Leader Follower Relationship Research Paper

Lewis, a variety of leadership structures are outlined according to each country. This helps to highlight the vast differences in leadership and management style around the globe, and can aid companies as they begin to forge into the global market.[1] The differences are striking, even between countries with similar cultural backgrounds, like the United Kingdom and the United States of America and demonstrate that in order to have a truly successful business partnership with a different country, you must spend time learning to understand exactly how that country handles business, and how it manages it’s employees. Lewis states, “By focusing on the cultural roots of national behavior, both in society and business, we can foresee and calculate with a surprising degree of accuracy how others will react to our plans for them, and we can make certain assumptions as to how they will approach

23. Does your cultural background influence your views about the effectiveness of leaders who show a great deal of interpersonal sensitivity? Explain. Page 231

Effective leaders interact with their followers in a positive manner to learn about them on a personal and professional level (Colorado State University – Global Campus, 2016). The United States Coast Guard (USCG) refers to this type of communication as deck plate leadership. Deck plate leadership blends an interest in junior personnel’s professional development and well-being (Smith, 2010). Often, before one becomes an effective leader they participate in a follower role. The level of follower engagement may be a precursor to the type of leader they later will become. Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) C. MacInnes is the Executive Officer (XO) of Enlisted Personnel working directly for the commanding officer (CO) at the USCG Academy in New London, Connecticut (http://www.uscga.edu). LCDR MacInnes oversees several divisions at the Academy, meaning he has numerous direct reports. He is an example of a person in a leadership and followership role.

The text book also talks about that we need to recognize the important of interactions among leaders, followers, and the situation, in order to better understand the process of leadership. Indeed, interviewee underlines the importance of situation as well as the relationship between leaders and followers, in leadership, and said that leaders need to observe and analysis the situation as well as understand followers’ attitudes and

Leaders who are well versed in the foregoing leader-follower communication concepts will also be successful in global and in cross-cultural environments (Rentfrow, 2007). For example, when leaders: (1) model willingness to engage others; (2) are sensitive to differences/diversity; (3) promote the establishment relationships beyond their immediate environment; and (4) eliminate organizational barriers, these principles are universal and

The role of the follower and the quality of the relationship itself are informally negotiated between followers and their leaders over time (Gils, Quaquebeke, & Knippenberg, 2009). Based on the LMX theory, leaders build a special relationship with an inner circle, or “in-group”, of followers, who often get high levels of responsibility and access to resources. The in-group members work harder and are more committed to task objectives. They are also expected to be totally committed and loyal to their leader. Conversely, other followers fall in the “out-group" and are given low levels of choice or influence. Aggression, sarcasm and a self-centered view are qualities seen in the out-group. The quality of the LMX relationship varies and is better when the challenge of the job is extremely high or extremely low (Graen et al., 1982).

In this handbook, authors deeply describe the theory of leader-member exchange and provide the last state of art about the topic. It gives great highlights for the theoretical framework of leader-member exchange. Authors also highlight the importance of national culture for the understanding of this dyad relationship; therefore, they discuss how LMX has a great dependence of the context.

1. When discussing leadership and followership, there is often a split in personal opinion when it comes to which one is more important. Leadership and followership both offer unique benefits in their own right and have supporting factors, which give them the perceived appearance of being more important. The focus for this paper will be to advocate the importance of followership over that of leadership. This will be accomplished by addressing the pros of followership to include some core skills of followership and the effects followership has on the development of a leader. The expectation of an officer however, places a high amount of emphasis on leadership more so than that of followership. Given this perceived importance of leadership as an officer, an effective leadership style will be explained and how officers develop this particular leadership style. While leadership has a distinct presence within the professional work environment, followership is considered the underlying backbone in developing an effective high performing team.

Cultural differences between countries have strong effects on individual personality and behavior, as well as on organizational culture (Hofstede 2001). These differences can be a significant barrier for an international business leader. Failure to understand and adapt to these differences may

Leadership must now be earned; it is no longer bestowed. Effective leaders grasp this cultural shift and its implications for them. They evidence servant attitudes and focus on building people as the way to missional effectiveness. (McNeal p.83) He then expounded = further on culture by giving three task that are required for a leader to know his culture. They consist of: knowing where he comes from, knowing where he stands, knowing where he wants to go and take others with him. The leader’s historical, social, and environmental influences help determine his leadership development. This can involve shaping by the leader’s family and early life; the leader’s current position in life and its surrounding circumstances; and a strong sense of mission.

Organizations depend on the management and leadership skills of individuals in order to be successful. Leaders do not have to be managers but are equally important. Leaders are individuals who possess traits, behavior and abilities to influence others to accomplish tasks and other needed objectives for the company. Leadership is defined as “the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization. . . .” (House et al., 1999, pg. 184).

Conrad Hilton recognized the importance of individuals in the realization of success. He took a personal interest in all of his followers by paying attention to their concerns and mentoring them (Alef 2009). He encouraged two-way communications between him and his followers to allow the people to express their views. He tolerated differences among the employees and delegated most of the work to others. This leadership style is important as it takes into consideration individual views of every person and makes the employees feel valued (Eeden et al. 2008). Globalization has led to the establishment of multinational companies that draw their employees from different backgrounds. There is need for leaders to understand their followers and tolerate their differences for the success of the entire team.

In today’s world, globalization is rapidly dominating and mobilizing multicultural interactions among leaders (Bücker & Poutsma, 2010). The Eurocentric Germanizing authoritative leadership approach is no longer dominating in a colorful society of people (NewsBlaze, 2007). As globalization comes into realization, more and more people of various gender, race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, and even disability will continue to change the course of leadership (Nahavandi, 2014; NewsBlaze, 2007). Successful leaders are challenged to adapt new methods to seek out effective communication and address every human being with compassion and empathy (Harvard Business Review, 2011).

In times of rapid globalisation and economic development growth, the environment of business has become more and more complicated as a huge number of firms want to globally expand their businesses. Subsequently, the managerial implications of cross-cultural management is the challenge of this development. As Abbe (2007) states, cross-cultural leadership has developed as a way to understand leaders who work in the global markets. Culture is the “software of mind” that can influence people’s patterns of thinking and behaving.

Culture is the training or refining of one’s mind from social environments in which one grew up. In order to adapt to local cultures and market needs, companies must shift to decentralized, collaborative decision-making. That requires developing many leaders capable of working anywhere. Therefore, rather than concentrating on the on the top 50 leaders, global organizations need to develop hundreds, even thousands, of leaders comfortable operating in a variety of cultures. Developing global leaders with cultural sensitivities and collaborative skills requires greater focus on emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and empowerment than on traditional management skills. With flatter organizations and decentralization of power, corporations must develop savvy global leaders capable of operating locally and globally simultaneously.