MBA401 People, Culture and Contemporary Leadership Report 1 Sample

MBA401 People, Culture and Contemporary Leadership. Ass 1

Management – Report

The Assessment Task

Students will complete a written analysis that will compare, contrast and analyse leadership in Australia to that from a selected country or region identified on the list provided.

Assessment Description

The global environment presents many challenges for contemporary leaders. This subject has focused on leadership styles, traits, characteristics and human resource management practices in the Australian context. A culture’s leadership practices reflect traditional beliefs and philosophies, which incorporate cultural settings, traditional wisdom and, in some cases, indigenous theories and knowledge about leadership. Therefore, becoming a global leader requires an appreciation of leadership behaviours across various culturally bound contexts.

Students will research leadership from a cultural context by completing an analysis that compares leadership in Australia with ONE country or region drawn from a list provided. You will discuss at least one (1) similarity and one (1) difference. Students MUST only select from the identified countries or regions on the list.

Students will apply theoretical concepts covered in the subject, supported by real-world examples, to assist them in their written analysis. Include the following elements:

1. Discuss why awareness of global and cross-cultural leadership in the current environment is essential.

2. Analyse leadership in the Australian context and how leaders need to develop talent (human resources) within the organisation.

3. Research and compare the key points you have made in the Australian context in contrast to leadership in your selected country or region.

Please refer to the assessment marking guide to assist in completing the assessment criteria

The written analysis will be assessed against the following criteria:

• Evidence of good academic practice with research, appropriate sourcing and referencing (see here for further details);

• Proof of development of a body of knowledge in the field of contemporary leadership and people;

• The level of analysis that the student performs;

• The Clarity of the student’s argument;

• The appropriate use of theory and relevant literature.

Solution

Introduction 

In the contemporary global environment, leaders face increasing challenges and complexities while dealing with individuals coming from various cultural backgrounds. Contemporary leaders are now required to possess effective traits, behaviours and characteristics for developing effective human resource (HR) practices to meet individual and unique needs of diverse employees (Vecchiotti 2018, p.42). As per the MBA Assignment Expert, These global leaders need to have adequate cultural knowledge and awareness for addressing those needs and demands for ensuring improved performance and productivity of diverse workforce. Here, the report aims to compare, contrast and analyse leadership in Australia by comparing it with selected country India.

Global and Cross-Cultural Leadership Awareness 

Global leadership has become essential for adapting to change and managing complex interpersonal relationships existing in multicultural environments with different beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviours (Tuleja 2014, p.5). These global leaders need to possess cultural intelligence for dealing with culturally diverse people. Such cultural intelligence helps the global leaders in understanding cultural norms of another culture, listening, observing and altering behaviours, being more open and flexible towards changing interaction strategies and dealing with different expectations (Tuleja 2014, p.5). Thus, global leaders can also enhance their intercultural competence through mindfulness by reflecting on their own knowledge. Furthermore, the importance of global leadership has become widely recognised with liberalisation of trade barriers, dissolving country borders, rapid globalisation and technological changes. Global leaders are required for reducing workforce gaps, managing global business teams and functioning effectively in complex environments (Cumberland, et al 2016, p. 302). These are often high-level professionals who engage in global leadership activities across the globe. Some of the global leadership traits essential for dealing with multiple cultural, social or political environments are adaptability, extroversion, cultural sensitivity, emotional intelligence, agreeableness, open mindedness, conscientiousness, self-awareness, optimism, resilience, ambiguity tolerance, values and integrity. These traits prepare leaders to function in complex business environments having diverse stakeholders (Cumberland, et al 2016, p. 312).

Cross-cultural leadership has also gained prominence in the global business environment for dealing with culturally diverse workforce. This leadership effectiveness enhances with cultural intelligence of the expatriate leaders as they display positive cognitive, behavioural and motivational aspects (Ersoy 2014, p.6105). In this regard, adequate cultural awareness of cross-cultural leaders also becomes important for becoming more aware and tolerant towards differences in cultural beliefs, perceptions and values. Furthermore, cross-cultural leaders can better understand and lead diverse group pf people having different values, ethics, customers, principles and traditions that have been shaped by their cultural or societal backgrounds (Bonsu & Twum-Danso 2018, p.40). They can embrace these differences in both employees and customers for producing efficient results. Some of the common characteristics observed in cross-cultural leaders are high cultural sensitivity, knowledge about other cultures and being open-minded (Bonsu & Twum-Danso 2018, p.42). They can lead culturally diverse people through proper communication, integrity and decision-making abilities. Increased awareness about global and cross-cultural leadership is essential for making managers and leaders capable of adapting different organisational culture and tradition of another country (Islam, et al 2019, p.662). Thus, these two leadership strategies are extremely essential in cross-cultural environments.

