How Does Culture Impact Leadership?

Bernard Bass once said, “The values, beliefs, norms and ideals embedded in a culture affect leadership behavior, goals, and strategies of organizations.” Leadership is heavily influenced by culture, as opportunities for professional advancement and placement in leadership positions are given mainly based on merit in North America as opposed to in places like India, where they are distributed based on marriage, family, friends, etc. The culture that we’re surrounded by helps to shape our professional perspective, as well as personal, seeing how the society and norms that we grow up knowing becomes the lens with which we shape our opinions.

Oreilly.com states, “Cultural norms can be absorbed and can lead to good or to bad consequences. For example, individuals observing negative behaviors may rationalize such negative conduct and practices. These negative behaviors may then escalate and spread to others, taking on institutional momentum.” In other words, when engulfed by an atmosphere of negativity, it will inherently make your more negative and prone to negative outlooks. This applies to leadership through the influence of culture impacting how they lead others and the effectiveness of their strategies. When leaders have different standards for what is considered acceptable, it creates an entirely different environment for those under their leadership. For example, if a manager grew up being a goal-oriented person who chose not to delegate, but rather to get tasks done by themselves for fear of others messing them up, they will not be as effective in their position. Their perspective would instead cause more problems and work would pile up with no one being trained to finish it.

“Though situations, belief systems, and transactional opportunities change, the call for leaders who are committed to transformational principles, emotional maturity, and who have enough inner peace to be truly interested in others, is constant… Culture is one of many external variations in which leaders must be enthusiastically engaged. It is another area that requires personal reflection related to one’s own cultural heritage and influences. As in all areas of leadership, successful interaction with others begins with acceptance of self” according to Creativelifeinstitute.com.

So how does this relate to journalism? With culture being so influential in the perspectives of leaders, it is equally as important in shaping the views that journalists have. The environment in which they grew up surrounded by shapes how they see the world and specific subjects that they end up reporting on, causing bias or a lack thereof. Therefore, it’s extremely important to understand the effect that culture can have on people, specifically those with more power like leaders and journalists, to understand how they can create stigmas, shape viewpoints, and induce biases.