Abstract
The Irish leadership perspective has a crucial role in its national life due to the impact Irish political leaders have in the economic life of the country. Understanding this national leadership characteristics significantly contributes to the national awareness of its strengths and weaknesses. Based on Hofstede’s leadership categorization model, the commonly held leadership characteristics can be described as small power distance, weakly uncertainty avoidant, collectivist, masculine, and long-term oriented. American leaders who want to engage Irish leaders and population will have to make adjustments in at least three dimensions of differences, namely, individualism vs. collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity vs. femininity. Effective adjustments to these culturally condition leadership characteristics can be seen in the successful leader chosen to analyze for this paper. A review of the leadership approach of Prime Minister Enda Kenny showed a leadership falling within the ideals of the Irish people for their leaders. His leadership characteristic makes him a highly successful Irish political leader.
Part one: Introduction and overview
[Geography] The island of Ireland is home to two governments: the Republic of Ireland (Ireland) and Northern Ireland (NI) (Hourihane & Keane, 2004). Ireland occupied five-sixths of the island, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and west of Great Britain (Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], 2016). It has a total geographical area of 70,273 sq. m. with 68,883 sq. m. in landmass. Its interior plain is mostly flat to rolling and surrounded by rugged hills, low mountains, and sea cliffs. It is 68 percent agricultural land.
[Education] In its knowledge-based economy, education and training played a vital role with around a million in full time education (DFAT, 2013). More than a third of the working age population has a third-level qualification, which is higher than the OECD average. Education is compulsory from age 6 to 16 or up to three years of secondary level education. Almost half of the Irish youth had third level education with around half of them finished degrees.
[Demography] In the latest 2011 census, Ireland had over 4.5 million in total population (DFAT, 2013). Over 40 percent of its population lives within 100 km from Dublin (CIA, 2016). It has the highest fertility rate in the European Union at 2.05 children per woman (DFAT, 2013). Its largest immigrant communities came from Poland, the UK, Lithuania, Latvia, and Nigeria.
[History] Only in the last 7,000 years that Ireland has been inhabited. Its long experiences of incursions and invasions created a rich mixture of ancestry and traditions (DFAT, 2013). Celtic invaders in the sixth century B.C. unified the island culturally and linguistically, while St. Patrick introduced Christianity in the fifth century. The Vikings’ arrival in the ninth and tenth centuries has developed trade in Dublin, Waterford, and Cork. However, it was the Normans who, in the twelfth century, settled in England and Wales and quickly controlled large parts of Ireland under the King of England. After armed struggles since 1916, the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 created the Irish Free State in 1922 under the Fine Gael party (without Northern Ireland). It joined the United Nations in 1955 and the European Union in 1973.
[Politics] The Irish Free State consists of 26 counties (DFAT, 2013). Its government is parliamentary and democratic with the President as the head of state and elected by direct vote. The government, which is headed by the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), comprised 15 government departments (ministries). It has two Houses of Parliament: the Seanad Eireann (Senate), which is tasked at initiating or revising legislation (except finance bills); and the Dail Eireann, which has the power to reject any such legislations. Its multiparty system has given rise to four political parties, such as Fine Gael, the Labor Party, Fianna, and Sinn Fein.
[Economics] From 1993 to 2007, Ireland experienced a period of robust growth due to its extensive global trade and investment linkages (DFAT, 2013). The global economic crisis in 2008 ended its long property boom and accentuated problems in its banking system. A period of recession, which resulted into a sharp economic contraction, followed thereafter. Its economy revitalized in 2011 with a GDP growth of 1.4 percent. Its recovery was attributed to its educated and flexible workforce, government interventions, and its membership in the European Union. Very strong growth has been observed in the indigenous agri-food sector with an export value rising 25 percent in the last two years.
[Recent developments] Ireland has economically rebound in 2015 and remarkably strong at that due to its successful macroeconomic adjustment, supported by favorable global milieu (Cas, et al., 2016). In terms of real gross domestic product (GDP), it was the fastest growing economy in the Eurozone in 2014. Core investment, excluding intangibles and aircraft, grew strong at around 11.7 percent, while exports shifted up, and pushed primarily by info-tech and pharmaceutical and goods. Unemployment also declined to 8.9 percent from 10.4 percent 2014.
Part two: Leadership and culture
2.1 Cultural overview
Ireland has a rich cultural texture both in literature, language, and music. Its traditional lore preserved by its early poets in a colorful heritage of mythical and historical stories alike (DFAT, 2013). Its English only language since 1891 has been slowly replaced with the Irish language as Ireland’s first official language (41% of adult Irish speak it in 2014), delegating English into a second stature. Since early historical Ireland, harp remains the dominant instrument. Its traditional music has been gaining favor abroad, too.
As a people, the Irish continued to be a patriarchal society with preference for democratic structural frameworks and a history of decentralized political ideology and political risk-taking (Fullan, 2006; DFAT, 2013). Nevertheless, its leadership culture continues to be dominated with individualistic leadership style with components of collaboration and community engagement.
