Autocratic Leadership

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
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Autocratic Leadership Around the Globe: Do Climate and Wealth Drive Leadership Culture?
Evert Van de Vliert
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 2006; 37; 42
DOI: 10.1177/0022022105282294
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JOURNAL
10.1177/0022022105282294
Van de Vliert
OF/ AUTOCRA
CROSS-CUL
TIC
TURAL
LEADERSHIP
PSYCHOLOGY
WORLDWIDE
AUTOCRATIC LEADERSHIP AROUND THE GLOBE

Do Climate and Wealth Drive Leadership Culture?
EVERT VAN DE VLIERT

University of Groningen
Common autocratic leader characteristics in a country’s organizations are conceptualized here as cultural
adaptations to noncultural components of the national environment, such as the harshness of cold or hot cli-
mate and the level of wealth. A secondary analysis of managerial survey data gathered in 61 cultures is used
to retest the recently formulated theory that climatic demands matched by wealth-based resources are posi-
tively linked to democratic leadership, whereas climatic demands unmatched by wealth-based resources are
negatively linked to democratic leadership. In further support of this cultural leadership theory, autocratic
leadership, as the opposite of democratic leadership, is seen as less effective in richer countries with more
demanding climates but as more effective in poorer countries with more demanding climates.
Keywords: autocratic leadership; democratic leadership; thermal climate; national wealth; cultural adaptation
It is patent to any intelligent person that different climates produce different fauna
and flora. Why then should they not produce different kinds of people?
—Wheeler, 1946, p. 80
All superiors are unequal, but some are more unequal than others. Cross-cultural differ-
ences in the use of superiority, power, orders, and close supervision are particularly intrigu-
ing. Why, for example, do superiors in Indonesia and Nigeria rely much less on their subor-
dinates as sources of information, and as targets of delegation, than do superiors in Denmark
and the Netherlands (Van de Vliert & Smith, 2004)? Or, more generally, where on earth and
why do leaders tend to overpower or empower the people they lead? Answers to such ques-
tions may help international human resource managers and interventionists, expatriates, and
migrants anticipate and accept or to gradually induce change in the locally dominant rela-
tionships between superiors and subordinates.
In terms of Berry’s (1997) ecocultural model, the present comparative study addresses the
interactive impact of the ecological context of thermal climate and the sociopolitical context
of national wealth on the society-level endorsement of an autocratic rather than democratic
leadership culture. The conceptual part contains a definition and a brief country-level
contextualization of effective autocratic leadership followed by an overview of the cultural,
economic, and climatic explanations of cross-national differences in autocratic and demo-
cratic leadership that have been suggested so far. The gist of the argument is represented in
five schematically interrelated hypotheses. The methodological and empirical parts
contain descriptions of the measures used, the regression analyses applied, and the context-
leadership links found. The concluding part contains a point-by-point discussion of the
restricted scientific claims that can be made.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: For comments and advice, I thank Deanne N. Den Hartog, Peter B. Smith, Nico W. Van Yperen, and two anony-
mous reviewers of this journal.
JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 37 No. 1, January 2006 42-59

DOI: 10.1177/0022022105282294
© 2006 Sage Publications
42

Van de Vliert / AUTOCRATIC LEADERSHIP WORLDWIDE 43
EXPLANATIONS AND HYPOTHESES
AUTOCRATIC LEADERSHIP AND NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS
Compared to democratic superiors, autocratic superiors act in more self-centered ways.

They make decisions more unilaterally and supervise subordinates’ work activities more
closely (Muczyk & Reimann, 1987). Given that organizations are embedded in widely dif-
ferent cultural environments, economic environments, and climatic environments (Parker,
1997), it is unlikely that no worldwide differences in the endorsement, adoption, and per-
ceived effectiveness of autocratic leadership would occur. Whereas cross-national differ-
ences in the appreciation and implementation of autocratic and democratic leadership in
organizations are indeed obvious and well documented (e.g., Den Hartog et al., 1999;
Hofstede, 2001; House et al., 1999; House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004),
their explanation has recently become a disputed issue. Is this unmistakable cross-national
variation in the extent to which autocratic leadership in organizations is endorsed, expected,
enacted, and accepted culture driven, economy driven, or climate driven, or is there another
explanation?
CULTURAL EXPLANATION?
Here, borrowing from House et al. (1999), culture refers to a set of “shared motives, val-
ues, beliefs, identities, and interpretations or meanings of significant events that result from
common experiences of members of collectives and are transmitted across age generations”
(p. 184). With regard to leadership, national culture is usually conceptualized and investi-
gated as a set of independent variables and as having a pervasive influence on the leadership
construals and leader behavior of its members. Hundreds of studies have shown that a coun-
try’s culture helps to explain leadership construals (e.g., Brodbeck et al., 2000; Dorfman,
Hanges, & Brodbeck, 2004; Gerstner & Day, 1994; Hofstede, 2001; House et al., 1999;
Schmidt & Yeh, 1992; Shaw, 1990; Wong & Birnbaum-More, 1994), leader behavior (e.g.,
Smith, Peterson, & Misumi, 1994; Smith et al., 2002), relations between leadership
construals and leader behavior (e.g., Smith, Misumi, Tayeb, Peterson, & Bond, 1989), rela-
tions between leader behavior and behavioral consequences (e.g., Hofstede, 2001; Williams,
Whyte, & Green, 1966), and so forth.
Now that so many studies have significantly advanced our understanding of leadership
phenomena as consequences of national culture, the time is ripe for investigating common
leadership construals in a country’s organizations as cultural adaptations to noncultural con-
texts. Being realistic about what can be accomplished at any one time in an inquiry, I
restricted myself to a historical economic explanation, two climatic explanations, and two
climate-by-wealth explanations of autocratic leadership in organizations around the globe.
ECONOMIC EXPLANATION?
Only when humans changed their primary mode of subsistence from hunting animals to
herding them and from gathering plants to cultivating them did autocratic leadership develop
(Nolan & Lenski, 1999, pp. 103-109, 189-191). The transition from sampling food to pro-
ducing food and from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary lifestyle gradually reduced environ-
mental complexity and uncertainty, thus allowing for more directive leadership (cf., Duncan,
1972; Mintzberg, 1979). A powerful and often literate urban elite started to make the

