LEADERSHIP

Management and Leadership across Cultures

Introduction

This paper discusses the concept of Management and Leadership across Cultures in the hospitality industry. Following the paper discuses how these theories and concept applies in Marriott hotel across culture. A leader is someone who inspires, who makes decisions affecting the company in a positive way and can assemble a team and get to work mixed with a common goal. There are many empirical studies on leadership; however, few have been concerned with leadership across cultures. Increase of interdependencies of nations that make the understanding of culture and its influence on leadership increasingly important. The cultural attitudes, belief systems and values define the leader's behavior as well as those who follow. Therefore, leadership changes across cultures emphasizing that there are certain traits that label a leader depending on the region or society. One more concept to consider is the cultural programming within an individual that has to be examined carefully when reviewing leadership effectiveness.

Every person carries within himself or herself patterns of thinking, feeling and potential acting, which was learnt, through a lifetime of experiences affecting the outcome or result of that person's leadership style. Bass defines leadership as a 'universal phenomenon. There is no society where it is completely absent or where cultural norms have completely substituted for it. “Leadership; conceived as the focus of group processes, as a matter of personality, as a matter of inducing compliance, as the executive of influence, as behavior, as a form of persuasion, as a power relation, as an instrument to achieve goals, as an effect of interaction, as a differentiated goal, as initiation of structure, and as many combinations of these definitions” (Bass, 1990, p. 66).

“A leader is a person who occupies a position of responsibility in coordinating the activities of the members of the group in their task of attaining a common goal. The term 'leadership' is extremely general; however, literature has defined leader as an individual with status who exerts influence over other individuals. Leadership can also be defined as “the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals” (Robbins, 2001, p. 2); a leader is one who inspires organizational members to want to achieve. While there are numerous definitions of leadership, most have the common element that “it is a group process that involves interaction between at least two persons in pursuit of a goal.

Discussion

Management and Leadership across cultures have been greatly associated with one another since leading itself is one of the core components of effective management that is, planning, organizing, leading and controlling. The reason leading is a key component is because when employees, students, subordinates, coordinators or even family members living in a family setting or grouping required and obliged to follow certain rules and principles set by an authoritative individual or body or organization that runs the entire setup. Thus for effective management, strong and effective leadership skills are necessary and inevitably crucial in order for the entire system of conduct, to survive ...