Page 64 - Harnessing the Strengths

Dilemma 1: Leading Versus Serving ■ 47

ters and there are servants. In a culture with ascribed status,
leaders derive their status from birth, age, gender, or wealth.
People with a high status do not necessarily have to do any-
thing to earn it. They get the status automatically on the basis
of who they are. This is often important, for example, in the
Middle and Far East. In these cultures, power is personal-
ized—it belongs to the leader. You would sooner do things
for the leader than for pure abstract goals. Management by
subjectives is a good expression to describe this. Leaders are
evaluated for their personal attributes such as decency and
charisma, and their subordinates attain status based on the
quality of how they serve their leader. In these cases, titles
are important to let others know the “background” that a
person, leader or servant, comes from.
At the core is the question: do people see status as some-
thing that someone reaches through individual efforts, or
is it something that depends on who someone is, such as
a male elder or someone coming from a “good” family?
The answers to these questions give some insights into why
people in some cultures enjoy status and others do not.

The Benchmark

The difference is clearly illustrated by the following two
managers, A and B, talking about the organizational struc-
ture of their company:

A: The most important reason to have an organi-
zational structure is so that everyone knows who
is in charge of whom.
B: The most important reason to have an
organizational structure is so that everyone
knows how tasks are divided and coordinated.