Cultural Mythology and Global Leadership | Date: 28 April 2011, 08:27
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Cultural Mythology and Global Leadership
By Eric H. Kessler, Diana J. Wong-mingji
* Publisher: Edward Elgar Pub
* Number Of Pages: 390
* Publication Date: 2009-05
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 1847204031
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9781847204035
Product Description:
`This fascinating collection of local mythology shows how widely leadership models differ across nations, and how deeply these differences are rooted. True global leadership is based on empathy with local variety.'
- Geert Hofstede, Maastricht University, The Netherlands, author of Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations
`I have yet to come across a more captivating study of global leadership patterns. The reader is taken into largely unchartered territory linking globalisation, culture and leadership. Delving deep into folklore, mythology and spirituality we begin to understand how these are manifested in human behaviour and are exhibited in leadership styles. A must-read!'
- S. Ramadorai, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
`Essential reading for all practitioners and researchers who seek to gain greater insights on cultural differences and leadership competencies.'
- Rosalie Tung, Simon Frasier University, Past President, Academy of Management and author of 11 books including Learning from World Class Companies
This ground-breaking book explains how deep-seated cultural mythologies shape contemporary global leaders and provides insights into navigating the dynamics and complexities in today's era of globalization. The authors use myths to uncover core characteristics and values from 20 different cultural contexts spanning all major regions of the world - the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and Asia and the Pacific Rim - that have evolved over generations and continue to shape global leadership models. Commentaries are included from practicing managers and leaders to provide real world insights on the implications of the ideas discussed. International managers and executives, public officials, business consultants and corporate trainers will welcome the insights on cross-cultural leadership styles. The book will also find interest from researchers and students across a broad array of professional and social science disciplines.
Summary: How do myths and heroes create cultural values?
Rating: 3
My mouth watered when first I saw the publication of this title, as it promised a next step in the exploration of cultural phenomena from within a culture's view and vision of itself. It has been my perception that the intercultural field has suffered from a plethora of models and mental paradigms that impose alien structures on the cultures to be studied and understood, and that the next task facing us is to see how different cultures define themselves and how they tend to look upon and evaluate others from their own cultural perspective.
Myths are an important part of the construction of a culture. Their telling creates, reflects and confirms, as well as continually adapts the values of a culture to the moment in which they are being retold. One might call them the constructive-instructive tools of culture. They are too often left behind in the research, analysis and codification of what we call intercultural knowledge.
This book brings together twenty studies that attempt to relate the myths of the country or region to the indigenous concept of leadership and its development in contemporary theory and practice. The framework of each study is identical, i.e., first, an exposition of the cultural myths or larger-than-life stories that speak of each people and of their leaders. The mythic characters may be anything from gods who shaped the universe as seen by a specific culture to real characters that shaped its history and have achieved mythic proportions in the cultural memory.
Secondly, there is an overview of how leadership is perceived in each culture. This generally takes the form of seeing how some of the values in the mythology may be reflected or used in current leadership thinking or in the behaviors of select leaders in politics and commerce.
There follows a look at the global and practical implications of leadership philosophy and practice within the culture. These are illustrated by one or more "commentary boxes" offering quotations from noted leaders. Each chapter is abundantly footnoted and referenced citing everyone from Aristotle to Ziber. The contributors to this book are by-and-large business and management scholars who see the relevance of both ethnic and organizational culture to their work rather than interculturalists, though they have some familiarity with theories of Hofstede and Trompenaars and occasionally cite where these theories break-down.
That being said, there is great diversity in the approaches taken by the various authors to the selection of the mythological content and to their perceptions and recommendations for contemporary leadership. Some authors underline characteristics (and failings) in terms of mythical prototypes while others use these as a jumping off point to suggest or recommend the relevance and applicability of current management theory to the development of today's leaders.
While the mythological summaries are of varying quality and depth, it was interesting to read these summaries in the context of leadership and the various opinions of how the myths were relevant to flesh and blood leaders of our times. On the other hand, the book as a whole tends to suffer from having an "undistributed middle," that is, there is in most cases a lack of concrete evidence that the heroes of mythology provide models or types for the leaders of today. Rather, from an intercultural perspective, one is forced to ask more complex questions that seem beyond the perspective or at least the task of the various contributors, e.g., chicken-and-egg questions:
* How do myths and heroes create cultural values? vs How do cultures create and continue to shape their mythologies?
* To what degree is a leader (or anyone else for that matter) shaped by the heroes and myths in his or her cultural ambience? vs How do we make choices about our heroes in order to further the values we have chosen for ourselves or our group?
* How much is hero identification, where it exists, a matter of intrinsic instinct and calling? vs How much conscious choice and reshaping occurs when leaders are chosen for their political or commercial value?
Case in point. I was stunned that the editors, who are authors of the first chapter on the USA), chose "superheroes" as the mythic typology for understanding US leadership. There were were two cohorts of superheroes cited, those created around the startup World War II (1938-42), e.g., Superman and Wonder Woman, and those surrounding the height of the Cold War confrontations (early 1960's), e.g., Incredible Hulk and the X-Men. I found no significant mention of the socio-cultural context of their genesis.
While the authors of this chapter do offer a table of advice about leadership behaviors taken from the strengths and weakness of each superhero, and, while archetypal US heroism may be reflected in these individualistic, usually loner-saviors of comic book and silver screen, they are not per se our prototypes, at least once we have outgrown our Halloween costumes. These are actually found in the frontier mentality and continue to be reflected in the Hollywood heroes and political posturing ad nauseam. The theme repeats itself beginning with the cowboy who drives the bad guys from town to the sci-fi world saviors, and currently, in videogames where the players can themselves play the role of the superheroes.
While in many cases the mythology cited has archetypal religious roots religion is taken most seriously by the authors of the section on India. Surprisingly, though the author's of the US cha
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