A leader is someone who can influence others to work together and aim for success in a group. Even though there are some differences in leadership styles between individualistic and collectivistic societies, there are universal characteristics as to what makes a good leader such as they should be trustworthy, fair, inspirational, encouraging, positive, motivational, dynamic, a team-builder, and decisive. Also, it has been found that effective leaders in the United States, China and Thailand should be low in neuroticism and high in extraversion personality (Dickson, 2012).
Leaders in collectivist cultures tend to gain their leadership role through family connections. They value harmony in the group and use indirect communication so as to not hurt a person’s feelings. These leaders speak the truth to show they are trustworthy. They put the group before their personal interests. They have integrity and work beside those who make up the group to learn about them and show that they care, that they listen and are patient, genuine, and they try to understand others (Campion, 2019). Leaders of collectivist societies are not seen as responsible for the entire success of a group or organization, but they are seen as responsible for failure. For example, the leader of the Japanese company TEPCO felt responsible for the nuclear accident that occurred after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011 even though they had no direct influence, so they resigned from their position (Dickson, 2012). The people who make up the group are very careful to share ideas as it can be seen as “showing off” which is not acceptable behavior in collectivist culture (Campion, 2019).
Leaders in individualist cultures reach their leadership status by working hard to achieve their goals and taking action, and accomplishment with their work and through their performance evaluations. They are confident with their path and do not follow norms if they see it as a roadblock to where they are going. These leaders tend to put their personal interests before the group they lead (Campion, 2019). Leaders in individualist societies are seen as the cause for success in a group or organization but are not seen as responsible for failure. For example, after the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the CEO of BP eventually resigned but did not take responsibility for the spill (Dickson, 2012).
In conclusion, although there are some differences in leadership styles and characteristics between those of individualistic and collectivistic societies, universally both societies feel it is important for a leader to be trustworthy, fair, decisive and a team-builder.
References:
Marcus W. Dickson, Nathalie Castaño, Asiyat Magomaeva, Deanne N. Den Hartog, Conceptualizing leadership across cultures, Journal of World Business, Volume 47, Issue 4, 2012, Pages 483-492. Conceptualizing leadership across cultures – ScienceDirect (psu.edu)
Campion, L.L., Wang, C.X. Collectivism and Individualism: the Differentiation of Leadership. TechTrends 63, 353–356 (2019). Collectivism and Individualism: the Differentiation of Leadership | TechTrends (psu.edu)
I think the comparison of who gets the blame for successes in failures in collectivist vs individualist societies is interesting. It does seem to be the case that in the West, if a company is successful, leaders are given enormous pay packages and stock bonuses, but if the company goes under, they are allowed to leave unscathed. Sometimes they can even avoid resignation. You highlight that in collective societies success is seen as more as a group effort and failure is seen as the responsibility of leaders, which is quite the opposite.