What kind of leaders do people love? (2016)

….To believe one’s local leadership style is the only way to success is to embrace the narcissistic tendencies Freud warned us about.

Michael Sanger, Hogan Assessment Systems
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Hogan CEO, Professor of Business Psychology at University College London & Columbia University.
Published in HQAsia, 27 May 2016

What kind of leaders do people love? Ones that look like them. As Freud noted, people are basically narcissists.… enamoured with their own capabilities. Not surprisingly, they tend to attract and select people who are comparable to them.

These biases are reinforced by subordinates who more readily see leadership potential in colleagues who behave similarly to those already in power. When these findings are applied to a global context, a foundation for explaining cross-cultural differences in leadership expectations begins to emerge.

…Companies headquartered in Western Europe, US and Australia require their leaders to be ambitious. These organisations look for self-starters who independently take initiative.

… leaders in Northeast Asia … demonstrate their drive in a different way. Here, dependability, self-discipline and general achievement-orientation are more acceptable ways to demonstrate one’s intrinsic motivation. Since consensus must be achieved for business processes to continue uninterrupted … individualistic pursuit is seen as counterproductive.

Assessing leaders across the world with a rigidly mapped set of behaviours will better ensure headquarters’ expectations are met; however, leaders who emerge as a result are more vulnerable to organisational ‘organ rejection’ due to misaligned or even opposing expectations of in-country subordinates.

….To believe one’s local leadership style is the only way to achieve success is to truly embrace the narcissistic tendencies Sigmund Freud warned us about.

Access the full article here: What kind of leaders do people love