While expanding glob­ally sounds great, it’s not as easy as it seems. Global leaders are chal­lenged with effec­tively leading teams made up of many different back­grounds, all of which have varying cultural expec­ta­tions.

Not only do people have expec­ta­tions for how they should perform work them­selves, but they have ingrained beliefs about how a leader should manage a team. And these beliefs differ from society to society.

Luckily, there are two inter­na­tion­ally recog­nized studies that have been published specif­i­cally to help global leaders under­stand cultural differ­ences and be as effec­tive as possible when managing global teams. They are Hofst­ede’s 6 cultural dimen­sions and Trompe­naars’ 7 cultural dimensions. 

We inter­viewed Gigi de Groot, Senior Consul­tant at Move Manage­ment and previous CEO for itim inter­na­tional (now Hofstede Insights), to discuss the chal­lenges that global leaders face when it comes to different cultural dimen­sions and how to over­come them in order to provide the most well-rounded lead­er­ship possible. 

Hofst­ede’s 6 and Trompe­naars’ 7 Cultural Dimensions

Psychol­o­gist Dr. Geert Hofstede published his model of cultural dimen­sions in the 1970s. In his research, he studied IBM employees across 50 different coun­tries. The purpose was to iden­tify cultural differ­ences from one country to another and discern patterns that could help maxi­mize produc­tivity in lieu of team members with highly different cultural distinctions.

A few decades later, manage­ment consul­tants Fons Trompe­naars and Charles Hampden-Turner published their study in 1993. They studied the pref­er­ences and values of 46,000 managers across 40 coun­tries and found that people across cultures differ in specific, often predictable ways. This is because people who are raised in the same culture are taught similar values and soci­etal norms from a young age, and these values become ingrained like a cultural foot­print on one’s psyche. 

Let’s take a look at each study from a high-level perspective.

Hofstede’s 6 Cultural Dimensions

1. Power Distance Index (high versus low): The degree of inequality that exists between people with and without power in an organization.
2. Indi­vid­u­alism versus collec­tivism: The strength of ties that people have to their community. 
3. Masculinity versus femi­ninity: Masculinity repre­sents a pref­er­ence in society for achieve­ment, heroism, assertive­ness and mate­rial success. Its oppo­site, femi­ninity, stands for a pref­er­ence for rela­tion­ships, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life.
4. Uncer­tainty Avoid­ance Index (strong versus weak): How well people can cope with anxiety throughout their day-to-day and overall life. 
5. Long- versus short-term orien­ta­tion: The time horizon people in a society display. Long-term orien­ta­tion refers to a more prag­matic approach to goals, whereas short-term orien­ta­tion places a high emphasis on quick results.
6. Indul­gence versus restraint: The values placed on enjoying life and having fun versus suppressing grat­i­fi­ca­tion and regu­lating conduct, i.e. looser versus stricter social norms. 

Hofstede Insights has a great, inter­ac­tive 6‑dimensions model on their website, making it easy to compare coun­tries and their cultural dimensions:

Trompe­naars’ 7 Cultural Dimensions

1. Univer­salism versus partic­u­larism: Placing value on a set of prede­ter­mined rules to deter­mine outcomes versus deter­mining actions based on specific circum­stances at that moment.
2. Indi­vid­u­alism versus commu­ni­tar­i­anism: The values placed on personal versus communal achievements. 
3. Specific versus diffuse: How people sepa­rate work and personal lives and, conse­quently, if inter-work rela­tion­ships are viewed as vital to work objectives.
4. Neutral versus emotional: How people express their emotions.
5. Achieve­ment versus ascrip­tion: The impor­tance placed on work status. 
6. Sequen­tial time versus synchro­nous time: Whether a value is placed on sequen­tial events (working on one project at a time in order of due date) or if time periods are viewed as over­lap­ping (working on several projects at once).
7. Internal direc­tion versus outer direc­tion: How people relate to their envi­ron­ment (i.e. does the envi­ron­ment control them or do they control their environment).

Which Model is Better?

According to Gigi de Groot, what­ever model you use, both can be effec­tive if used to the best of their ability. 

“Understanding the models means you are able to see in what way the combination of the dimensions can explain the differences between certain cultures —that is what global leaders truly need to be able to do. It’s the variety of the different combinations of the dimensions that give the models a depth and go beyond stereotyping.”

Gigi de Groot

Inter­locking and combining the dimen­sions are what makes the models so powerful. In order to get the most out of both studies, it’s crucial to mix and match the ideas and analyze them from all angles.

De Groot doesn’t hold a pref­er­ence for one model or the other. She states the impor­tance of using the tools at your disposal to learn every­thing you can to make your role as a global leader better. 

How a Global Leader Can Put These Models To Use

Let’s run through an example of how to effec­tively use Hofstede’s cultural dimensions.

The U.S. and the Nether­lands both have a low Power Distance Index (PDI). This means that both coun­tries value shared power, or less of a hier­ar­chical distri­b­u­tion of power, within an organization. 

However, the U.S. is a more mascu­line society, meaning that the roles and expected behav­iors between men and women rarely overlap and men are expected to portray assertive behavior. Whereas the Nether­lands is a more femi­nine society wherein male and female roles often overlap, and modesty and coop­er­a­tion amongst peers are valued higher. 

In this situ­a­tion, how can a global leader make every­body work well together?

According to de Groot, the leader needs to focus on multi­cul­tural compe­tence or being cultur­ally sensi­tive and intel­li­gent, in order to success­fully navi­gate this situ­a­tion. Under­standing the theo­ries will help you under­stand how to use the model as a tool to analyze specific situ­a­tions and adapt behavior accordingly. 