44 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
necessary economic decisions, to enforce implementation, and to autocratically control the

economic surplus (e.g., Bibby, 1965; Lenski, 1966; Service, 1975). The resulting agrarian
societies were characterized by centralized authority, chief executive control, and vertical
specialization anchored by a few “haves” and a huge majority of “have nots.”
Even today, many countries with predominantly agrarian populations, including Albania,
China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Morocco, and Zambia, are still autocrati-
cally led, directly by members of a governing class (Karatnycky, 2001) and indirectly by col-
laborating retainers, clergymen, and merchants in organizations (Nolan & Lenski, 1999, p.
190). As a likely consequence, through processes of socialization and internalization, supe-
riors and subordinates in organizations in these industrializing agrarian societies have
learned to value and practice the giving and obeying of orders and to view autocratic
leadership as effective.
The next major transition, from agrarian society to industrial society, was and is, first of
all, a matter of growing economic development and increasing socioeconomic complexity.
Under these circumstances, organizational leaders can no longer adequately manage on their
own and find it necessary to delegate decision-making discretion to others (Duncan, 1972;
Mintzberg, 1979). Indeed, growing development and increasing complexity tend to propel
societies in the direction of higher income, better education, and more political and eco-
nomic participation (United Nations Development Programme, 2001), as well as smaller
power distances in organizations (Hofstede, 2001, p. 519). This cluster of economy-driven
trends tends to empower subordinates and, through it, makes top-down decision making and
close supervision in their organizations less important, less feasible, and less effective (cf.,
Gerstner & Day, 1994; Hofstede, 2001; Leana, 1987; Sagie & Koslowsky, 2000). Together,
the agrarian and advanced industrial stages of societal development suggest that autocratic
leadership will be seen as less effective and attractive in richer countries. This perspective led
to the first hypothesis, representing the economic explanation.
Hypothesis 1: The perceived effectiveness of autocratic leadership is lower in richer countries.
CLIMATIC EXPLANATION?
Here, climate refers to the generalized cold or hot weather of an area. Whereas the
weather changes continuously, climate has been extraordinarily stable for the past 10,000
years (Burroughs, 1997). Whereas cold and hot weather tend to have immediate
physiopsychological effects at the individual and organizational levels, cold and hot climates
tend to have long-term macrosociological effects at the societal and global levels.
In the field of organizational behavior, Peterson and Smith (1997) have criticized Van de
Vliert and Van Yperen (1996) for confusing weather effects and climatic effects on power
distance and role overload. All of them can be criticized for making no distinction between
geoclimatic effects and bioclimatic effects. Geoclimate, the mean temperature level, varies
from cold at the icecaps to hot at the equator. Bioclimate, the average deviation from a com-
fortable temperature level, varies from harsh at latitudes closer to the icecaps (e.g., Canada,
Finland), in countries with land climates (e.g., Austria, China), and in desert areas (e.g.,
Sudan, Niger) to temperate in countries with sea climates at latitudes closer to the equator
(e.g., Costa Rica, Philippines). Besides, in geoclimate, equally large between-country differ-
ences in temperature have the same weight at all temperature levels, whereas in bioclimate,
equally large between-country differences in temperature tend to weigh heavier at more

extreme temperature levels (cf., Parsons, 1993; Scholander, Hock, Walters, Johnson, &
Irving, 1950).
Although common autocratic and democratic leadership cultures in a country’s organiza-
tions have been related to climate, theory building has so far been inaccurate and simplistic
because no distinction was made between geoclimate and bioclimate, let alone between
main and interactive effects of geoclimate and bioclimate on leadership. Following is an
overview of the speculative parts of geoclimatic and bioclimatic explanations of leadership
cultures, summarized in two hypotheses about cross-national differences in the perceived
effectiveness of autocratic leadership. The subsequent sections contain two additional
hypotheses representing interactive geoclimate-by-wealth and bioclimate-by-wealth
explanations of autocratic leadership cultures.
Geoclimatic explanation. According to Hofstede (2001), “a country’s geographic posi-

