Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness

GLOBE’s major premise: Leader effectiveness is contextual, embedded in the societal and organizational norms, values, and beliefs of the people being led. (When in Rome, do as the Romans do)

Established 9 cultural dimensions that make it possible to capture the similarities and/or differences in norms, values and practices among societies:

1. Power Distance: The degree to which members of a collective expect power to be distributed equally.
2. Uncertainty Avoidance: The extent to which a society, organization, or group relies on social norms, rules, and procedures to alleviate unpredictability of future events.
3. Humane Orientation: The degree to which a collective encourages and rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others.
4. Collectivism I: (Institutional) The degree to which organizational and societal institutional practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action.
5. Collectivism II: (In-Group) The degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or families.
6. Assertiveness: The degree to which individuals are assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in their relationships with others.
7. Gender Egalitarianism: The degree to which a collective minimizes gender inequality
8. Future Orientation: The extent to which individuals engage in future-oriented behaviors such as delaying gratification, planning, and investing in the future.
9. Performance Orientation: The degree to which a collective encourages and rewards group members for performance improvement and excellence.

-By defining the cultural dimensions, GLOBE could then place countries into clusters, organized by cultural similarities. The clusters diagram displays cultural similarities and differences through the proximal distances from each other.

II. Analyzed the responses of ~17,300 middle managers from 61 countries to 112 leader characteristics based on the definition “an outstanding leader is a person in an organization or industry who is ‘exceptionally skilled at motivating, influencing, or enabling you, others, or groups to contribute to the success of the organization or task’”. This analysis generated 21 leadership scales ranked from the “most universally desirable” to the “least universally desirable” on a 7-point scale.

1. Integrity (6.07)
2. Inspirational (6.07)
3. Visionary (6.02)
4. Performance Oriented (6.02)
5. Team integrator (5.88)
6. Decisive (5.80)
7. Administratively competent (5.76
8. Diplomatic (5.49)
9. Collaborative team orientation (5.46)
10. Self-sacrificial (5.0)
11. Modesty (4.98)
12. Humane (4.78)
13. Status conscious (4.34)
14. Conflict inducer (3.97)
15. Procedural (3.87)
16. Autonomous (3.85)
17. Face saver (2.92)
18. Non-participative (2.66)
19. Autocratic (2.65)
20. Self-centered (2.17)
21. Malevolent (1.8)


III. The 21 leadership scales were statistically and conceptually reduced to 6 leader styles.

1. Performance-oriented style- “charismatic/value-based”; Stresses high standards, decisiveness, and innovation; seeks to inspire people around a vision; creates a passion among them to perform; and does so by firmly holding onto core values.
2. Team-oriented style- Instils pride, loyalty, and collaboration amount organizational members; and highly values team cohesiveness and a common purpose or goals.
3. Participative style- Encourages input from others in decision-making and implementation; and emphasizes delegation and equality.
4. Humane style- Stresses compassion and generosity; and is patient, supportive, and concerned with the well-being of others.
5. Autonomous style- Characterized by an independent, individualistic, and self-centric approach to leadership.
6. Self-protective (and group protective)- Emphasizes procedural, status-conscious, and ‘face-saving’ behaviors; and focuses on the safety and security of the individual and the group.