BGA | BUSINESS IMPACT
Finding a practical way forward Results that link ancient practices to present-day leadership styles are fascinating. Yet, some readers might rightly ask: “Do I need to become an anthropologist to understand how to manage cross-culturally?”
yield achieved as a result of these new agricultural techniques, meanwhile, often allowed a handful of individuals to control a large portion of economic resources, promoting the emergence of wealthier and more powerful elites. These powerful individuals could
eventually stabilise their ruling position and possibly shape
or “why should managers and policymakers care about the historical origins of cross-cultural differences in leadership ideals?” The practical application of these results has less to do with agriculture per se and relates more to the idea that cultural leadership ideals might be remarkably stable in time and space. This has important implications, for instance, for expatriate managers, who must learn how to lead in a different culture and may struggle to adjust to local expectations, even after a long time. These results might also have repercussions on companies. The
followers' preferences for, and perceptions of, leadership. Therefore, pre-industrial agricultural intensification probably
caused shifts in the types of leaders that emerged in the most intensively cultivated areas. I believe that this process contributed to
generating persistent changes in the leadership ideals typical of different societies, which were then transmitted over time from parents to children. Following a recent stream of research in economics, psychology and evolutionarily informed social sciences, my article investigates how these ancient factors might still influence present-day leadership ideals and organisational structures. I do not
“Understanding where leadership ideals come from and how persistent they are might help change them for good”
forces of globalisation and information technology are strong, yet they might not be strong enough to cause a ‘homogenisation’ of leadership ideals among multicultural workforces any time soon. Finally, these results could also be relevant for policymakers, because understanding the temporal persistence
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rely on traditional historical methods to study this question, but on quantitative data and statistical methods. Specifically, I use a dataset that matches current countries and regions to their ‘most likely pre-industrial ancestors’, quantifying the intensity of the agricultural practices of the past with ethnographic data. Then, I link this country-level information with data retrieved from the GLOBE project, finding a relationship between the agricultural intensity of the past and contemporary
of leadership ideals means being able to better predict whether such cultural preferences might be changed, how, and how long it might take to do so. The applications can be numerous. Think, for instance, about a key topic: leadership and gender. Women in high-ranking positions of power – be it in business or politics – are becoming more and more numerous but, unfortunately, they remain a minority. These gender differences are more marked in some countries than others and this is, in part, because of deep-rooted cultural leadership ideals that do not favour female leadership. Understanding where these leadership ideals come from and how persistent they are might help policymakers to change them for good, promoting women’s equal participation in the job market and their emergence as leaders. We should, however, be cautious in applying the findings of my study to real-world leadership practices as there are a number of caveats. The results are not based on individual-level data, but rather on country- or region-level data. The data, therefore, does not reveal the mental or social processes involved with the formation, transmission and possible change of leadership ideals. In addition, implying that leadership ideals are persistent does not mean that they are completely fixed or unmodifiable. To this extent, major changes in one’s environment might very well generate tremendous pressure for a change in cultural leadership ideals.
participative leadership ideals. Further building on this idea, I then show that traditional agricultural practices (as well as the geoclimatic conditions that predict which subsistence mode was likely to emerge in each country or subnational region) also predict whether companies’ headquarters delegate more decisions to local plant managers.
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