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Is Leadership Style Different in Singapore and Asia?

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Asian and Western Leaders

As a leadership consultant and executive coach living in Singapore and working across Asia, I am often asked; “is there is a difference between Western and Asian Leaders?”

The answer is “yes” and “no”. Leaders worldwide need to ask the same questions:

  • Where are we going?
  • What is our strategy? (how do we get there?)
  • How do we execute?
  • Is our team ready? (learning and development)
  • Do we have enough bench strength for growth and sustainability (succession planning)

In addition leaders must be able to engender trust and effectively communicate their messages.

The difference between East and West is a matter of focus and style. In the Asian managers and companies tend to focus on execution, whereas in the West, creativity and innovation are more valued. In the East there is emphasis internally on command/control, the ‘how’ the do things, whereas Western companies tend to look externally at their customers and clients.

Asian employees are more likely to do what is asked whereas western employees are more likely to be free agents and independent thinkers .

Of course these observations are all generalisations but I think the key take-away is that both styles have merit and if we can appreciate and take the best of both we can be better leaders.

A lot of my work in the last couple of years has been equipping leaders with an understanding of different cultures. Western managers in Asia have needed to learn how to get the best from their employees and up and coming Asian leaders have needed to learn how to communicate in a style that is valued in Western companies.

There is currently an imbalance, more Westerners are heading up operations in Asia than there are Asian heading up operations in the West; it will be interesting to see if this tips in the next few years. What do you think?

Leadership Development in Singapore
Executive Coaching in Singapore

The post Is Leadership Style Different in Singapore and Asia? appeared first on Self Leadership blog.


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