Culture And Leadership

The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) research program began in 1993 and to date has studied 60 cultures organized into 10 culture clusters. The GLOBE study has served as an incredibly useful resource for examining leadership across cultures and will in the years to come. Below is a brief overview to stimulate thinking about culture and leadership where you work or minister.

The GLOBE researchers discovered six global leadership dimensions of culturally endorsed implicit leadership theories. In other words, these leadership approaches would be implicitly believed to be what makes leaders effective. Two were universally endorsed by all cultures: (a) charismatic/value-based leadership and (b) team-based leadership. Two were endorsed by a majority of cultures: (c) participative leadership and (d) humaneness leadership. Two were endorsed differently by different cultures: (e) self-protective leadership and (f) autonomous leadership. Effective leaders will make use of the appropriate culturally endorsed theories of leadership within a specific culture, while also taking into account further dimensions of culture. 

The GLOBE researchers described nine dimensions of culture: (a) uncertainty avoidance, the alleviation of unpredictability of future events; (b) power distance, the acceptance of unequal distribution of power; (c) social collectivism, the collective distribution of resources and collective action at a larger group level; (d) in-group collectivism, the pride, loyalty, and cohesion within organizations or families; (e) gender egalitarianism, the minimization of gender inequality; (f) assertiveness, the aggressiveness or confrontation in relationships; (g) future orientation, the engaging in behaviors such as delayed gratification, planning, and investing; (h) performance orientation, the encouragement and rewarding for improvement and excellence; and (i) humaneness orientation, the encouragement and rewarding of fairness, altruism, generosity, caring, and kindness.

Certainly, culture consists of far more fascinating complexity than the nine cultural dimensions and the six culturally endorsed implicit leadership theories. However, these explain a lot and help us see more clearly and understand more thoroughly how leadership works in various cultures around the world. They also help us think through how leaders shape and can re-shape culture. So, when we serve cross-culturally, how can we make full use of culturally endorsed implicit approaches to leadership? How can we do this most effectively considering all the various dimensions of the culture in which we are working?


Dorfman, P., Javidan, M., Hanges, P., Dastmalchian, A., & House, R. (2012). GLOBE: A twenty year journey into the intriguing world of culture and leadership. Journal of World Business, 47(4), 504-518.

House, R., Javidan, M., Hanges, P., & Dorfman, P. (2002). Understanding cultures and implicit leadership theories across the globe: An introduction to project GLOBE. Journal of World Business, 37(1), 3-10.