Assignment: Leadership Styles You should choose a leader to interview. The leader can be a friend, coworker, supervisor, family member who holds a type of leadership position. In your interview you should learn from the leader his/her thoughts managing subordinates, motivating subordinates and making decisions that impact other members of the group and/or organization. In your paper, you need to: Identify who you interviewed (i.e., name, position held, organization in which s/he is employed). Write a short paper (2 double-spaced pages) in which you identify the leadership style(s) exhibited and use the information from your conversation with the leader to support why you are identifying particular style(s). Remember, these concepts have overlap. A leader and demonstrate multiple leadership types and does not have to be just one type. Your written assignment is intended to test your understanding of important concepts and discover how to sharpen your intellectual skills of analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and application. The intent of the written assignment is to provide an opportunity to more fully describe, explain, and analyze the books and other sources. When you submit your written assignment, you may want to submit it as a .doc file attachment, as these usually retain your formatting. There is an implicit understanding that you will scrupulously observe practices consistent with academic integrity by documenting sources you refer to in your assignments with APA in-text citations and reference pages. Any information taken from the books -- statistics, ideas, opinions of the author, information about events of which you have no personal knowledge -- must be documented. Sources must be cited regardless of whether the material is quoted directly (word for word) or rewritten in your own words. Take the time to visit and bookmark for future reference at least one of these locations for details on how to cite a variety of hard copy and online sources: APA Style Resources. Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT Discovering Your Authentic Leadership by Bill George, Peter Sims, Andrew N. McLean, and Diana Mayer FROM THE FEBRUARY 2007 ISSUE D uring the past 50 years, leadership scholars have conducted more than 1,000 studies in an attempt to determine the denitive styles, characteristics, or personality traits of great leaders. None of these studies has produced a clear prole of the ideal leader. Thank goodness. If scholars had produced a cookie-cutter leadership style, individuals would be forever trying to imitate it. They would make themselves into personae, not people, and others would see through them immediately. No one can be authentic by trying to imitate someone else. You can learn from others' experiences, but there is no way you can be successful when you are trying to be like them. People trust you when you are genuine and authentic, not a replica of someone else. Amgen CEO and president Kevin Sharer, who gained priceless experience working as Jack Welch's assistant in the 1980s, saw the downside of GE's cult of personality in those days. \"Everyone wanted to be like Jack,\" he explains. \"Leadership has many voices. You need to be who you are, not try to emulate somebody else.\" https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 1 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM Over the past ve years, people have developed a deep distrust of leaders. It is increasingly evident that we need a new kind of business leader in the twenty-rst century. In 2003, Bill George's book, Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value, challenged a new generation to lead authentically. Authentic leaders demonstrate a passion for their purpose, practice their values consistently, and lead with their hearts as well as their heads. They establish long-term, meaningful relationships and have the self-discipline to get results. They know who they are. Many readers of Authentic Leadership, including several CEOs, indicated that they had a tremendous desire to become authentic leaders and wanted to know how. As a result, our research team set out to answer the question, \"How can people become and remain authentic leaders?\" We interviewed 125 leaders to learn how they developed their leadership abilities. These interviews constitute the largest in-depth study of leadership development ever undertaken. Our interviewees discussed openly and honestly how they realized their potential and candidly shared their life stories, personal struggles, failures, and triumphs. The people we talked with ranged in age from 23 to 93, with no fewer than 15 per decade. They were chosen based on their reputations for authenticity and eectiveness as leaders, as well as our personal knowledge of them. We also solicited recommendations from other leaders and academics. The resulting group includes women and men from a diverse array of racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds and nationalities. Half of them are CEOs, and the other half comprises a range of prot and nonprot leaders, midcareer leaders, and young leaders just starting on their journeys. After interviewing these individuals, we believe we understand why more than 1,000 studies have not produced a prole of an ideal leader. Analyzing 3,000 pages of transcripts, our team was startled to see that these people did not identify any universal characteristics, https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 2 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM traits, skills, or styles that led to their success. Rather, their leadership emerged from their life stories. Consciously and subconsciously, they were constantly testing themselves through real-world experiences and reframing their life stories to understand who they were at their core. In doing so, they discovered the purpose of their leadership and learned that being authentic made them more eective. Analyzing 3,000 pages of transcripts, our team was startled to see you do not have to be born with specic characteristics or traits of a leader. Leadership emerges from your life story. These ndings are extremely encouraging: You do not have to be born with specic characteristics or traits of a leader. You do not have to wait for a tap on the shoulder. You do not have to be at the top of your organization. Instead, you can discover your potential right now. As one of our interviewees, Young & Rubicam chairman and CEO Ann Fudge, said, \"All of us have the spark of leadership in us, whether it is in business, in government, or as a nonprot volunteer. The challenge is to understand ourselves well enough to discover where we can use our leadership gifts to serve others.