tion is a fundamental fact that is bound to have a strong effect on the subjective culture of its
inhabitants, as this culture is shaped over many generations” (p. 116). For that reason, he was
not surprised to find that geographic latitude as a rough global indicator of climate was nega-
tively linked to cultural power distance, a conglomeration of autocratic and persuasive/
paternalistic leadership. Hofstede (2001, pp. 115-117) argued that the linear cold-hot differ-
ence in climate is at the beginning of a causal chain because warmer environments are less
problematic and easier to cope with. In colder climates, survival and population growth are
more dependent on human intervention in nature, with the complicating effects that there is
more need for technology, more technological momentum for change, more two-way teach-
ing, and more questioning of authority. In subtropical and tropical climates, by contrast,
there is less need for human intervention and for technology, leading to a more static society
in which teachers are omniscient and teaching is one way and to less questioning of author-
ity.
Related studies of the association between geoclimate and power distance similarly
showed that more tropical climates value power distance more and have more practices of
power distance (Carl, Gupta, & Javidan, 2004), that organizations in countries with colder
climates are less centralized and less vertically differentiated, and that employees in colder
countries attach greater importance to egalitarian commitment and autonomy (Van de Vliert
& Van Yperen, 1996). Together, these findings and speculative interpretations support the
viewpoint that societies at higher latitudes have to cope with more complex climatic envi-
ronments and, therefore, in line with Duncan’s (1972) and Mintzberg’s (1979) systems-
theoretical framework, tend to disapprove of autocratic leadership to a greater extent. This
notion that more complex colder environments decrease the endorsement and adoption of
autocratic leadership led to the second hypothesis, representing the geoclimatic explanation.
Hypothesis 2: The perceived effectiveness of autocratic leadership is lower in countries with colder
geoclimates.
Bioclimatic explanation. There is reason to expect that the negative relationship between
climatic temperature and leadership in Hypothesis 2 is misleading because, like all warm-
blooded species, humans thrive in temperate climates. The colder or hotter the climate, the
more adaptations are required. Acclimatization, that is, long-term adjustment in anatomy
and physiology, is not enough (Parsons, 1993). Climate-contingent needs for thermal com-
fort, nutrition, and health require that humans continuously use, adjust, and organize a vari-
ety of elements from their environment. Harsher—colder or hotter—climates require special

clothing, housing, and working arrangements; special organizations for the production,
transportation, trade, and storage of food; special care and cure facilities; and so forth (for
some early formulations of the bioclimatic impact on organizational behavior, see
McClelland, 1961, pp. 383-388; Triandis, 1973).
Some large cross-national studies (Van de Vliert, 2003; Van de Vliert, Schwartz,
Huismans, Hofstede, & Daan, 1999) reported a pattern of links between a country’s
bioclimate and its culture. Compared with employees in colder and hotter countries, employ-
ees in countries with temperate climates attach more importance to earnings, recognition,
and mastery-oriented advancement and challenge than to good working relationships and
desirable living conditions. The research team assumed that the greater investments in adapt-
ing to cold climates with prolonged winters and to hot climates with scorching summers have
led to the development of cultural customs characterized by sacrifice, delay of gratification,
and cooperation rather than more selfish cultural customs characterized by dominance and
aggressive competition.
If these bioclimate-culture links rest on valid observations, autocratic leadership will be
less appropriate and prevalent in organizations located in countries with harsher climates. In
support of this expectation, Van de Vliert and Smith (2004) showed that organizational supe-
riors in countries with more demanding—colder or hotter—climates adopted more demo-
cratic styles of leadership by relying more on their subordinates as sources of information
and as targets of delegation. Taken together, these physiology-based considerations and
empirical associations led to the third hypothesis, representing the bioclimatic explanation.
Hypothesis 3: The perceived effectiveness of autocratic leadership is lower in countries with more
demanding—colder or hotter—bioclimates.
It is worth mentioning that support for Hypothesis 3 is independent of support for

Hypothesis 2. If the curve between thermal climate and perceived effectiveness of autocratic
leadership has an upward slope, it supports Hypothesis 2 but not Hypothesis 3; if this curve
has a predominantly upward slope ending in a downward slope, it supports both hypotheses;
if this curve has a predominantly downward slope, it supports Hypothesis 3 but not
Hypothesis 2.
CLIMATE-BY-WEALTH EXPLANATION?
Montesquieu (1748) was the first to recognize that atmospheric climate and national
wealth may have joint effects on human functioning. The key breakthrough made by
Montesquieu is the notion that income is generated not so much for income’s sake but to sat-
isfy climate-contingent human needs (Parker, 2000, pp. 24-26). In essence, Montesquieu
saw national wealth as a determinant of the link between climate and human perceptions and
behavior. Affluence may indeed alter the impact of climate because capital goods can be
exchanged for homeostatic goods in pursuit of overcoming or mitigating the hardships of
harsh climates (Parker, 2000, pp. 132-135). Hence, it is not inconceivable that climate and
wealth have interactive effects on national culture in general and on the common leadership
culture in a country’s organizations in particular.
From this speculative climate-by-wealth perspective, Van de Vliert and Smith (2004)
recently conducted two studies, a 54-nation comparison of 6,968 middle managers’ reports
of reliance on subordinates as sources of information and a 76-nation comparison of 12,557
top managers’ reports of reliance on subordinates as targets of delegation. Twice they found

empirical support for a burgeoning climatic or ecological leadership theory that may be sum-
marized in the following series of four cumulative propositions.
Demands proposition. Basic human needs for thermal comfort, nutrition, and health
make life in colder or hotter climates more demanding than life in temperate climates. Colder
or hotter climates entail nastier weather, a wider variety of thermoregulatory requirements
and adjustments, greater relocation risks, less amenable vegetation, greater risks of food
shortage and food spoilage, stricter diets, more health problems, and so forth (e.g., Parker,
2000; Parsons, 1993; Sachs, 2000; Triandis, 1973).
Resources proposition. National wealth provides a populace with more personal and soci-
etal resources to meet the demands of a less temperate—colder or hotter—climate. As a rule,
homeostatic goods, needed to secure thermal comfort, nutrition, and health, are for sale and
have a price. Money and other capital goods can buy a wide variety of consumables,
immovables, conveniences, appliances, recreational facilities, services, and practices that
help meet the demands of extreme climates.
Match proposition. Greater climatic demands unmatched by wealth-based climatic

