Leadership by virtue: Different views on leadership

There are probably more studies, articles and books on “how to lead a team and building a team” than you can ever read. Therefore, I’m not going to or daring to repeat the same matters. But I would rather post a challenge - “Have you ever been a part of an international /inter-cultural team”?

If yes, what kind of experience did you get? Where there any obstacles to leadership, any misunderstanding because of different perceptions of team members coming from different cultural background? Well, I had had such an opportunity to work in and lead a multicultural environment.

In this post I would like to show and compare western approaches to team leading with eastern ones. They are so different in styles and philosophies that it is interesting to demonstrate and to share them with you.

West mostly always describes “five/seven/ten… keys to leading a team”. You are probably very much accustomed with them and have read about those as well as other instructions dealing with leading, team and expected characteristics of a leader. Most of the time authors offer some of the great (repeated) suggestions and topics shown below which are then further appropriately elaborated into strong rooted believes of properness:

Keep things in perspective / define the purpose of the team;
Establish team objectives / focus on results and productivity;
Keep the team focused / align people with the stuff they are good at or passionate about;
Get the right people on-and-off the bus / demonstrate your commitment;
Be a team player or allow others to shine / a leader must mobilize team members;
Leading by example means following rules / leader cannot exempt himself from the rules;
Leaders people will follow are accountable and trustworthy / leaders of teams take the responsibility;
Characteristics of a successful leadership is to trust your people -- and let them know it;
Don’t provide all the answers -- make your employees think;
etc.