Transformational Leadership

Performance Orientation

Performance orientation measures the extent of rewards based on performance and excellence. It implies the extent of the people being rewarded for challenging goals and achieving them.

Humane Orientation

Human orientation reflects a culture rewarding people for fairness, generosity and kindness. It emphasizes behavior relating to social support and community values. The GLOBE researchers divided the data from the 62 countries they studied into different regional clusters. They divided the world cultures into ten different types: Anglo, Germanic Europe, Latin Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Confucian Asia, Southern Asia, Latin America and Nordic Europe. The leaders in different regions have a responsibility to deal with the problems ingrained in their own particular culture. For example, in Southern Asia, which is dominated by humane orientation and in-group collectivism, the leaders must be careful to avoid the influence of family in fulfilling the tasks of public administration. Similarly, countries characterized by Anglo culture with high scores in performance orientation and low in in-group collectivism, the leaders can work to develop empathy and concerns for the groups.

Globalization has provided the opportunities and, simultaneously, challenges for leadership regarding an understanding of different cultural characteristics. Through the sharing of knowledge, we are more prepared to understand the cultural characteristics compared to earlier times when the societies were remote. However, in earlier times, leaders did not have to deal with remote societies. As a result of globalization, leaders have to deal with people from different countries with diverse cultural backgrounds. A knowledge of different cultures is crucial at the present time. In an attempt to describe how different cultures view leadership behaviors in others, House et al. (2004) have identified six global leadership behaviors:

Charismatic/Value-Based Leadership

Charismatic/value-based leadership measures how leaders use charisma and the personality to encourage improved performance from the subordinates. The leaders use the values and symbols to inspire higher performance.

Team-Oriented Leadership

Team-oriented leadership inspires team building for a common purpose. This type of leadership is collaborative, integrative, and inspiring to bring together team work.

Participative Leadership

Participative leadership emphasizes participation in the decision-making process. It values empowerment and involvement of others in key decision making.

Human-Oriented Leadership

Human-oriented leaders are friendly and supportive and have empathy toward the subordinates. They display caring for the subordinates.

Autonomous Leadership Autonomous leadership tends to be independent and individualistic. Autonomous leadership values freedom and independence for the followers.

Self-Protective Leadership

Self-protective leadership tries to protect the safety and security of the leaders and the groups. Self-protective leaders are more focused on their interests.

In addition to developing a sensitivity to different culture, global leadership requires the capacity to transform the society by broad-based changes. Global leadership faces complex problems in relation to, among others, terrorism, climate change, and income inequality, just to name a few. There is a greater need for transformational leadership.

TransformaTionaL Leadership In the present-day world, one which is characterized by complex problems, leadership must be capable of transforming society. Bennis (1984) mentioned the four major threats faced by the world today: (a) a nuclear