Similarities between North American and Japanese Working Styles
Both North American and Japanese working styles suffer internal conflicts, ineffective communication, and poor decision making structures. Decision makers in Japanese companies created teams of consensus that led to slow decision making while in North American companies workers rushed into projects without enough planning. Managers in both situations provided indirect feedback leading to poor communication (Shah, Iqbal, Razaq, Yameen, Sabir, & Khan 127).
Differences
Japanese companies have different cultural attitudes to racial and gender diversity than North American companies do. Women in Japan are less take charge and outspokenly driven than women in North American companies, because their culture teaches them that this is how they are expected to behave. Workers in Japanese companies tend to work longer hours than in North American companies, as the Japanese worth ethic is much stricter.
Q2
- The Japanese automotive company had well developed diversity policies to prevent cases of race and gender discrimination in the workplace.
- The company also invested in minority owned businesses to improve the economic conditions of the local communities.
- The company reflected the characteristics of other Asian countries in the way it struggled to transplant North American practices into the Japanese context. The company adopted the working practices to improve its performance both locally and internationally (Paulienė 92).
Q3
Samira was not seen as a team player because:
- Samira was an assertive leader meaning that she wanted to take charge of decisions made in her team.
- She overstepped team members. She completed tasks without involving the other team members.
- She also offered her own opinion, but never considered that her opinion may not have been the only opinion amongst her team. She did not consider what her team members opinions may have been (Shah, Iqbal, Razaq, Yameen, Sabir, & Khan 129).
Q4
Samira exhibited both region clusters and universal leadership attributes:
- She used leadership skills acquired from school to improve her management skills.
- She combined her assertiveness qualities with good judgment skills.
- She was honest and depicted high integrity levels making its leadership attributes ideally positive leadership traits (Paulienė 96).
Q5
Recommendations for Samira:
- She should continue using her assertive qualities but also look to her team for advice and information, which would improve her ability to be a team player.
- She has potential of making a company successful (Paulienė 100).
PART 1 (B)
Key Challenges
- Race and gender diversity.
- Bad leadership that lead to:
- Internal conflicts
- Ineffective communication from top management
- Poor decision making structures
- Ineffective team participation
- Poor working conditions, such as longer working hours
Two Course Concepts
- Culture and leadership effectiveness
- Leadership styles
Solutions for the Challenges
- Formulation and implementation of diversity policies to prevent cases of race and gender discrimination
- Improve working conditions, especially on creating more flexible working hours
- Support team goals and encourage collaborative team (Paulienė 104).
Part 2
Key Take Away identified
- There are specific leadership behaviors that are viewed as effective no matter the cultural background in which a leader comes from.
- Becoming a good manager requires addition of quality leadership skills.
- Proactive behavior in workplaces involves acting in advance of future situations. Proactive employees may not always fit in as team players.
- Assertive leaders with quality judgment can create success in a company. It inspires an attitude of confidence and commitment
- Management of cultural diversity is challenging for many organizations, especially in Japanese companies
- Assertive leaders can also cause workplace conflicts when an assertive leader becomes too pushy and does not rely on quality judgment skills (Shah, Iqbal, Razaq, Yameen, Sabir, & Khan 132).
Part 3
The Deterrent between Region Clusters vs. Universally Desirable Leadership Attributes
- Region clusters leadership attributes provide workplace concentration of diverse interactions. They offer an opportunity to understand leadership in a rich macro context leading to creation of a particular interest. Region clusters leadership attributes include performance oriented, autonomous, participative, team oriented, humane, and group protective.
- On the other hand, universally desirable leadership attributes are universal across cultures. These leaders have a desire to get things done without influence from differences in diversity. Universal desirable leadership attributes include trustworthy, honest, confidence builder, motivational, trustworthy, coordinator, and team builder (Paulienė 109).
Disadvantages of Region Cluster Leadership Attributes
- Region clusters are extremely ambiguous, dynamic, complex, and diverse as they are made up of numerous organizations from different societal spheres.
- Regional clusters offer a limited diversity of leadership and culture experiences. In most cases, region clusters lead to tension, dialectics, and paradoxes in management.
Disadvantages of Universally Desirable Leadership Attributes
- In most cases universally desirable attributes promote the atmosphere of energy and enthusiasm. This makes uncertainty of leadership in the future.
- There is too much interdependence leadership that in most cases lowers the performance of an organization (Den Hartog 219).
References
Den Hartog, D. W. (1999). Culture specific and cross-culturally generalizable implicit leadership theories: are attributes of charismatic/transformational leadership universally endorsed?[1]. Leadership Quarterly, 10(2), 219.
Paulienė, R. (2012). Transforming leadership styles and knowledge sharing in a multicultural context. Business, Management & Education / Verslas, Vadyba Ir Studijos, 10(1), 91-109.
Shah, S., Iqbal, J., Razaq, A., Yameen, M., Sabir, S., & Khan, M. (2011). Influential Role of Culture on Leadership Effectiveness and Organizational Performance. Information Management & Business Review, 3(2), 127-132.
