Well, a recent white paper in Harvard Business Review, titled 'Leadership That Gets Results' has outlined an interesting modern framework that employers can use to spot great leaders in the hiring process. They argued that the most effective leaders are able to exhibit six different styles of leadership and have a flexible leadership style which means they can switch between different styles of leadership to suit the situation. The leadership styles were:
1. Coercive leaders demand immediate compliance.
2. Authoritative leaders mobilize people toward a vision.
3. Affiliative leaders create emotional bonds and harmony.
4. Democratic leaders build consensus through participation.
5. Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-direction.
6. And coaching leaders develop people for the future.
The study found that the most effective leaders are able to deploy these different leadership styles to suit the particular situation; for example, an authoritative style is best used when a business is struggling. In any given week a leader may need to use 3 or 4 of these different leadership styles. So, ideally when choosing leaders for new roles or promotion you might select leaders who can exhibit this leadership flexibility. You might also want to look at incorporating these traits and qualities into your management and leadership training initiatives.
But, international companies who are looking to hire candidates from overseas or send them abroad on international assignments should also consider how leaders from one country may perform in a different country. For example, a study from the Management Research Group looked at 96,000 leaders in 26 countries and found that leadership practices vary quite significantly by country.
Countries in the same circles are more similar to each other than they are to countries outside the circles.
The diagram above shows that Dutch companies are best suited to the Danish, German and Swedish managers as their leadership styles are most suited, but Dutch companies are much less suited to Russian, US and Australian leaders. This does not mean that Dutch companies cannot successfully recruit from countries like Russia, it just means that you will need to focus more of finding leaders with the leadership flexibility to adapt to the Dutch working environment.