Leadership and Culture

A study comparing leadership behavior across cultures with the use of a test based on transformational leadership (Rudd, Kent, Blair & Schuele, 2009) shows that US and German leaders are quite similar in their leadership behavior. However, the results indicates that US leaders scored higher than the German leaders on each of the five behaviors studied. The Leader Behavior Inventory (LBI) is used as the test as it has been used in other cultural comparisons (den Hartog, House, Hanges, & Ruiz-Quintanilla, 1999; Quesada, Gonzalez,  & Kent, 2008). Furthermore, the study draws on Hofstede and Hofstede’s (2005) four cultural dimensions.

According to Hofstede (1986),  four distinct dimensions characterize a culture: 1. collectivism/individualism, 2. masculinity/femininity, 3. power distance and finally, 4. uncertainty avoidance. These dimensions influence people’s relations and help assess the leader’s capability to manage change and the attitudes and abilities of their colleagues and  followers to accept and handle it.

References 

Den Hartog, D. N., House, R. J., Hanges, P. J., Ruiz-Quintanilla, S. A., & Dorfman, P. W. (1999, Summer).Culture specific and cross-culturally generalizable implicit leadership theories: are attributes of charismatic/transformational leadership universally endorsed? Leadership Quarterly, 10, 219-257.

Hofstede, G. (1986). Cultural differences in teaching and learning. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10, 301- 320.

Hofstede, G., & Hofstede, G. J. (2005). Cultures and organizations. New York: McGraw Hill

Quesada, G., Gonzalez, M., & Kent, T. W. (2008). A road for achiving an international measure and understanding on leaders‟ behaviors. Leadership and Organizational Development , 29, 678-692.

Rudd, H. Kent, T., Blair C.A., and Schuele, U. (2009) Leader Behavior Inventory: A Test of Measure Equivalence in Germany and the United States, International Journal of Leadership Studies,(5), 1, 22-36.

Leadership and Training

"Leadership is a skill that is learned through life experiences and watching fellow leaders. While many experts would agree that leadership is a skill that can be taught very few institutions take the time to train new leaders. Many institutions of higher education are more focused on managing the daily crises which occur on a regular basis. These issues are important however, many of these crises may be prevented by having people properly trained to handle these situations. Many usually lack the administrative experience to transition from a faculty member to a leadership position (Tucker, 1984). While managing a classroom and an institution may have similar attributes, most would argue they are vastly different. Learning the political, financial, and societal factors of an institution is a complicated process." (p.33-34)

According to Morris, key issues are: lack of training, financial resources as well as involvement of top managers. In attempt to adress these issues, planning, concrete training and monitoring are essential parts of the solution.

Hargreaves (2007) claims that sustainable leadership “preserves and develops deep learning for all that spreads and lasts, in ways that do no harm to and indeed create positive benefits for others around us, now and in the future” (p. 224). The claim makes Grooms & Reid-Martinez (2011) draw the conclusion that there is a "need for leadership education to encourage leaders to know themselves, their gifts, and personality tendencies, as well as their leadership abilities within the organization" (p.415).

In a study of strategic leadership in a global firm, Van Beek and Grachev (2010) relate leadership effecitivity directly to leadership competencies:

"Leader effectiveness is a function of interaction between strategic organizational contingencies, leadership competencies, and leader attributes and behaviors. Leader attributes and behaviors that meet the requirements of strategic organizational contingencies will result in increased leader effectiveness (House et al., 2004). Hence, directed development of leadershipcore competencies in a global firm changes managers‘ behaviors and contributes to effective growth in the markets" (p. 320).

According to Hollander (1958, 1974), we can differentiate between the hierarchical and the emergent leadership. The first category is based on a formal position within an organization whereas the emergent leadership refers to a leader in an uformel position based on collegiate support.


References
Grooms, L. D., & Reid-Martinez, K. (2011). Sustainable leadership development: a conceptual model of a cross-cultural blended learning program. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 6 (3), 412-429.

Hargreaves, A. (2007). Sustainable leadership and development in education: Creating the
future, conserving the past. European Journal of Education, 42(2), 223-233.

Hollander, E. P. (1958). Conformity, status, and idiosyncrasy credit. Psychological 

Review, 65, 117-127.

Hollander, E. P. (1974). Processes of leadership emergence. Journal of Contemporary Business,
Autumn, 19-33


Van Beek, M. & Grachev, M. (2010). Building strategic leadership competencies: the case of unilever. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 5 (3)313-332.

Morris, A. (2012). Perspectives and Thoughts on Leadership Development in Higher Education e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership 10,(1), 33-36.

Strategy and Culture

The dissertation An Exploratory Study of Organizational Culture and Its Relationship to Organizational Effectiveness in Distance Education Institutions (Willis, 2010) shows how some cultural elements seem to relate more to distance education institutions than others. The findings in the study point out innovation, collaborative engagement, mentoring, team cohesion, morale, technology and the development of human resources as essential elements which influence the organizational effectiveness in distance education institutions.  

In the dissertation, Willis (2010) refers to Schein (2004) in claiming that leadership and culture is strongly interrelated. Culture creates leaderships as well as leadership creates culture.