\" Discovering your authentic leadership requires a commitment to developing yourself. Like musicians and athletes, you must devote yourself to a lifetime of realizing your potential. Most people Kroger CEO David Dillon has seen become good leaders were self-taught. Dillon said, \"The advice I give to individuals in our company is not to expect the company to hand you a development plan. You need to take responsibility for developing yourself.\" https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 3 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM In the following pages, we draw upon lessons from our interviews to describe how people become authentic leaders. First and most important, they frame their life stories in ways that allow them to see themselves not as passive observers of their lives but rather as individuals who can develop self-awareness from their experiences. Authentic leaders act on that awareness by practicing their values and principles, sometimes at substantial risk to themselves. They are careful to balance their motivations so that they are driven by these inner values as much as by a desire for external rewards or recognition. Authentic leaders also keep a strong support team around them, ensuring that they live integrated, grounded lives. Learning from Your Life Story The journey to authentic leadership begins with understanding the story of your life. Your life story provides the context for your experiences, and through it, you can nd the inspiration to make an impact in the world. As the novelist John Barth once wrote, \"The story of your life is not your life. It is your story.\" In other words, it is your personal narrative that matters, not the mere facts of your life. Your life narrative is like a permanent recording playing in your head. Over and over, you replay the events and personal interactions that are important to your life, attempting to make sense of them to nd your place in the world. While the life stories of authentic leaders cover the full spectrum of experiencesincluding the positive impact of parents, athletic coaches, teachers, and mentorsmany leaders reported that their motivation came from a dicult experience in their lives. They described the transformative eects of the loss of a job; personal illness; the untimely death of a close friend or relative; and feelings of being excluded, discriminated against, and rejected by peers. Rather than seeing themselves as victims, though, authentic leaders used these formative experiences to give meaning to their lives. They reframed these events to rise above their challenges and to discover their passion to lead. https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 4 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM Let's focus now on one leader in particular, Novartis chairman and CEO Daniel Vasella, whose life story was one of the most dicult of all the people we interviewed. He emerged from extreme challenges in his youth to reach the pinnacle of the global pharmaceutical industry, a trajectory that illustrates the trials many leaders have to go through on their journeys to authentic leadership. Vasella was born in 1953 to a modest family in Fribourg, Switzerland. His early years were lled with medical problems that stoked his passion to become a physician. His rst recollections were of a hospital where he was admitted at age four when he suered from food poisoning. Falling ill with asthma at age ve, he was sent alone to the mountains of eastern Switzerland for two summers. He found the four-month separations from his parents especially dicult because his caretaker had an alcohol problem and was unresponsive to his needs. At age eight, Vasella had tuberculosis, followed by meningitis, and was sent to a sanatorium for a year. Lonely and homesick, he suered a great deal that year, as his parents rarely visited him. He still remembers the pain and fear when the nurses held him down during the lumbar punctures so that he would not move. One day, a new physician arrived and took time to explain each step of the procedure. Vasella asked the doctor if he could hold a nurse's hand rather than being held down. \"The amazing thing is that this time the procedure didn't hurt,\" Vasella recalls. \"Afterward, the doctor asked me, 'How was that?' I reached up and gave him a big hug. These human gestures of forgiveness, caring, and compassion made a deep impression on me and on the kind of person I wanted to become.