Impact of Culture on Management and Leadership

Over the last few years, I’ve developed and used a management and leadership curriculum and training program for executive and mid-level administrators in client schools, intending to support the development of competent managers and effective leaders.​

The management component of the program focuses on understanding and implementing management principles (i.e., principles related to unity of objective, organizational structure, authority and responsibility, and supervision and accountability). For leadership development, we’ve built on these management principles using the principles of transformational leadership (i.e., individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, idealized influence, and intellectual stimulation) as a framework for understanding leadership. I have considered competent management foundational and a precursor to effective leadership. At its core, competent management is fundamentally “transactional,” and effective leadership is “relational.” My approach has viewed transactional leadership (e.g., management) as a foundation for and precursor to transformational leadership.
 
In a conversation yesterday with Dion and Naty Peachey, friends and transformational leadership trainers affiliated with FSH Consulting LLC, I was introduced to the term “relactional,” – which in their model is a critical point of balance on the compendium of transformational and transactional leadership. They asserted that you “manage processes and lead people” and that “relationships and trust are prerequisites to the collaboration necessary to carry out essential transactions in an organization effectively.” 

Our banter about what should come first for effective and efficient operations – transactions or relationships – was enriched by my wife Lois, who interjected that qualifying and perhaps determining consideration is the cultural context in which leadership is exercised. She suggested that in some cultural contexts, a focus on relationships precedes effective management. In contrast, in others, solid management structures and procedures provide the platform necessary for developing productive relationships.
 
While our approaches and understandings still need to be fully aligned, we agreed to explore further the impact of culture on management and leadership effectiveness.

We did agree that transactional leadership is characterized by extrinsic motivation and controls impacting performance. In contrast, transformational leadership inspires employees to strive beyond required expectations and to work toward a shared vision.
 
Feel free to add your thoughts on this topic to this message, which will be posted on the GLOBAL School Consulting Group blog.
 
Blessings,
 
David