Leadership

HASAN AL-KHALIFA

JUNE 25, 2009

 According to Harrison and Lock “Leadership is a critical to the successful completion of

a project, and indeed to the effective introduction or improvement of project management”1

Leadership can be viewed in different approach. Some of the leadership style has been greatly

criticized during the past. Some scholars say in their studies that organizations with various

autocratic leaders have higher turnover and absenteeism than other organizations. Huber defines

leadership “as the process of influencing people to accomplish goals”2. He continues to explain

that key concepts related to leadership are influence, communications, group process, goal

attainment, and motivation. Leadership can be viewed from different theories perspective.

To begin with we can look at great man theory which is based on the belief that leaders

are outstanding people, born with native traits, ordained to lead. Lowney say “one great man”

theory of leadership may not be egalitarian, but they reflect the reality of leadership in the real

world. 3 The term 'man' was used intentionally because until the latter part of the twentieth

century leadership was consideration of as a concept which is mainly male, military and

Western.

In the culture of US air force we can view leadership from its geography and resources,

history and experience, and society and political structure. This give an approach that a given

state has establish successful in the past. Even though not immutable, it leans to grow slowly. It

is not by chance, for example, that Britain has historically favored sea power and indirect

strategies, or that it has traditionally avoided the maintenance of a large army. Michael Evans

explains that Israel’s lack of geographic strength, its small but educated population, and

technological skill have formed a strategic culture that emphasizes strategic preemption,

offensive operations, initiative, and – increasingly – advanced technology.5 Australia’s minimal

geopolitical condition, its continental relatively than maritime identity, and its formative military

experiences have shaped its way of war.6

There have been studies conducted to examine the deliberate culture of the United States.

For observable reasons, the strategic culture of the United States has achieved considerable

attention. Being the world’s most powerful nation, the US will be for the foreseeable future. The

manner in which the United States works affects not only its citizens, but also those across the

world. Appreciating the strategic culture of the United States is significant for friends, enemies,

and those who don’t take sides.

Consequently is an examination of American strategic culture on the point of the nation,

the military, and the armed services. As a nation, American allowed its strategic culture to

natured by free security and imbued with exception. American strategic culture stresses on

moderate idealism and views war as a discontinuation of policy. American military culture, the

so-called “American way of war”, emphasizes direct approaches, an industrial approach to war,

and firepower- and technology exhaustive approaches to combat. The U.S. armed services, in

turn, contrast in their structure, main groups, and attitudes to technology.

According to Builder American military strategic culture has well described

features, each service also have unique culture, one determined by its past and which, also

determines its current and future behavior.6 Service cultures are difficult to change due to the fact

that they are the product of the acculturation of millions of service members over decades and

are sustained by a network of social and professional reasons. Many join the Army, Navy, Air

Force, and Marine Corps, not “the military” in the abstract. The zeal of identifying of being

associated service value and its culture is the reason why many join. Therefore it is not surprising
that an officer’s service affiliation remains the most important determinant of his views, more

than rank, age, or combat experience.7

Remarkably we can say that of all U.S. armed forces, the Marine Corps have the

strongest dedication to tradition and the status quo, one armored by the cognizant, self-conscious

study of the past. Marine Corps’ stress on tradition and compliance is manifested in the Marine

uniform. Not astonishingly, it has altered the least since World War II of any service’s uniform.

It also conforms to the service’s ethic of traditionalism; with the exemption of aviators, who

wear gold flight wings on their chest, it is impossible to determine a Marine’s specialty from his

uniform.

In part, this is the product of a culture that makes individual warrior to be at the center of

warfare. It is also the outcome of the fact that as the smallest service, the Marine Corps has had

the least money to budget to technology. But recently, the Marines let the Army and Navy extend

the majority of their equipment, adopting and adapting it as essential.