resources require greater cognitive, affective, and behavioral investments in satisfying exis-
tence needs. The acquisition of homeostatic goods requires more selfish attention, anxiety,
and labor at the expense of alternative investments in one’s sociopsychological networks and
functioning. Consequently, in conjunction with lower collective income, more demanding
climates are expected to produce more selfish, if not competitive, cultures. In contrast,
greater climatic demands matched by wealth-based climatic resources satisfy existence
needs, thus allowing greater cognitive, affective, and behavioral investments in satisfying
one’s own and others’ needs for relatedness, collaboration, and coordination. Consequently,
in conjunction with higher collective income, more demanding climates are expected to
produce more cooperative cultures.
Leadership proposition. Given that leaders in countries with more demanding climates
unmatched by climatic resources tend to act in more selfish and competitive ways, they will
consistently tend to adopt and endorse subordinate-oriented leadership to a lesser extent.
Conversely, given that leaders in countries with more demanding climates matched by cli-
matic resources tend to act in more cooperative ways, they will consistently tend to adopt and
endorse subordinate-oriented leadership to a greater extent. In other words, different organi-
zational leaders thrive in different climate-by-wealth niches on earth: autocratic leaders
under circumstances of harshness and poverty, democratic leaders under circumstances of
harshness and wealth, and moderately autocratic/democratic leaders in temperate climates
irrespective of wealth.
This rudimentary leadership theory has been tested for the occurrence of democratic lead-
ership under various bioclimatic conditions. The present study extends this line of research
by testing whether the theory also holds for the perceived effectiveness of autocratic leader-
ship. In addition, this study is the first to take into account that the theory can be tested for
either increasingly cold or increasingly hot climates, yielding geoclimate-by-wealth expla-
nations of leadership culture, or for both colder and hotter climates, yielding bioclimate-by-
wealth explanations of leadership culture. The geoclimate-by-wealth prediction in Hypothe-
sis 4 qualifies Hypotheses 1 and 2, whereas the bioclimate-by-wealth prediction in
Hypothesis 5 qualifies Hypotheses 1 and 3.

TABLE 1
Interrelations Among Explanations of Autocratic Leadership
Economy Driven?
Climate Driven? No Yes
No Other explanation? Economic explanation

(null hypothesis) (Hypothesis 1)
Yes Climatic explanation Climate-by-wealth explanation
(Hypotheses 2 and 3) (Hypotheses 4 and 5)
Hypothesis 4: The perceived effectiveness of autocratic leadership is lower in richer countries with
more demanding—colder—geoclimates but higher in poorer countries with more demanding
geoclimates.
Hypothesis 5: The perceived effectiveness of autocratic leadership is lower in richer countries with
more demanding—colder or hotter—bioclimates but higher in poorer countries with more
demanding bioclimates.
INTERRELATIONS AMONG EXPLANATIONS
The main explanations of the cross-national differences in autocratic leadership culture

can be further clarified using the two-by-two scheme in Table 1. As indicated, the perceived
effectiveness of autocratic leadership is neither economy driven nor climate driven if the null
hypothesis cannot be rejected, is one-sidedly economy driven if only Hypothesis 1 is sup-
ported, is one-sidedly climate driven if only Hypothesis 2 or Hypothesis 3 is supported, and
is driven by climate and wealth in concert if either Hypothesis 4 or Hypothesis 5 is sup-
ported. Irrespective of whether the hypotheses are supported or rejected, autocratic leader-
ship culture may still be driven by economic conditions other than national wealth, climatic
conditions other than thermal climate, or the country’s historical, political, institutional, and
religious context (cf., Dorfman, 1996).
METHOD
SAMPLE
The study was a secondary analysis of survey data gathered by more than 170 researchers
of Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE; for research
details, see House & Hanges, 2004). The GLOBE group gathered data in 61 cultures, repre-
senting all major regions of the world. In three multicultural countries, more than one culture
was sampled (East and West Germans, German-speaking and French-speaking Swiss, and
White and Black South Africans). Within each culture, middle managers from domestic
organizations in at least two target industries (food processing, financial services, and tele-
communications services) were sampled (N = 17,370, range = 27 to 1,790 per culture, M =
285, SD = 237). Clearly, this sample is not representative of all cultures and countries. It does
represent, however, a relevant range of variation in the environmental conditions of climate

and wealth (e.g., temperate/poor: Ecuador, Zambia; temperate/rich: New Zealand, Taiwan;
demanding/poor: Kazakhstan, Turkey; demanding/rich: Germany, Slovenia) that might
influence leadership construals and leader behavior in work settings.
MEASURES
Dependent variable: Autocratic leadership. The country-level GLOBE dimension used