The first step is obser­va­tion. Be curious about behav­iors and allow your­self to be fasci­nated, rather than distressed, by differ­ences. Then, think about how you can apply the models to your circum­stance. What works well for a team member from the U.S. may have the oppo­site effect on a Dutch employee. 

Learn from the research and apply solu­tions based on prag­matic inferences. 

How a Global Leader Moti­vates People from Different Cultural Dimensions

In our U.S. and Dutch compar­ison, if you want to push an Amer­ican to achieve an objec­tive, you’ll need to set chal­lenging goals. Amer­i­cans more often than not will strive to not only reach but surpass these set goals. 

The Dutch, however, will gladly accept the chal­lenging goals at the begin­ning of the year. But as the year progresses things will change, and there­fore the goal needs to be changed as well. In their view the goal needs to be discussed once more, and possibly adjusted to fit the new circum­stances if it turns out that the old goal is not reach­able anymore. It’s less about the chal­lenge and more about the group involvement.

The key to managing and moti­vating people from different cultural dimen­sions is to be sensi­tive to the fact that every­body will do things differ­ently and to take the time to under­stand why they do them differently.

How a Global Leader Can Set Common Prior­i­ties and Goals That a Cultur­ally Different Global Team Can Collec­tively Strive For

This is possible and global leaders should absolutely set common goals. Every­body, no matter what culture they are from, needs clear goals that outline objec­tives to strive for.

However, it’s impor­tant to be aware that, while the goals may be the same, the way you support your team members should be different.

Let’s imagine that the goal is to produce a website about global lead­er­ship and each team member is from different cultures. The most diffi­cult task for a leader is figuring out how to moti­vate each indi­vidual team member to meet a common goal.

This is where under­standing cultural differ­ences and utilizing both models of cultural dimen­sions becomes impor­tant. One team member may want to get started right away, works better alone, and needs to be constantly chal­lenged with new, some­what spon­ta­neous projects. Whereas other team members may work better in a group, need a detailed project plan, and prefer a set time­line to work at peak performance.

By under­standing these differ­ences ahead of time, you can lead your team to hit common goals while under­taking contrasting jour­neys to reach them.

How Global Leaders Mediate Conflict Arising Between Team Members

Firstly, a global leader needs to under­stand what their own pref­er­ences are, both as an indi­vidual and through a soci­etal lens. Are you a leader that likes to confront issues right away, or are you more of a pleaser who handles things at a slower pace? 

Your own pref­er­ences will often steer what type of solu­tions you lean towards. If you don’t under­stand your­self in this way, it will make it even harder to under­stand your team members’ cultural differ­ences. The most effec­tive leaders are in touch with their indi­vidual and cultural sensi­tiv­i­ties before attempting to mediate conflict within a team. 

However, there are certain situ­a­tions that prove more diffi­cult than others. For example, if there is one culture more numerous than others in a global team, that culture, based on pure number domi­nance, can unin­ten­tion­ally set the tone for how things are going to be done. This can become an issue if the cultur­ally domi­nant team members decide that their way is better than any other, effec­tively leaving a blind spot for solu­tions outside of this periph­eral view. 

As a global leader, it’s impor­tant to keep these condi­tions in check and to ensure the compa­ny’s cultural mindset as inclu­sive and open-minded as possible.

The Specific Chal­lenges of Remote Working Teams

“It’s difficult to build relationships when working remotely when you can’t meet in person. It takes a longer time to build up that personal relationship that breeds productivity. Therefore, it is crucial to invest time in socializing at a distance. ”

Gigi de Groot

According to de Groot, the main chal­lenge of working remotely with global members is building rela­tion­ships. If not enough time is spent building up a rela­tion­ship, you can’t build trust, and trust helps us be open about feed­back, address chal­lenging issues, make deci­sions and ulti­mately, boost productivity.

In collec­tivistic cultures, the primary focus is on rela­tion­ships. Only once a rela­tion­ship has been estab­lished beyond the status of colleagues can true work begin. However, some cultures are indi­vid­u­al­istic and don’t feel the need to connect with other team members in order to work well together.

Let’s use India and Sweden as an example, where the leader is from Sweden. India is a collec­tivistic culture and Sweden is indi­vid­u­al­istic. The leader from Sweden wants to get started on tasks right away without any intro­duc­tions, which makes the person from India feel uncom­fort­able, as they want to get to know the person behind the voice to be able to work on a task together. 

That is extremely diffi­cult when working remotely and is espe­cially chal­lenging for leaders who are often pres­sured to never waste time and be as effi­cient as possible. However, by mini­mizing social time with the team member from India, by for example getting down to busi­ness on a Skype-call imme­di­ately, a leader may be hand­i­cap­ping their Indian employee who won’t be able to perform as well, because they skipped this crucial cultural step of investing time in rela­tion­ship building. 

De Groot advises that leaders invest time in a team at concep­tion before a project kicks off. If possible, meet in person, and if not, do it virtu­ally. It’s impor­tant for leaders to under­stand that by investing time in the rela­tion­ship upfront, they will get a higher return on the quality of work, effec­tively reducing time wasted on feed­back and revi­sions down the line.

Growing as a Global Leader

Global busi­ness is on the rise and, there­fore, so is the need for effec­tive global leaders. In order to be the most compe­tent global leader, you need to first and fore­most keep an open mind. This posi­tion is chal­lenging, and educating your­self by using the avail­able tools will boost produc­tivity, reduce stress, and create a dynamic, safe and rewarding team environment.

If you’re curious to know more about global lead­er­ship and how to become the best global leader you can be, sign up for eurac’s weekly arti­cles on every­thing about global leadership.