In contrast to the Marine Corps’ monarchical formation, power in the Army is divided

among the traditional combat arms: infantry, cavalry/armor, and artillery. Sure enough, the

position of Army Chief of Staff rotates among these combat arms. The current Army Chief of

Staff, is the first Special Forces branch officer to head the Army, his most latest ten predecessors

included four from the infantry, three from armor, and three from the artillery.8

To establish the correct leadership style to employ in a given situation, the leader must

first find out the maturity level of the followers in relation to the specific task that the leader is

attempting to accomplish through the effort of the followers. When maturity level of follower

increases, the leader should begin to lessen his or her duty behavior and boost relationship

behavior until the followers attain a reasonable level of maturity.

 The transformational leaders are practical in many diverse and distinctive ways. These

leaders try to optimize growth, not just performance. Growth includes the maturation of ability,

enthusiasm, approaches, and values. Such leaders want to move up the maturity level of the

needs of their associates. They persuade their associates to endeavor for a higher level of

accomplishment as well as higher levels of moral and ethical standards. Through expansion of

their associates, they optimize the growth of their organization as well. High performing

associates are believed to make high performing organizations.

The significance of social relations in the leadership contract, the needs for a leader to be

established by their followers and a realization that no one individual is the perfect leader in all

circumstances have resulted to a new school of leadership thought. An approach which we refer

to as ‘informal’, ‘emergent’ or ‘dispersed’ leadership, argues a less formalized form of

leadership where the leaders’ role is distanced from the organizational ladder. It is projected that

individuals at all levels in the organization and in all roles can exert leadership influence over

their colleagues and thus manipulate the overall leadership of the organization.

Development Centers founded on this Lufthansa leadership compass framework are used

to help “high potential” employees describe their current position and decide the next steps for

their proficient career. This engrosses a self-assessment exercise, development centre whereby

the partakers builds up an individual development plan with the support and training of their

superior. It is intended that this procedure should happen in a year before moving into next grade

post.

After evaluating the concepts and the empirical studies of participative leadership

theories in three cultures, with the United States, Japan, and Taiwan, there are several theoretical

and practical implications which come out. One of these is participative leadership which is a
culturally-bounded phenomenon. Effectiveness of this theory participative leadership varies from

culture to culture. According to Ofstede’s study, employees’ favored decision-making styles are

dogged by their cultural value of power distance.

Though, the relationships among participative leadership and other four cultural

proportions have not been empirically weathered. Future studies may examine what cultural

values influence employees’ preferred leadership styles. Second, most leadership theories

urbanized in these three cultures all point on leaders’ discernments about effectual leaderships.

However, Hofstede says “leadership can only exist as a complement to subordinateship” 82. New

theories should be established depending on both the leaders’ perceptions and subordinates’

prospect. Finally, leadership theories in Taiwan are outdated and cannot imitate current

Taiwanese leadership prototypes due to the recent cultural and societal adjustments. In addition,

most Taiwanese leadership studies employed theories that were recognized in other cultures to

measure and look at Taiwanese leadership.

To achieve more knowledge concerning the Taiwanese leadership style, new Taiwanese

leadership theories should be developed and examined by researchers. Fourth, most researchers

who study leadership efficiency use participative decision making as the independent variable to

investigate employees’ satisfaction and employee performance. However, the factors that affect

participative leadership are not well explored. To attain more experimental evidence, future

studies should quantitatively explore this issue. Lastly, after evaluating participative leadership

theories in three cultures, the author disputes that participative leadership theories evaluated all

have their own merits.

American theory gives the idea that participative leadership is exaggerated by situational

factors, which provides a eventuality perspective to study participative leadership. Japanese

leadership theory generates a communicative framework to talk about participative decision

making. Taiwanese leadership theory stresses that participative leadership is affected by cultural

values. For instance, large power distance can reduce participative decision making in Company.

New theories may merge the advantages of leadership theories from various cultures.