was the average perceived effectiveness of autocratic leadership (reverse-scored second-
order factor of participative leadership; Dorfman et al., 2004, pp. 713-714; see also Den
Hartog et al., 1999). The measuring instrument was translated from English into the native
language of the participating managers, then translated back into English by another person,
and finally approved or corrected by two members of the GLOBE Coordinating Team. The
managers rated how important each of 10 characteristics and behaviors is for a leader to be
“exceptionally skilled at motivating, influencing, or enabling you, others, or groups to con-
tribute to the success of the organization or task.” The characteristics and behaviors pre-
sented were elitist, ruler, autocratic, dictatorial, domineering, bossy, nonegalitarian,
nondelegator, micromanager, and individually oriented (1 = greatly inhibits a person from
being an outstanding leader and 7 = contributes greatly to a person being an outstanding
leader). The aggregatability (intraclass correlation [ICC]1 = .20), internal consistency
(Cronbach’s α = .85), and interrater reliability (ICC2 = .95) of this measurement scale are
more than acceptable (Hanges & Dickson, 2004, pp. 132-137).
To assess its construct validity, this estimate of autocratic leadership was shown to have
relationships with increases in cultural power distance (r = .51, n = 52, p < .01; Hofstede,
2001, pp. 500-502) and with decreases in country-level leader reliance on subordinates as
sources of information (r = –.45, n = 39, p < .01) and as targets of delegation (r = –.48, n = 51,
p < .01; Van de Vliert & Smith, 2004). The fact that the GLOBE measure showed strong
associations with these three different manifestations of hierarchical interaction reported by
three different samples of organizational employees at three different points in time suggests
that autocratic leadership is a robust syndrome of endorsing and adopting the use of superior-
ity (elitist, ruler, nonegalitarian), power (dictatorial, domineering), orders (bossy,
nondelegator), and close supervision (micromanager, individually oriented).
Although Hanges and Dickson (2004) demonstrated that response bias plays a minor role
in the measurement of autocratic leadership, the country-level ratings may still reflect a
stronger acquiescent response bias (Smith, 2004). To eliminate such bias in scale use, I com-
puted a mean score for GLOBE’s other leadership measures—charismatic/value based,
team oriented, humane oriented, autonomous, and self-protective—and another one for
GLOBE’s nine societal cultural values scales. “There is no substantive reason why these
overall means should vary across nations. They therefore give an estimate of differences in
how rating scales are used within each national sample” (Smith et al., 2002, p. 197). The
autocratic-leadership score was regressed onto the overall means, first for the scores on the
other five leadership dimensions and then for the scores on the nine societal cultural values
scales. The resulting dependent variables were almost identical (r = .95, n = 61, p < .001) and
produced almost identical results. Results for autocratic leadership controlled for the aver-
age level of leadership are reported here because they provide the most conservative test of
the hypotheses. The standardized residuals used for autocratic leadership ranged from –1.94
in Canada and –1.85 in Austria to 1.76 in Mexico and 2.33 in Qatar (for a listing of all values,
see Table 2).

TABLE 2
Values of Autocratic Leadership, Demanding Climate,
and National Wealth for 61 Societal Cultures
b
Independent Variables
Autocratic Demanding Demanding National

a
Leadership Geoclimate Bioclimate Wealth
Albania 1.56 –0.01 1,354 1,250

Argentina –1.71 0.25 1,373 6,800
Australia –1.03 0.15 1,842 17,000
Austria –1.85 –0.32 2,531 20,200
Bolivia –0.09 –2.00 1,051 858
Brazil –1.53 0.64 549 2,680
Canada –1.94 –0.08 4,231 20,800
China 0.62 0.73 2,596 417
Colombia –0.48 –2.34 553 1,500
Costa Rica –0.52 –0.49 403 2,000
Denmark –0.78 –1.22 2,577 24,400
Ecuador –0.83 –1.12 888 1,100
Egypt 1.26 1.85 1,172 730
El Salvador –0.11 1.44 847 1,190
Finland –1.13 –1.27 3,660 26,000
France –0.22 –0.17 1,911 20,400
Georgia 0.58 0.43 1,761 4,530
Germany West –0.89 –0.27 2,632 22,300
Germany East –1.15 –0.27 2,632 22,300
Greece –1.53 0.71 1,262 8,200
Guatemala –0.39 –0.66 525 1,300
Hong Kong 1.09 0.23 696 14,600
Hungary 0.54 –0.17 2,574 5,380
India 0.67 1.74 1,141 369
Indonesia 1.22 0.34 356 680
Iran 0.33 0.97 2,355 6,150
Ireland –0.82 –1.98 1,645 12,000
Israel 0.65 0.59 1,155 12,100
Italy –0.13 –0.03 1,217 18,600
Japan 0.93 0.16 1,192 26,900
Kazakhstan 0.70 0.16 3,858 3,810
Kuwait 0.58 2.04 1,149 16,400
Malaysia 0.33 0.57 411 2,960
Mexico 1.76 –1.02 895 3,660
Morocco 1.05 1.57 1,285 1,060
Namibia –0.45 –0.27 1,050 1,300
Netherlands –0.79 –0.98 2,213 18,300
New Zealand –0.19 –1.62 955 14,900
Nigeria 0.19 0.89 505 314
Philippines –0.56 0.69 464 860
Poland 0.66 –0.76 3,116 4,400
Portugal 0.02 0.02 935 9,000
Qatar 2.33 2.01 1,087 17,000
Russia 1.73 –1.75 3,705 5,990
Singapore –0.02 0.21 327 16,500
Slovenia –0.27 0.75 2,809 12,400
South Africa White –0.82 0.42 1,139 2,960
(continued)

TABLE 2 (continued)
a
Independent Variables
Demanding Demanding National

Geoclimate Bioclimate Wealth
South Africa Black 1.09 0.42 1,139 2,960

South Korea 1.05 –0.17 2,505 6,650
Spain 0.70 –0.42 1,545 13,200
Sweden –0.30 –0.81 3,009 25,100
Switzerland French 0.33 –0.29 2,555 33,200
Switzerland German –1.41 –0.29 2,555 33,200
Taiwan 1.18 0.67 813 10,000
Thailand –0.22 1.46 707 1,940
Turkey 0.47 –0.22 2,739 3,670
United Kingdom –0.54 –1.32 1,457 16,700
United States –1.60 1.05 2,787 23,400
Venezuela 1.29 –0.57 482 3,400
Zambia 0.00 0.19 680 420
Zimbabwe –0.62 –0.41 838 640
a. Standardized residual of participative leadership reversed (Dorfman et al., 2004, pp. 713-714) controlled for
acquiescent response bias.
b. Demanding geoclimate is the average of the lowest and highest temperatures in the coldest winter month and in the
hottest summer month regressed on the standard deviation in these four temperature values, whereas demanding
bioclimate is the sum of the squared deviations from 22oC for these four temperature values (Parker, 1997, pp. 203-
226). National wealth is the gross national product per capita in U.S. dollars (Parker, 1997, pp. 45-70).
Independent variable: Demanding geoclimate. Climate is typically estimated in degrees

