exposing own intentions
4.  Dependability and predictability
5.  Respect
6.  Competence
7.  Safety, Security

create a feeling of belonging

allow people to try new ways, reward them for effort
and don't blame for failing

a mentor attitude: show that you are interested in their development

Intercultural interaction and bridging strategies

WE DOMINANCE SYNERGY &

INNOVATION

INTEGRATION

COMPROMISE

AVOIDANCE ADAPTATION

THEY
Source: adapted from Silvia Schroll-Machl: Handbuch interkulturelle Kommunikation und Kooperation, 2003
7 Building blocks for intercultural, remote teams

Selection

Connection

Integration Exploration
Team-
Success

Mobilization Alignment

Support
 Connection:
- exercises to get to know each other at different levels
room for formal and informal introductions
- face to face kick off
- pairing people
- develop connecting skills, sharing, listening, praising..
- how to nourish building connection
Integration:
- nurture spirit of collaboration Exploration:
- have communication infrastructure for - share context, perspectives,
"virtual closeness", develop skills hopes and concerns
- develop specific goals and processes - foster mindset of openness, curiosity
- develop virtual meeting routines - learn about (cultural) differences
- have clear decisionmaking structure - encourage the more silent people
- inform, communicate and celebrate
Alignment:
Mobilization: - careful overarching, common goals
- clarify roles & tasks, in writing - create elements of team identity
- share with hierarchical superior - foster mindset of openness, curiosity
- apply "situational leadership" - build a common working culture or
- encourage & give feedback rules of engagement
- be clear about time on project, - best done still in f2f meeting
support needed, Evaluations & rewards
What about communication?

A French coachee went from working for an

Australian car parts manufacturer to work in a -  in France hierarchy, status, loyalty and
Californian electrical car start up company in a high respect for the boss are important
powered, responsible engineering position. -  decisions are taken by the boss, but....
-  once a decision is taken, there is room
After a few months he was in serious trouble and a for creative implementation
nervous wreck, close to resigning and not knowing -  disagreement, argumentation, originality
what to do in this case with his family and 2 is highly valued; it's a source of creativity
daughters who had just started to get accustomed to -  meetings are places to brainstorm and
their American school. explore

As an engineer who was to give his expertise to a
start up, he had become the devils advocate on
everything, and he thought that this was clearly his Background:
role and responsibility. But his colleagues and also his Elitist educational system;
boss thought him to be exceedingly negative and History of independent thinking,
confrontational. On the other hand he thought they age of enlightenment, french
were all incredibly naive, overly optimistic and revolution...
superficial.He felt unappreciated and totally out of Yet centuries of political and
place. He could not sleep anymore administrative centralisation
 Disagreeing

Meetings: Meetings:
Lots of engaged debate, Engaged debate,
high interaction level, high interaction level,
originality of ideas but fall in line when boss makes
fight for your ideas, strong statements,
can be personally confronting personal confrontation rare

Meetings:
Orderly debate,
People let each other finish,
Confrontation focussed on
task, bring in different
perspectives.
Prefer to obtain agreement Meetings:
Little debate, meetings more
to announce plans or facts
If arguments then building on
Erin Meyer, The culture map each other
French – Chinese exchange:
Li Shen, a young Chinese manager, eagerly
accepted a new job with L'Oréal in Shanghai.
At some point, she was invited to come to
Paris and present her ideas on a campaign.
She had an international MBA and spoke
English and quite good French, so she felt very
confident.
"the company spent a lot of money to bring
me over, so I prepared my presentation
meticulously. There were twelve people in the
meeting and I was the only Asian. I was totally
taken aback by the challenges thrown at me
by my French colleagues. It started with a
question about why I had chosen to change a
specific color in a print ad. As I explained my
rationale, various members of the group
began to challenge and question my decisions.
I felt attacked and humiliated, and very upset
with myself. They obviously did not feel that I
was the marketing expert that I claimed to be.
I was almost in tears!"
 Evaluating

Erin Meyer, The culture map

What are the implications for leadership?

First become aware and inquire how others around you communicate
and learn to interpret local expressions. Don't judge it, don't take it personally

When in intercultural situations, avoid giving negative feedback or being
controversial in public.

Make extra effort to get/teach indirect people to speak up and possibly teach
them ways to do it

Be more explicit about your own communication style, explain your way of
confronting, criticising and evaluating

Try to expand your portfolio of expressions. It can be fun...!
If you have to learn to be more indirect:
wrap negative messages with positive ones
use "Downgraders"

Show the general desire to help the person develop and grow
How can a leader shape culture?

There is a leadership task, somewhat neglected in
management literature, and that is to build, shape,
develop, nurture and adapt culture. And that is maybe
the most important leadership task of all.
Ed Schein

- role modeling
- teaching, mentoring and coaching,
focus on behaviours
- encouraging experimentation
- measuring and feedback
- rewarding effort 1.Why?

2. What?

3. How?

41

Our capability to adapt to a culture depends on:

•  Our desire to become part of that culture

•  Our knowledge about that culture

•  Opportunities and inclination to try out and get feedback on culture
specific behaviour
Proposed literature

The classics: Focussed on interacting in

international management