Is leadership theory blocking diversity?

This is a thought that came to me when I was working on an essay for the advanced leadership module of the part-time exec MBA course I did in 2020 (yes, I know, not perhaps the most sensible choice during a pandemic!).

Leadership theory is one of those areas of management practice where there has been an exponential growth in books filling shelves and pages on Amazon but the theory hasn't really moved forward that much.

For my essay I was looking at leadership in a company that had brought together American and Chinese business cultures and was looking to the future in the 'living with covid' era and the global instability of fluctuating markets driven by conflict and global warming. As part of my research I started to explore leadership theory through the prism of culture and ethnicity and started to look for non-Western leadership theories which led me to explore Confucian leadership theory.

Confucian leadership theory is really interesting and applies Confucian philosophy in a tiered way to leadership, starting from a baseline of benevolence and rising to a layered series of behaviours ranging from humility to fidelity. But I won't go off on a tangent, but do check it out...

So what this made me wonder was how much MBA and leadership training really acknowledges non US/European leadership theories in their approaches and whether this contributes to the landscape of structural discrimination in leadership.

Although there are variations on the theme many of the theories pivot from the four main eras of leadership theory:

Trait theories - Great Man theory (1840s) and trait theories (1930s–1940s) - in essence these focus on what kind of person makes a good leader and assumes these traits are innate from birth rather than learnt. Great Man theory was originated by the Scottish Thomas Carlyle and although his work reflected on non-European leadership it was from the perspective of the UK and not informed by any significant travel or understanding of different cultures. Trait theory was primarily driven by American academics such as Gordon Allport who spent most of their career in the USA or Northern Europe.

Behavioural theories from the 1940s–1950s - in essence what does a good leader do, do they control and dictate or do they collaborate. This was advocated by academics such as Kurt Lewin and Icek Ajzen who bridged the emerging bodies of northern european psychology and leadership theory.

Situational theories - Contingent and Situational theories (1960s) - in essence how the situation affect the way a leader leads. These theories came from work from US and Canadian university academics across universities by academics such as Fred Fiedler, Gareth Morgan and William Richard Scott. Much of this research was done on students or local businesses in predominantly white populations, creating an inherent cultural bias.

New leadership era - Transactional and Transformational theories (1990s/2000s) - these focus on power and influence with an emphasis on the leaders ability to create visions that empower and enable change. Once again these leadership theories are generated by American and European academics based in the context of native businesses, such as James MacGregor Burns. 

Although these theories are often applied by students to multi-national companies and in the context of non-European/American companies there seems to be very little discourse exploring their inherent cultural bias. Almost all of the studies they are based on come from US/European companies and the study of predominantly white anglo-centric leadership, leading to a specific paradigm of leadership.

Geert Hofstede's work on cross-cultural leadership remains the core text for exploring leadership beyond a White Euro/Americo-centric paradigm. Their cultural dimensions theory developed from research into IBM global workforce in the 1960-70s created a suite of cultural dimensions that have underpinned global leadership practice for much of the last 50 years. Yet it remains relatively isolated in terms of a truly global reflection on leadership in different cultures and any attempt to recognise that 'Westernised' leadership constructs are not universal. What limited research (Okozi et al 2009) has been done demonstrates there are differences in leadership between ethnic groups but these are framed in the context of these foundational leadership principles, potentially missing or mis-interpreting the difference. This suggests that there is both inherent bias in leadership theory and a systematic avoidance to explore alternative cultural models of leadership in theory and practice. Shifting academic and practice based on decades of 'received wisdom' is not easy, but it is worth exploring and exposing as a potential 'flat earth' thinking.

The majority of research in the predominant leadership theories has been done on American and European businesses and from the perspective of academics within these diaspora. Yet the research rarely reflects any ethnographic reflection of this bias and the unique position of Western White power dynamics within the business world. Whilst this is a reflection of academic privilege over the last century it is also not something that should be ignored or assumed is transferable across cultures.

One could suggest that this in itself is a reflection of assumptions of dominance in the business world. Despite decades of diversity leadership lists and programmes to support diversity in leadership the overall diversity in the FTSE 500 remains stubbornly white, able-bodies, heterosexual and male. 

It also made me pause and wonder why in the vast majority of films or fiction books about business the established leadership and power base is white heterosexual able-bodied cis-gendered men and the aspiring upstart is almost always a woman or a black man, this culturally reinforces successful business as being associated with white leadership. Rarely to we ever see disabled people or LGBT people in positions of power in fiction unless playing the villain. These are fiction but they underpin a narrative and social landscape that embeds in use a series of assumptions about what a good leader is.

So where does this lead us? 

Firstly it should prompt critical reflection on leadership theory from the perspective of the research base and the anthropological landscape in which the theory was formed. As students, and as leaders, we should be active in our questioning the dominance of these theories and explore alternative models from different cultural perspectives.

Secondly it should call to action researchers to do more to understand leadership in the context of different cultures and actively explore, develop and apply non-Westernised leadership models in research. One of the reasons for the dominance of models is their repeated application, disrupting this repetition by introducing alternative leadership paradigms from different ethnic and cultural diaspora will open up new ways of considering leadership practice.

Finally this is just a prompt to consciously think about the issue, in writing this I hope to stimulate discussion, challenge and debate and through this perhaps stimulate some to view the world with more compassion and consideration. 

My reflection has lead me to the conclusion that our current paradigms of leadership theory are inherently creating barriers to diversity and this is part of a structural discrimination landscape that holds back some individuals from their potential. 

Now the questions is what to do about it....