Premises for successful leadership:How Culture influences leaders

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Cultural Studies - Basics and Definitions, grade: 1,7, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), course: Leadership. An intercultural approach, language: English, abstract: Looking at the term "leadership" it can be observed that numerous definitions are existing. According to Koontz and Weihrich it "is defined as the process of influencing people so that they will contribute to organization and group goals (1988, p.392)." This way of definition is even more extended by Yukl. He defines leadership as "[...] the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how it can be done effectively, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish the shared objectives (2002, p.7)." As the universal principle of management and corporate executives, leadership is therefore also of high importance for orchestra conductors, football coaches, army generals and school superintendents (Bennis, 1995). In this sense through the mutual process of interaction be-tween a superior and inferiors leadership is always used for the coordination of activities and memebers within an organization in which labour is divided (Boerner, 2002). Generally there are two different ways of leadership. According to the way of conducting a group or organisation it can be differentiated between autocratic and democratic leadership. While an autocratic leader is making decisions on his own, democratic leaders prefer their team members being involved in the decision making process (Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) Enzyk-lopنdie Professional 2003). Thus, the aim of this paper is to explain which premises for successful leadership have to be met and which different ways of leadership are existing. In the end, it shall become clear how culture is influencing leadership. Through the comparison of leadership styles in Western and Eastern Europe those assumptions shall be proofed.