Leadership and Cross Culture Management - Article Example

Leadership and Cross Culture Management Leadership Leadership is the ability to bring about fundamental changes in the work procedure and also in the minds of the people. It influences the people in the work place to achieve desired goals of an organisation. It can determine the failure and success of the organisation. Leading is an activity of human beings and few persons are there who are expert in leadership. The leader of an overseas company must develop specialised skills and abilities to manage and influence the employees and workers of the foreign nation to set certain goals. Global managers develop flexible ways of view about the world and guide to develop overseas behaviour and national boundaries. They developed several qualities of leadership to cope up with the changing working environment of foreign countries (Regent University, 2011). Honda, the largest Japanese based manufacturers of two wheelers has been a successful name in the global automobile industry. Due to their leadership ability they are so successful across the globe. The subsidiary of Honda Motor in India is named Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India Ltd (HMSI). It came to India in 1999. They believe in teamwork and excellent leadership aspects are the reasons of their success. Though they are globally successful for their products and services but the management of HMSI are not at all concerned regarding the workers and other employees of the organisation. They are found to be ill treating and misbehaving with the workers. They are continuously harassing and embarrassing many of the working personnel in the organisation. Towards the female employees their behaviour is not healthy. A few female employees left their jobs due to intolerable behaviour from the Vice President of the company. HMSI managers are using negative leadership qualities just to embarrass the employees instead motivating and influencing them in their work (Labour File, n.d.). The higher managerial personnel of HMSI should develop the qualitative behaviour and good etiquette while treating both male and female workers. This will help them to be a leader in the global environment. The all kinds of interpersonal, informational and decisional roles can be developed by the managers of HMSI to motivate and influence the employees and workers of the organisation. As a leader they can create good working relationship with the people because human resources are the assets of the organisation. The leadership qualities should be utilised for superior purpose of the employees rather to destroy it for the sake of misguiding the employees. As the culture of India and Japan vary considerably, the managers must develop and understand the different aspects that may be the cause of rising conflicts in the organisation. They can utilise different leadership techniques to guide the workers and find out the reason for their grievances. The success of the organisation depends on the efficient leaders present in the organisation. The organisations are hiring staffs with leadership qualities and facilitate several techniques that can build leaders or can generate leadership qualities among the managers within the organisation. This is true that most of the leaders are born with certain leadership qualities but that can also be developed in an individual’s behaviour in due course of time. Without leadership qualities an organisation cannot run smoothly. It can be said that successful leaders might be good managers and vice-e-versa (Lussier & Achua, 2009). Cross Culture Management Cross cultural management means interaction of different people from diverse nation relating to various issues of international business and to manage them effectively. The success of the international business depends on how smoothly the interaction of employees goes on while dealing business issues from diverse cultural backgrounds and nations. There are several differences in the working culture of different nations. Due to variation in organisational culture, diverse problems may arise in the working environment related to languages, activities, laws and habits among others (Tjosvold & Leung, 2003). The multinational companies can make mistakes while managing cross cultural issues of the foreign employees. They are not aware of certain business markets and situations of the overseas nations as a result cross cultural problems arise in the organisations. In 1999, Honda Motor Company Ltd was established in India. They have done ample mistakes while managing human resource in the organisation especially with the workers. These may result in various cross cultural issues of people-management in the organisation. There is a vast difference between the working culture of India and Japan. Therefore, both male and female employees while working in the Japanese based company faced certain unwanted problems and harassment in the workplace which cause severe conflicts. The company failed to establish and implement the effective strategy of human resource management. Due to certain unhealthy situations in the working environment the workers formed a union which the management later failed to split due to their unity. As a result, it led to severe clashes between the police and the workers. The management was incapable of managing any HR issues that led to build up strong union among workers and that further resulted in long strike. All these have affected the production targets causing the financial loss of the company. The top managers are not conversant with the local language of the workers and failed to understand their conversation (Harvard Business Review, 2011). Learning foreign languages or foreign culture has become helpful to exist in the global organisations. Prior to establishing a unit in India, HMSI should have been well acquainted with the culture and the business market. The expatriate managers should be placed in the foreign countries who can handle the operations smoothly. Before taking any HR strategy, the cultural aspects of the particular nation must be taken into consideration. For becoming successful to deal with a variety of people, the managers of HMSI need to develop the cultural differences present in different countries. Thus, the culture and the traditions of an organisation can be understood from the attitudes, beliefs, values, decision making, managerial style and problem solving behaviour. The company while sending its employees to the other nations from their home country provide all the training to the employees. The different issues of culture assist the organisations to maintain certain rules, norms of the workplace in relation to the people working out there. To work in the overseas nations, the manager must adopt the entire cultural facet to become successful in the international organisation. References Harvard Business Review, (2011). People Management Fiasco in Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India Ltd. Turn Strategy into Performance. Retrieved Online on January 24, 2011 from http://hbr.org/product/people-management-fiasco-in-honda-motorcycles-and-/an/HKU624-PDF-ENG Labour File, (No Date). Background to the Incident on July 25, 2005. Lathicharge on the HMSI Workers on July 25, 2005 in Gurgaon. Retrieved Online on January 24, 2011 from http://www.labourfile.org/superAdmin/Document/80/Fact%20Finding%20Report-Final.pdf Lussier, N. R. & Achua, F. C., (2009). Leadership: Theory, Application & Skill Development. Cengage Learning. Regent University, (2011). An Integration of Leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies. Retrieved Online on January 24, 2011 from http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol1iss2/winston_patterson.doc/winston_patterson.htm Tjosvold, D. & Leung, K., (2003). Cross-Cultural Management: Foundations and Future. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Read More