Celsius during a 30-year period. In countries with many major cities, multiple city averages,
weighted for population, are used (Parker, 1997, pp. 203-226). Because cold countries have
much larger seasonal variations in temperature than warmer countries (r = –.82 for all coun-
tries and r = –.78 for the sample), the average temperature and the variation in temperature
are potentially confounded variables. Geoclimate was therefore operationalized as the
midrange temperature controlled for the winter-summer variation in temperature. Specifi-
cally, I used the standardized residual of the average of the lowest and highest temperatures
in the coldest winter month and in the hottest summer month regressed on the standard devia-
tion in these four temperature values (worldwide range = –3.37 to 2.63, sample range = –2.34
to 2.04; see Table 2).
Independent variable: Demanding bioclimate. Bioclimates are more demanding to the

extent that winters are cold, that summers are hot, or both. The reference point for a temper-
ate climate, 22oC, is not only the highest world temperature in the coldest winter month (on
the Marshall Islands) and the lowest world temperature in the hottest summer month (on the
Faroe Islands; Parker, 1997), but it is also the approximate midpoint of the range of comfort-
able temperatures (cf., Parsons, 1993). It is inadequate to describe the climate-demands rela-
tion using a linear rule. The geoclimatic difference between 20oC and 15oC, for example,
produces a smaller difference in demands than does the geoclimatic difference between
–15oC and –20oC (cf., Parsons, 1993; Scholander et al., 1950). Therefore, demanding
bioclimate was operationalized as the sum of the squared deviations from 22oC for the lowest
and highest temperatures in the coldest winter month and in the hottest summer month

TABLE 3
Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations
Variable M SD 1 2 3
1. Autocratic leadership 0.00 1.00

2. National wealth 8.54 1.36 –.25*
3. Demanding geoclimate 0.00 1.00 .22 –.20
4. Demanding bioclimate 1,613 1,006 –.19 .47** –.20
NOTE: N = 61 cultures.
*p < .05. **p < .01.
(worldwide range = 146 to 5,777, M = 1,152, SD = 1,028; sample range = 327 to 4,231, M =
1,613, SD = 1,006; see Table 2).
It is important to note that the inaccurate measures of geoclimate and bioclimate in coun-
tries spanning a broad range of latitudes (e.g., Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China,
Russia, and the United States) form a statistical rather than theoretical problem. By increas-
ing the standard error of the mean and by masking regional within-country variations in cli-
mate, these measures produce conservative estimates of the impact of climate on leadership
culture.
Independent variable: National wealth. As usual, to reduce the skew of the wealth distri-
bution (worldwide range = $115 to $50,000; sample range = $314 to $33,200; Parker, 1997,
pp. 47-70; see Table 2), wealth was operationalized as the natural logarithm of the countries’
gross national product per capita in U.S. dollars (worldwide range = 4.74 to 10.82, M = 7.81,
SD = 1.48; sample range = 5.75 to 10.41, M = 8.54, SD = 1.36). In the Results section, atten-
tion will be paid to the confounding relationship between national wealth and income equal-
ity (r = .63, n = 51, p < .001).
RESULTS
Table 3 contains a listing of the means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of the
variables used. In support of Hypothesis 1, autocratic leadership was seen as somewhat less
effective in richer countries (r = –.25, p < .05). By contrast, there was no support for the
expectations in Hypotheses 2 and 3 that autocratic leadership is endorsed less in countries
with colder geoclimates (r = .22, ns) or in countries with less temperate—colder or hotter—
bioclimates (r = –.19, ns). A retest of Hypothesis 2, controlling for bioclimate, and a retest of
Hypothesis 3, controlling for geoclimate, did not change the results because geoclimate and
bioclimate are unrelated (r = –.20, ns).
To test Hypotheses 4 and 5, after standardizing the predictors, I entered geoclimate or
bioclimate, wealth, and the climate-by-wealth interaction term in a hierarchical regression
analysis. As reported in Table 4, Model 1, the geoclimate-by-wealth composite did not pre-
dict the endorsement of autocratic leadership. Thus, the joint impact of geoclimate and
wealth, as formulated in Hypothesis 4, received no support. In Model 2, a highly significant
result surfaced for the interactive effect of bioclimate and wealth on the perceived effective-
ness of autocratic leadership (∆R2 = .19, Β = –.54, p < .001). As shown in Figure 1, and in
support of Hypothesis 5, autocratic leadership was seen as less effective in richer countries
with more demanding—colder or hotter—bioclimates (simple slope r = –.54, n = 30, p <

TABLE 4
Results of Regression Analyses on Autocratic Leadership
Model 1 Model 2
Variable Initial B Final B Initial B Final B
Geoclimate .22 .19

