Singh, Smita, and Xiuxi, Sophia Zhao (2023) Asian leadership: foundations, diversity and challenges. In: Ng, Eddy S., Ramsay, Jonathan E., Thirumaran, K., and Wood, Jacob, (eds.) Elgar Companion to Managing People Across the Asia-Pacific - An Organizational Psychology Approach. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, Cheltenham, United Kingdom, pp. 112-130. (In Press)

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Abstract

[Extract] Leadership is fundamental to organisational development and growth. It creates a vision and a benchmark and sets goals that influence and guide performances from the top to the bottom level (Anderson, 2006; Chemers, 2001; Hollander, 1985). A review of the leadership literature highlights the fact that most studies have long argued for leadership to be a universal phenomenon (Garfield et al., 2020; Larsson & Vinberg, 2010; Singh, 2020). Western models have dominated advances in the field. Most of these models consider leadership to be universal and prescriptive, where a leader is seen to have common traits and abilities, with qualities that do not interact with the respective cultures (Sanchez-Runde et al., 2011). Western models of traits (e.g., person-centred studies; Judge et al., 2004) and behavioural approaches (e.g., initiating structures and consideration behaviour of a leader based on Ohio state studies; Stogill & Coons, 1957) have been a lens to identify and study leaders all over the world. For example, Sinha’s (1980) model of the Nurturant-Task Leader developed in the Indian context is rooted in the two-factor leadership model of the task and relationship-oriented leader. Developments in cross-cultural leadership research and management practices have highlighted the importance of local or culturally specific models. For example, Singh and Krishnan (2005) developed a measure of the Indian transformational leadership scale, but they still fall short in linking local leader attributes to global leader competencies.

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