2.2 Hofstede model of leadership
2.2.1 Dimension 1, Power (Large v. Small) Distance: This dimension pertains to the extent of acceptance and expectation that less powerful members of an organization have on the unequal distribution of power (Hofstede, 2011). Its focus resides on the perspective the members below instead of the leaders above. Large distance leadership has centralized authority and autocratic leadership, while short distance leadership has decentralized authority and democratic leadership. Irish perspective of quality leadership is essentially small power distance with focus on shared vision and group goals (Fullan, 2006).
2.2.2 Dimension 2, (Weak v. Strong) Uncertainty Avoidance: This dimension refers to the stress level in an organization facing an unknown future (Hofstede, 2011). It is about the level of tolerance for ambiguity, particularly in unstructured situations. Strongly uncertainty avoiding leadership prefers to minimize ambiguity by strict behavioral codes and absolutism, while weakly uncertainty avoiding leadership is highly risk-taking, tolerant, and flexible, with a relatively low degree of structure. Fullan (2006) believes that Irish leadership is more weakly uncertainty avoidant than otherwise, reacting negatively to increased systemic constraints.
2.2.3 Dimension 3, Individualism (vs. Collectivism): This dimension relates to the integration of individuals in primary groups (Hofstede, 2011). Individualist leadership tends to be loose while collectivist leadership tends to be strongly cohesive. Irish leadership ideals from below are essentially collectivist with preferences for collaboration and group engagement with strong disapproval to individually created systems imposed on others and limited possibilities (Fullan, 2006). However, its current practice in institutional leadership is still individualistic.
2.2.4 Dimension 4, Masculinity (vs. Femininity): This dimension pertains to the division of emotional roles between women and men. The masculine leadership is highly assertive and competitive while feminine leadership is modest and caring (Hofstede, 2011). The Irish culture is essentially a masculine culture (Ryan, 2010), which favors masculine leadership ideals even among women leaders.
2.2.5 Dimension 5, Long Term (vs. Short Term) Orientation: This dimension refers to the focal choice for leadership efforts in relation to the future (or the present) and the past. Long term leadership tend to be persevering, thrifty, ordering by status, and a sense of shame, while short term leadership are socially reciprocating, respectful of tradition, protective of honor, and personally steady and stable (Hofstede, 2011). Fullan (2006) observed long-term leadership as an Irish ideal of leadership, describing it as building ‘enduring greatness’.
Part three: Cross-cultural implications
3.1 American individualism
One important difference between Irish leadership ideals and American leadership style pertains to the individualistic leadership default in American leaders. Although this leadership characteristic is common in the Irish institutional landscape, followers view this approach with negatively as highly limiting. A visiting American leader should be flexible and respectful of this expectation and strive to engage Irish workers to become more effective his leadership role.
3.2 American strong uncertainty avoidance culture
The American culture is highly control-oriented with its propensity to create metrics to govern its performance standards. This characteristic will encounter resistance from the Irish leadership perspective, which is risk-taking and unstructured. However, not all American leaders are risk aversive. Organizations, like Google, Riot Games, and other tech-based companies, are known for their highly innovative and loose structures. A risk-averse American leader must learn to be more trusting on the capability of Irish people to deliver as expected in their own terms.
3.3 Strongly feminist American culture
Although the American culture continue to be masculine, waves of feminist revolutions have modified its historically masculine culture. Today, strong feminism has already taken hold in the American culture as the organizational norms tend to be more receptive of feminine contexts. Irish cultural environment, however, is still highly masculine with feminism still at its infancy. Thus, although overall the American and Irish leadership perspectives may not diverge very far, the participation of American leadership within the Irish organizational context may prove difficult, especially to female leaders. A female American leader must be willing to respect a strongly masculine tone in organizational interactions, learning to assert only when necessary.
Part four: Profile of an Irish leader
4.1 Brief introduction
At age 24, Enda Kenny was the youngest member of the Dail Eireann (lower legislative house) in 1975 (Ray, 2016). However, when the John Burton coalition collapsed in 1997, Kenny rose in stature within his Fine Gael party and elected as party leader in 2002. His leadership brought 51 seats in the Parliament during the 2007 election. When the 2008 global financial crisis hit Ireland, enormously increasing its national deficit and had to seek more than $100 billion in debt from the IMF, the Brian Cowen government collapsed, necessitating early elections in 2011. In that election, Fine Gael won at least 70 seats and Kenny became the new prime minister through a coalition with the Labour Party and the Green Party.
In February 2016, the European People’s Party (EPP, 2016) announced the achievements of Kenny’s first term in Irish government, such as the reversal of Ireland’s declining economy into the fastest growing economy in Europe with national deficit progressively reduced. The party pinpointed Kenny’s government leadership as forward-looking, strong, committed, and responsible. These are some of the characteristics, which made his leadership successful.
4.2 Comparative analysis
The leadership style of Prime Minister Enda Kenny, based on Hofstede’s cultural model, is essentially characterized by small power distance with adaptive flexibility for centralized management structure due to his weak uncertainty intolerance temperament. He is naturally collectivist and expectedly masculine in orientation. His long term (i.e. forward-looking) management perspective has been responsible for the ongoing resurgence in the Irish economy from its downturn as an adverse impact from the 2008 global financial crisis and then prime minister’s inability to effectively respond to mitigate economic recession.
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