Willis draws on Weick (1985) for emphasizing that the need for strategy and planning depends on the culture. Organizations with different cultural foundations need planning and strategy-work more than organizations based on the same values and beliefs. According to Weick, culture can be an alternative to strategy because a sound coherent culture is a possible alternative to strategy whereas strategy cannot in the same way substitute culture. Willis also emphasizes several studies (Clott & Fjortoft, 2000; Smart, 2002; Cameron & Zammuto, 1983) drawing the conclusion that culture highly affects organizational effectiveness.

So, there are several reasons for focusing on culture and working with the construction and re-construction of culture in Higher Education.

References

Cameron, K. S. & Zammuto, R. (1983) Matching managerial strategies to conditions of decline. Human Resource Management, 22, 359-375.

Clott, C. & Fjortoft. N (2000). Culture and strategy in business schools: Links to organizational effectiveness. Mid-Western Educational Researcher, 13(2), 27-33.

Schein, E. (2004). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Smart, J. C. (2002). Enhancing the educational effectiveness of two-year colleges: New perspectives and evidence of the role of institutional characteristics. Paper preseeted at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA, April 1-5, 2002.

Weick, K. E. (1985). The significance of corporate culture: Organizational culture, 381-389. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publicatins

Willis, D. A. (2010). An exploratory study of organizational culture and its relationship to organizational effectiveness in distance education institutions. Dissertation University of Maryland University College

Leaders' Perspective on DE

I have just read an interesting ph.d-dissertation about distance education and leaders’ perspective.

Hummell uses a qualitative approach to focus on the leaders perspectives, theoretical foundation, professional background, personal preferences and the institutional demographic.

The study shows that leaders in DE focus on teamwork, communication, organizational change, and lifelong learning in their work as leaders.

Reference

Hummell, L.J.( 2008). Distance education leaders’ perspective: a study of how select higher education institutions implement and lead online distance education programs. 

Strategic Seminar

Today, I have participated in a seminar about strategic management and collaboration across campus.
We have discussed servant leadership, shared vision, engagement and empowerment. It is intersting to look at the same issues from a new perspective in a new organization. At UCSJ, all my colleagues are very engaged and dedicated to their job and our shared mission.

At this moment, I am at Ankerhus where we have worked today. Tomorrow, we will continue our discussions at Campus Roskilde focusing on resources, shared models and tools.

Here, you can see the beautiful Ankerhus. Last week, we celebrated Ankerhus' 110 anniversary, so it is a place with lots of educational aura.

Seminar for the National Leaders

Yesterday and today, I participate in a seminar for all the national leaders of the program of social education. We have discussed exam, quality, interaction with R&D, study-load and accreditation. Now, an interesting discussion about new innovative exams is going on.  I think it is important that we offer the students a wide variation in the types of exams.

Yesterday, I made a presentation based on my experience with the interaction between researchers, lectures and students in higher education. Some of the leaders could recognize the potentials and problems I described. Some of them could not. Some were engaged in the discussions. Some of them looked as if the educational practice I presented was fare away from their practice. However, for me it was a good reflection exercise.

The seminar was held at Hotel Billund, so I have enjoyed two days in a setting with lego bricks all over. In the reception, in the restaurant, in the bedroom and also in the ladies room you will find lego bricks in creative variations.

Educational Innovation

Today, we had the first seminar in an important process. We aim at developing a new shared educational practice. Until now, the 4 locations in the program for social education have maintained their own profile, traditions and educational paradigms. Of course all the work in the programs is based on a shared curriculum, and on guidelines for internship and guidelines for exam. However, the analysis of the educational practice shows that the differences cannot easily be explained or grounded in sound educational argumentation. Furthermore, we have an urgent need to work cross locations, to strengthen research and educational quality. We can only do so if we can describe, document and present our educational practice in a coherent way based on a strong theoretical foundation and a shared practical educational approach.

I try to use the model below to design the process – in its entire flow. Today, we worked in the constructing phase. I had made a pre-prototype of a study-plan – presented in the way it is supposed to be presented to all our students – when they start the new semester.  And I got so much input and so many new, constructive and creative comments which I have to add to the study-plan before we can go into the next Lab-exercise: discussing the pre-prototype with all the lectures. Today, I had only invited 30 persons and 20 persons participated. In the next period, all lectures will be invited to participate in asynchronous and synchronous discussions. It is a very import phase where I have to maintain an open mind.

As part of my presentation today, I had made 4 interviews with important stakeholders: two students, a leader from an organizations for leaders of the institutions for impaired adult citizens and a researcher. In two of the interviews, I also made a short video presenting the highlights of the interview. In the next couple of days, I will try to convert one of the videos from powerpoint into YouTube and put it on my blog.

Several things surprised me today

1) At one hand, there was a great resistance to the concept of innovation. On the other hand, there also was a part of the lectures and managers highly dedicated to the concept of innovation.

2) There is a rather strong vision of the democratical processes in the educational practice in the program cross locations. However, some of the lectures seemed to disagree in involving the students in this innovative process.
3) A concern that educational quality will be reduced if we change our practice and work systematically cross locations.