Bioclimate .19 .03
Wealth –.22 –.23 –.21 –.33*
Geoclimate × Wealth .07
Bioclimate × Wealth –.54**
R2 .10 .26**
Adjusted R2 .05 .22**
NOTE: N = 61 cultures. Regression coefficients are unstandardized beta weights.
*p < .05. **p < .01.
3
Autocratic Leadership
Rich
-1
countries
Poor
-2 countries
-2 -1 0 1 2 3
Demanding Bioclimate
Figure 1: Autocratic Leadership as a Joint Function of Demanding Bioclimate and National Wealth
.001) but as more effective in poorer countries with more demanding bioclimates (simple
slope r = .39, n = 31, p < .05).
I conducted five supplementary analyses to check for possible hidden faults in the results.
First, relying on values of tolerance (> .10) and variance inflation factors (< 10), there was no
multicollinearity of the prediction terms. Second, relying on Cook’s distance coefficients (D
ranges from .00 to .43; MD = .02), there were no outliers either. Third, I paid attention to the
confounded nature of relative poverty and communist past. When the nine countries with a

communist past (Parker, 1997, pp. 47-70) were removed or when communist past was statis-
tically controlled for, the pattern of main and interactive effects of bioclimate and wealth did
not change.
Fourth, a series of regression analyses addressed the rival explanation that the results
were produced by a covariate of national wealth—income equality within nations (Gini
index; United Nations Development Programme, 2001, pp. 182-185). Bioclimate (∆R2 =
.03, n = 51, ns), income equality (∆R2 = .00, ns), and the bioclimate-by-equality interaction
(∆R2 = .18, p < .01) accounted for 21% of the variance in the perceived effectiveness of auto-
cratic leadership. Autocratic organizational leadership was seen as less effective in countries
with more demanding—colder or hotter—climates and more income equality (r = –.38, n =
34, p < .05) but as more effective in countries with more demanding climates and less income
equality (r = .48, n = 17, p < .05).
Further analyses using bioclimate, wealth, and income equality in the first step and the
two-way bioclimatic interaction terms in the second and third steps showed that the
bioclimate-by-wealth interaction (∆R2 = .17, p < .01) and the bioclimate-by-equality inter-
action (∆R2 = .16, p < .01) shared 11% of the variance in the endorsement of autocratic lead-
ership and had unique contributions as well (bioclimate-by-wealth ∆R2 = .06, p < .05;
bioclimate-by-equality ∆R2 = .05, p < .07). The additional interaction effects of wealth-by-
equality and climate-by-wealth-by-equality did not reach significance. These results are in
line with the theoretical point of departure that greater climatic demands matched by the
omnipresence of wealth-based climatic resources make autocratic leadership less effective,
whereas greater climatic demands unmatched by the omnipresence of wealth-based climatic
resources make autocratic leadership more effective.
Last but not least, if the bioclimate-by-wealth explanation rests on solid grounds, it
should hold especially true for the 49 societies in the northern hemisphere, which have more
demanding bioclimates than the 12 societies in the southern hemisphere (M = 1,766 vs. M =
988; SD = 1,053 vs. SD = 387). To reduce the impact of the underrepresentation of southern
hemisphere societies, each society’s contribution to the regression equation was weighted
(wnorth = 1; wsouth = 4). Together, the three predictors (bioclimate, wealth, and hemisphere), the
three two-way interactions, and the three-way interaction accounted for 36% of the country-
level variance in the perceived effectiveness of autocratic leadership. Most important, hemi-
sphere had a strong main effect (∆R2 = .15, = 0.86, p < .001) that was qualified by the three-
way interaction of bioclimate, wealth, and hemisphere (∆R2 = .05, Β = –1.00, p < .05). Visual
inspection of the plots revealed that the bioclimate-by-wealth explanation did hold espe-
cially true for the perceived effectiveness of autocratic leadership in northern hemisphere
organizations.
DISCUSSION
PRELIMINARY NOTES ON CLIMATE-LEADERSHIP LINKS
The relationship between climate and leadership culture is a neglected, controversial, and
complicated topic. Its neglect is apparent from the absence of studies of leadership and man-
agerial behavior in an interdisciplinary listing of 3,307 publications about thermal weather
effects and climatic effects on individual, social, and economic behavior (Parker, 1995). This
undoubtedly reflects the complexity of the country-level connections between climate and
cultural leadership syndromes. Climatic effects on leadership culture, if any, are long-term

