Week 5: Employee Behavior and Leadership

1. Explain how an understanding of key cross-cultural issues is important in providing

employee motivation and leadership. 

Understanding cross-cultural issues is important to leaders for providing employee

motivation because you will not be managing robots. People come from a multitude of
cultures with different backgrounds and it’s essential to know the customs and mores
surrounding them. Not knowing cross-cultural differences could cause issues and affect
how you engage with someone. Employees with different personality and behaviors, due
to their difference in backgrounds, may require using different approaches for setting
goals and motivational tactics. They may also have different expectations and perceive
situations differently and as leader, you must understand these to direct subordinates
toward their objectives.

2. Give examples of how different leadership styles may be necessary depending on the
specific situation (e.g., nature of the workforce, needs of the market).

The ever-changing work environment will require leadership to adjust its specific style of motivating
employees to achieve goals. Each situation may require a different approach depending on the situation.
Using the path-goal theory of leadership, leadership would identify and reinforce specific behaviors that
will align with the situation. They may use a directive, supportive, participative, or achievement-oriented
behavior reinforcements. A directive approach would entail providing guidance, setting expectations,
and schedules. A supportive approach aims to harmonize the group setting and flattening the chain of
command to provide a safe atmosphere for everyone to voice their opinions. A participative approach is
much like supportive; however, it gives members of the group the opportunity to contribute to deciding
outcomes. An achievement-oriented approach stresses the importance of attaining goals and operating
at a higher level of competitiveness. It’s up to the leader to understand the problem, the personalities
their employees, the organizational climate, process and decide the best strategy to take, decide and
follow up with it. Implementing a specific leadership style with one employee may work, however, it
may not with someone else. People respond differently depending on the situation and leaders must be
cognizant with their environment. Say for instance the company had a major accident with it’s shipping
of widgets to a customer that has been a loyal customer for years. To keep that healthy business
relationship, the leader uses the directive and achievement-oriented approach to motivate everyone to
produce another truckload of widgets for the customer. However, if the market for widgets have been
declining over the past few quarters, leadership may use the supportive and participative approach to
come up with a new modification for the widget to breath life back into its marketability.