Leadership in Australia and Developing Talented Human Resources 

Example of Matt Comyn, the Managing Director and CEO of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) can be considered for analysing leadership in an Australian context. CBA profit also rose from 40% to around 50% coming from Comyn’s division (Yeates 2018). He extensively focused on two goals for improving the bank’s performance, which were leadership on technology and high-quality customer service. Comyn’s effective leadership strategy has contributed significantly towards the success of CBA in all these years. He displayed transformational leadership style for motivating subordinates and employees in the organisation in the initial years. His friendly personality and high emotional intelligence enabled him to become a popular manager (Patrick 2018). Comyn also showed natural caution towards undertaking any risky projects that could have caused negative consequences for CBA. Instead of engaging in turf fights, he focused on collaboration for reducing the bureaucracy within the bank’s culture. Such transformational leadership still helps him to motivate people and consequently, employees like him and prefer working for him.  This effective leadership resulted in increased profits by 69% and doubling the share price of CBA (Patrick 2018). Alongside being a competent commercial banker, Comyn has also displayed strategic abilities for working towards organisational values. He has also fostered inclusion and diversity at the workplace for letting people be themselves, feel valued and respected in the organisation (Patrick 2018). This helps in creating a sense of belongingness for these employees, thus, enhancing their productivity and performance at CBA. 

From the above context of CBA, it is evident that transformational leadership was considered. Transformational leaders can motivate followers and provide them with adequate confidence that helps them to exceed their performance levels (Saira, et al 2021, p.131). These leaders can make employees aware about their true potential, fostering supportive environments, instilling confidence, inculcating satisfaction and offering psychological empowerment. Thus, employees can perform beyond expectations stated in the job roles or descriptions. Transformational leadership helps in influencing subordinates through a common mission and shared vision (Long, et al 2014, p.118). This also provides inspirational motivation to the employees through compelling vision that employees aim to achieve. Transformational leaders focus on intellectual stimulation of the followers by encouraging their creative and innovative ideas, making mistakes and learning from mistakes. This contributes towards overall growth and development of these subordinates (Long, et al 2014, p.118). Leaders motivate employees to look and reflect on setbacks from various perspectives, which enables them to realise and rectify mistakes and improve themselves. In addition, they also engage in teaching and coaching employees catering to their individual career needs, which further helps in development of the human resources of the organisation (Long, et al 2014, p.119).

Comparison between Australia and India 

Here, a cultural comparison has been provided between Australia and India to understand how they impact leadership practices in each country context. For this purpose, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions have been used to identify similarities and differences of leadership in these two cultures (Venaik & Brewer 2013, p.470).

Fig: Cultural Comparison of Australia and India
(Source: Hofstede Insights 2023)

From the above figure, it is evident that both Australian and Indian cultures as masculine in nature. This shows that leadership in these societies are based on success and achievement orientation, which are further validated through material gains (Hofstede Insights 2023). Leaders in both the cultures motivate and encourage subordinates for achieving success and gaining desired organisational objectives, which can lead to positive outcomes. Hiring and promotional decisions are used as material rewards provided at the workplace for successful outcomes (Hofstede Insights 2023). Thus, work is an important part of the leadership strategy in both cultures and visible symbols of success at the workplace are preferable. 

The figure represents that there is low power distance in Australian culture while high power distance in Indian society. In Australian context, leaders and superiors are accessible and provide extensive support to the followers or subordinates. They also depend on individual capabilities and expertise of both individual employees and teams (Hofstede Insights 2023). Here, direct, informal and participative communication takes place between the leaders and followers, thereby showing the usage of democratic leadership strategy. However, Indian workplace comprises of paternalistic leadership strategy where leaders provide reason and meaning to the work life of subordinates and offer rewards in exchange of their services and loyalty (Hofstede Insights 2023). Leaders also undertake centralised decision-making where employees are directed clearly to perform specific jobs and functions. Here, communication undertakes a top-down approach and directive style with often no scope of feedback provided to the leaders (Hofstede Insights 2023). Thus, this shows the presence of autocratic leadership style as well in Indian context.

