Impact of Culture and Emotional Intelligence on Leadership

Abstract

Globalization has been on the rise and increasing rapidly all over the world after World War II. It refers to increased interdependence between different nations and countries in terms of economic, social, technical and political situation and circumstances. It has become much easier for people of different countries and cultures to communicate and interconnect due to improved modes of communication and technological advancement in the form of internet. Globalization has resulted in increased and improved international trade, exchange of cultural values and beliefs, usage of telecommunication system spread out in different countries and geographical regions. In the past several years important institutions like schools, multinational companies and communities have become global in nature. This increased amount of exposure to different cultures and nations has posed serious challenges for organizations operating in a global environment and calls for effective and efficient organizational design, with the identification and selection of appropriate and effective leaders who are able to guide the organization in right direction with effective management of employees belonging to diverse cultural backgrounds (House et.al, 2004). Additionally these global organizations operate in an environment with cross cultural differences and variations. External market conditions are constantly changing and highly complicated creating problems for organizations and leaders. Authors suggest that the trend towards world developing into single global villages is clear in the upcoming future and the 21st century would be known as the century of global world. This increased interdependency calls for developing a better understanding of influences and impact of culture which will be extremely helpful in selection of leadership and management styles in organizations. (McFarland, et.al, 1993). In addition to culture, emotional intelligence which refers to understanding the moods of others and self is of equal importance and plays an important role in determination and selection of the best leadership style in a given situation. The aim of this paper is to analyze and discuss the impact of both cultural diversity and emotional intelligence on the leadership of organization and how they can be employed in selection of the best leadership style with the help of literature review and analysis.

Impact of Culture and Emotional Intelligence on Leadership

Introduction

Authors suggest that lot of research has been done in the area of leadership for the purpose of answering questions such as what is expected from leaders, what they may or may not do. It has been suggested that the status and influence that has been given in the hands of leaders vary according to the geographical locations and cultural differences in them (House et.al, 1997). Therefore global leaders must be able to develop five different cross cultural competencies that are the ability to understand the political, business and cultural environment, ability to understand the tastes and perspectives, technologies in cultures, ability to communicate effectively, ability to adapt to different cultural working styles, ability to develop relationship with people from different cultural backgrounds on the basis of equality and not superiority.

On the other hand emotional intelligence has ...