effects that are difficult to trace accurately, with the consequence that unknown alternative
explanations of these effects cannot be excluded convincingly. Indeed, the observed inter-
active effect of demanding climate and national wealth on the perceived effectiveness of
autocratic leadership in no way proves that the bioclimate-by-wealth composite causes the
endorsement of autocratic leadership in organizational settings. What claims, then, can be
made on the basis of the theoretical and empirical study reported here?
CONCLUDING CLAIMS OR FOLLOWING QUESTIONS?
My first claim is that the country-level endorsement and adoption of autocratic leadership
in organizations does not happen by chance. The systematic and robust nature of differences
in power distance (Hofstede, 2001; House et al., 2004), aversion to participative and
delegative leadership (Van de Vliert & Smith, 2004), and importance of autocratic leadership
skills (this study) leads me to believe that there must be a reason for this pattern of findings.
Indeed, it is implausible that autocratic leadership in organizations has a kind of ecological
niche in richer countries with less demanding bioclimates (e.g., Hong Kong and Qatar) and
in poorer countries with more demanding bioclimates (e.g., Georgia and Poland) for no
reason other than sheer coincidence.
My second claim is that to avoid tautological reasoning, meaningful relations between
national culture and organizational leadership culture (e.g., Brodbeck et al., 2000; Dorfman
et al., 2004; House et al., 1999; House et al., 2004; Schmidt & Yeh, 1992; Shaw, 1990; Wong
& Birnbaum-More, 1994) should be used to describe rather than explain cross-national dif-
ferences in organizational leadership (cf., Hofstede, 2001, p. 388). The paragraph on the
construct validity of the dependent variable showed that cultural power distance correctly
predicts the appreciation of autocratic leadership, but predicted variance is not the same as
explained variance. Correctly predicted variance provides a framework for characterizing
observations, such as culture-leadership links; only theory supplies the explanation of the
observations (Van de Vliert, 1997, pp. 19-23; Whetten, 1989). As a consequence, instead of
answering a question, the second claim prompts a further question: What theory can explain
the pattern of characterizations of autocratic leadership in terms of bioclimate and wealth?
My third claim is that if bioclimate and socioeconomic development do drive cross-
national differences in the endorsement of autocratic leadership in organizations, they do so
in concert. This interaction effect rejects simplistic explanations of the unfolding world map
of leadership in terms of climate (Hofstede, 2001; Van de Vliert & Van Yperen, 1996), socio-
economic development from agrarian to industrial societies (Nolan & Lenski, 1999), or
socioeconomic regression through communist rule (this study). Instead, the results of the
study just reported seem to support Montesquieu’s (1748) in hindsight visionary model of
how atmospheric climate and national wealth interact to influence human functioning.
My fourth claim is that the climate-by-wealth composite is a viable predictor of organiza-
tional differences in the perceived effectiveness of autocratic leadership around the globe
only if the predictions are based on each country’s deviation from a comfortable temperature
level—bioclimatic cold or heat—and not on each country’s mean temperature level—
geoclimate. The importance of this conclusion should not be underestimated as bioclimate
and geoclimate are potentially confounded variables. Given that the bioclimatic deviations
in winter and summer are larger in countries with colder geoclimates, it is surprising that no
prior study has ever modeled and analyzed bioclimate and geoclimate in parallel (for
research overviews, see Gupta & Hanges, 2004; Parker, 1995, 2000).

My final claim is that mismatches of bioclimatic demands and climatic resources

(demanding/poor) are positively linked to the endorsement of self-centered autocratic lead-
ership, whereas matches of bioclimatic demands and climatic resources (demanding/rich)
have negative links. These findings, represented in Figure 1, seem to fit in with the accumu-
lating evidence that bioclimate and wealth operate as double-edged swords. To date, the
“egoistic” impact of bioclimate-wealth mismatches and the “altruistic” impact of
bioclimate-wealth matches have been demonstrated for participative leadership (Van de
Vliert & Smith, 2004), delegative leadership (Van de Vliert & Smith, 2004), motives for vol-
unteer work (Van de Vliert, Huang, & Levine, 2004), and competitiveness versus altruism
(Van de Vliert, Huang, & Parker, 2004, Study 2). Although the current study in no way dem-
onstrates that climate and wealth drive autocratic leadership culture, this expanding set of
internally consistent observations makes it less self-evident to continue to interpret the find-
ings in terms of climatic covariation rather than climatic causation. Do descriptive and pre-
dictive matches of bioclimatic demands and climatic resources have explanatory power after
all?
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
This investigation was not without inherent strengths and weaknesses as a result of the
methods employed. The strength of contrasting cultural explanation and explanation of cul-
ture came with the weakness of leaving multiple historical, political, institutional, and reli-
gious explanations of autocratic leadership culture out of consideration. The strength of a
large sample of 61 cultures came with the weakness of a conveniently available sample,
offering no conclusive evidence for cross-national generalization. The strength of distin-
guishing between geoclimate and bioclimate was connected with the weakness of leaving
equally basic parameters, such as air movement and humidity, out of consideration. Finally,
the strength of modeling winter and summer temperature extremes came with the weakness
of a restriction of range on the hot side. The winter and summer proportions of the
bioclimatic predictor used show that harsh winters have an overall weight of .68, whereas
harsh summers have an overall weight of .32; this deserves further attention.
IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
The wealth-dependent distribution of autocratic leadership construals over the cold, tem-
perate, and hot zones of the earth, together with similar work on sociopsychological func-
tioning (Van de Vliert, Huang, & Levine, 2004; Van de Vliert, Huang, & Parker, 2004; Van
de Vliert & Smith, 2004), points to the viability of bioclimatic theories on global variation in
human behavior. Although the bioclimatic leadership theory in question is descriptive and
predictive rather than explanatory, colleagues with an ecological orientation will no doubt
read it as providing
a superior strategy for understanding the behavior of individuals and the evolution of cultural
forms because it adopts an etic, scientific approach with a solid starting point in invariant laws of
nature and the relationship among nature, human subsistence techniques, and the adaptation of
societal and psychological characteristics to these exigencies. (Gabrenya, 1999, pp. 339-340)
If the bioclimatic leadership theory survives further replication studies, it will provide a
set of new insights with important theoretical and practical implications. Scholars are chal-

lenged to upgrade the bioclimatic propositions from a descriptive and predictive theory to an
explanatory theory, to investigate whether changes in national wealth produce changes in
leadership culture, to contextualize lower level theories of leadership construals and leader
behavior, and to investigate the generalizability of the leadership theory to a larger set of
management practices. International human resource managers and interventionists can no
longer take it for granted that autocratic and democratic leadership approaches are equally
malleable in any direction anywhere. Instead, organization experts might have to come to
grips with different climate-by-wealth niches of leadership culture around the globe.
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Evert Van de Vliert is a professor of organizational and applied social psychology at the University of
Groningen in the Netherlands. He has published more than 200 articles in Academy of Management Jour-
nal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, and so forth. In 2005, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Associa-
tion for Conflict Management.


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