To join the merits of participative leadership theories in these three cultures, participative

leadership theorists may involve the possibility perspective, communicative perspective, and

cultural perspective in their theoretical sculpts. The author would like to advise a theoretical

model which incorporates these several perspectives. As discussed earlier in this paper, the

relationship between participative leadership and job pleasure is a popular research topic..

In conclusion we can argue that continuing features of American strategic , military, and

the organizational culture of the U.S. armed services has thus prejudiced how the United States

plans of dealing with nuclear weapons. Consequently American strategic culture has been

dominated by stability rather than being affected to change. After the initiation of the nuclear

age, one outstanding fact is the limited enduring force of nuclear weapons on the way the U.S.

military considers of war. The conformist wisdom is that the American public is very receptive

to losses. Many further argue that the enthusiasm of the American public to maintain casualties

has declined drastically since the end of the Cold War.9

 End notes
1
Harrison, F.L. and Lock Denis. Advenced project management a structured approach. Gower

publishing ltd. 2004.

2
Huber, Diane. Leadership and Nursing Management. Elsevier Health Science. 2006.
3
Lowney, Chris. Heroic leadership: best practices from a 450-year-old company that changed

the world. Loyola Press, 2003.

4
Michael I. Handel, “The Evolution of Israeli Strategy: The Psychology of Insecurity and the

Quest for Absolute Security” in Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin

Bernstein, eds., The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1994).

5
Michael Evans, The Tyranny of Dissonance: Australia’s Strategic Culture and Way of War,

1901-2005 (Canberra: Land Warfare Studies Center, 2005).

6
Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 7.

7
Thomas G. Mahnken and James R. FitzSimonds, The Limits of Transformation: Officer

Attitudes toward the Revolution in Military Affairs, Newport Paper 17 (Newport, RI:

Naval War College Press, 2003), 108.

8
Generals Fred C. Weyand, Bernard W. Rogers, Edward C. Meyer, and John A. Wickham, Jr

were infantrymen; Creighton W. Abrams, Gordon R. Sullivan, and Eric K. Shinseki were

tankers; and William C. Westmoreland, Carl E. Vuono, and Dennis J. Reimer were

artillerymen
9
Kevin M. Woods, Michael R. Pease, Mark E. Stout, Williamson Murray, and James G. Lacey,

Iraqi Perspectives Project: A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam’s Senior

Leadership (Norfok, VA: U.S. Joint Forces Command, 2006),

 Bibliography

Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 7.

Generals Fred C. Weyand, Bernard W. Rogers, Edward C. Meyer, and John A. Wickham, Jr

were infantrymen; Creighton W. Abrams, Gordon R. Sullivan, and Eric K. Shinseki were

tankers; and William C. Westmoreland, Carl E. Vuono, and Dennis J. Reimer were

artillerymen

Harrison, F.L. and Lock Denis. Advenced project management a structured approach. Gower

publishing ltd. 2004.

Huber, Diane. Leadership and Nursing Management. Elsevier Health Science. 2006.

Kevin M. Woods, Michael R. Pease, Mark E. Stout, Williamson Murray, and James G. Lacey,

Iraqi Perspectives Project: A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam’s Senior

Leadership (Norfok, VA: U.S. Joint Forces Command, 2006),

Lowney, Chris. Heroic leadership: best practices from a 450-year-old company that changed

the world. Loyola Press, 2003.

Michael I. Handel, “The Evolution of Israeli Strategy: The Psychology of Insecurity and the

Quest for Absolute Security” in Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin

Bernstein, eds., The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1994).

Michael Evans, The Tyranny of Dissonance: Australia’s Strategic Culture and Way of War,

1901-2005 (Canberra: Land Warfare Studies Center, 2005).

Thomas G. Mahnken and James R. FitzSimonds, The Limits of Transformation: Officer

Attitudes toward the Revolution in Military Affairs, Newport Paper 17 (Newport, RI:

Naval War College Press, 2003), 108.