Another difference can be observed in individualism dimension. Here, Australia is a highly individualistic culture while India has both collectivism and individualism. In Australian workplace, leaders expect employees to be confident, accountable, self-reliant and displaying initiative (Hofstede Insights 2023). They hire or promote employees based on merit and individual achievements in the organisation. However, in Indian context, leaders expect employees to act in the interest of the group where employer and employee relationship depends entirely on expectations (Hofstede Insights 2023). Hiring and promotions are also often made of personal relationships. Besides, employees are also individually responsible for their actions and behaviours and their consequent impact on the organisation (Hofstede Insights 2023). Thus, Indian society displays both individualism and collectivism aspects.

Conclusion 

The report focused on comparing, contrasting and analysing leadership in Australian context to that of Indian context. It first displayed the growing importance of global and cross-cultural leadership in the current environment. This is because of rising complexities, increased globalisation and emergence of diverse workforce. It helped in displaying why global and cross-cultural leadership awareness has become urgent. Matt Comyn, CEO of CBA was chosen as example for analysing leadership in Australia, which was found out to be transformational in nature and contributing towards the bank’s success. Lastly, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions helped in understanding cultural differences between Australia and India and impact of their leadership. 

Reference List

Bonsu, S & Twum-Danso, E 2018, ‘Leadership style in the global economy: A focus on cross-cultural and transformational leadership’, Journal of Marketing and Management, vol.9, no.2, pp.37-52. https://gsmi-ijgb.com/wp-content/uploads/JMM-V9-N2-P04-Samuel-Bonsu-Global-Economy.pdf 

Cumberland, DM, Herd, A, Alagaraja, M & Kerrick, SA 2016, ‘Assessment and development of global leadership competencies in the workplace: A review of literature’, Advances in Developing Human Resources, vol.18, no.3, pp.301-317, doi: 0.1177/1523422316645883

Ersoy, A 2014, ‘The Role of Cultural Intelligence in Cross-Cultural Leadership Effectiveness: A Qualitative Study in the Hospitality Industry’, Journal of Yasar University, vol.35, no.9, pp.6101-6108. https://journal.yasar.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1_Vol_9_35.pdf 

Hofstede Insights 2023, ‘Country comparison tool’, retrieved 11 August 2023, < https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison-tool?countries=australia%2Cindia >
Islam, R, Osman, N, Othman, MF & Raihan, MA 2019, ‘Impact of global leadership behaviors on performance of multinational companies’, Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews, 7(3), pp.661-670, doi: 0.18510/hssr.2019.7397

Long, CS, Yusof, WMM, Kowang, TO & Heng, 2014, ‘The impact of transformational leadership style on job satisfaction’, World Applied Sciences Journal, vol.29, no.1, pp.117-124, doi: 10.5829/idosi.wasj.2014.29.01.1521

Patrick, A 2018, ‘How Matt Comyn became CEO of CBA’, Financial Review, 2 February, retrieved 11 August 2018, < https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/management/how-matt-comyn-became-ceo-of-cba-20180131-h0rc84 > 

Saira, S, Mansoor, S & Ali, M 2021, ‘Transformational leadership and employee outcomes: the mediating role of psychological empowerment’, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol.42, no,1, pp.130-143. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/205746/1/69543849.pdf 

Tuleja, EA 2014, ‘Developing cultural intelligence for global leadership through mindfulness’, Journal of Teaching in International Business, vol.25, no.1, pp.5-24, doi: 10.1080/08975930.2014.881275

Vecchiotti, R 2018, 'Contemporary leadership: the perspective of a practitioner', Journal of Leadership Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 40-45, DOI:10.1002/jls.21573
Venaik, S & Brewer, P 2013, ‘Critical issues in the Hofstede and GLOBE national culture models’, International Marketing Review, vol.30, no.5, pp.469-482; doi: 10.1108/IMR-03-2013-0058

Yeates, C 2018, ‘'He gets his hands dirty': Matt Comyn's rise to the top of CBA’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 February, retrieved 11 August 2018, < https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/he-gets-his-hands-dirty-matt-comyn-s-rise-to-the-top-of-cba-20180201-p4yz7s.html >