Page 366 - Cultures and Organizations

Pyramids, Machines, Markets, and Families: Organizing Across Nations 331

■ Employers in masculine countries more often paid commission to
nonmanagerial employees; in feminine countries they more often
provided fl exible benefits and on-site child care and maternity leave to

clerical and manual workers.
■ Employers in uncertainty-avoiding countries more often related pay
to seniority and skill and less often to performance.

Leadership, Decision Making, and Empowerment

One of the oldest theorists of leadership in the world literature is Nic-
colò Machiavelli (1469–1527). He was a former statesman, and his book
45
The Ruler described the most effective techniques for manipulation and
remaining in power, including deceit, bribery, and murder, which has given
him a bad reputation in the centuries afterward. In truth, Machiavelli just
described what he had observed—today he would be called a sociologist.
Machiavelli wrote in and about the Italy of his day, and what he described
was clearly a large-power-distance, masculine context. Power distance in
Italy in the IBM studies was found to be medium large, and there is no
reason to assume this would have been different in the sixteenth century.
Italy in the IBM studies still scored highly masculine.
As we argued in Chapter 3, leadership and subordinateship in a coun-
try are inseparable. Vertical relations in organizations are based on the
common values of superiors and subordinates. Beliefs about leadership

reflect the dominant culture of a country. Asking people to describe the
qualities of a good leader is a way of asking them to describe their culture.
The leader is a culture hero, in the sense of being a model for behavior (see
Figure 1.2).
Authors from individualist countries tend to treat leadership as an

independent characteristic that a person can acquire, without reference to
its context. In the management literature from individualist, masculine
cultures such as Australia, Britain, and the United States, romanticized
descriptions of masculine leaders are popular. They describe what the read-
ers would like to be and to believe. What really happens depends on lead-
ers, on followers, and very much on the situation.
Feminine cultures believe in modest leaders. A prestigious U.S. con-

sulting firm was once asked to analyze decision making in a leading Dutch
corporation. The firm’s report criticized the corporation’s decision-making

style for being, among other things, “intuitive” and “consensus-based.” 46
The in-depth comparison of a U.S., a Dutch, and a French organization by