\" Throughout his early years, Vasella's life continued to be unsettled. When he was ten, his 18-year-old sister passed away after suering from cancer for two years. Three years later, his father died in surgery. To support the family, his mother went to work in a distant town https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 5 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM and came home only once every three weeks. Left to himself, he and his friends held beer parties and got into frequent ghts. This lasted for three years until he met his rst girlfriend, whose aection changed his life. At 20, Vasella entered medical school, later graduating with honors. During medical school, he sought out psychotherapy so he could come to terms with his early experiences and not feel like a victim. Through analysis, he reframed his life story and realized that he wanted to help a wider range of people than he could as an individual practitioner. Upon completion of his residency, he applied to become chief physician at the University of Zurich; however, the search committee considered him too young for the position. Disappointed but not surprised, Vasella decided to use his abilities to increase his impact on medicine. At that time, he had a growing fascination with nance and business. He talked with the head of the pharmaceutical division of Sandoz, who oered him the opportunity to join the company's U.S. aliate. In his ve years in the United States, Vasella ourished in the stimulating environment, rst as a sales representative and later as a product manager, and advanced rapidly through the Sandoz marketing organization. When Sandoz merged with Ciba-Geigy in 1996, Vasella was named CEO of the combined companies, now called Novartis, despite his young age and limited experience. Once in the CEO's role, Vasella blossomed as a leader. He envisioned the opportunity to build a great global health care company that could help people through lifesaving new drugs, such as Gleevec, which has proved to be highly eective for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia. Drawing on the physician role models of his youth, he built an entirely new Novartis culture centered on compassion, competence, and competition. These moves established Novartis as a giant in the industry and Vasella as a compassionate leader. https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 6 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM Vasella's experience is just one of dozens provided by authentic leaders who traced their inspiration directly from their life stories. Asked what empowered them to lead, these leaders consistently replied that they found their strength through transformative experiences. Those experiences enabled them to understand the deeper purpose of their leadership. Knowing Your Authentic Self When the 75 members of Stanford Graduate School of Business's Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was nearly unanimous: self-awareness. Yet many leaders, especially those early in their careers, are trying so hard to establish themselves in the world that they leave little time for selfexploration. They strive to achieve success in tangible ways that are recognized in the external worldmoney, fame, power, status, or a rising stock price. Often their drive enables them to be professionally successful for a while, but they are unable to sustain that success. As they age, they may nd something is missing in their lives and realize they are holding back from being the person they want to be. Knowing their authentic selves requires the courage and honesty to open up and examine their experiences. As they do so, leaders become more humane and willing to be vulnerable. When the 75 members of Stanford Graduate School of Business's Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was nearly unanimous: selfawareness. https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 7 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM Of all the leaders we interviewed, David Pottruck, former CEO of Charles Schwab, had one of the most persistent journeys to self-awareness. An all-league football player in high school, Pottruck became MVP of his college team at the University of Pennsylvania. After completing his MBA at Wharton and a stint with Citigroup, he joined Charles Schwab as head of marketing, moving from New York to San Francisco. An extremely hard worker, Pottruck could not understand why his new colleagues resented the long hours he put in and his aggressiveness in pushing for results. \"I thought my accomplishments would speak for themselves,\" he said. \"It never occurred to me that my level of energy would intimidate and oend other people, because in my mind I was trying to help the company.\" Pottruck was shocked when his boss told him, \"Dave, your colleagues do not trust you.\" As he recalled, \"That feedback was like a dagger to my heart. I was in denial, as I didn't see myself as others saw me. I became a lightning rod for friction, but I had no idea how selfserving I looked to other people. Still, somewhere in my inner core the feedback resonated as true.\" Pottruck realized that he could not succeed unless he identied and overcame his blind spots. Denial can be the greatest hurdle that leaders face in becoming self-aware. They all have egos that need to be stroked, insecurities that need to be smoothed, fears that need to be allayed. Authentic leaders realize that they have to be willing to listen to feedback especially the kind they don't want to hear. It was only after his second divorce that Pottruck nally was able to acknowledge that he still had large blind spots: \"After my second marriage fell apart, I thought I had a wife-selection problem.\" Then he worked with a counselor who delivered some hard truths: \"The good news is you do not have a wife-selection problem; the bad news is you have a husband-behavior problem.\" Pottruck then made a determined eort to change. As he described it, \"I was like a guy who has had three heart attacks and nally realizes he has to quit smoking and lose some weight.\" https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 8 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM Denial can be the greatest hurdle that leaders face in becoming self-aware. These days Pottruck is happily remarried and listens carefully when his wife oers constructive feedback. He acknowledges that he falls back on his old habits at times, particularly in high stress situations, but now he has developed ways of coping with stress. \"I have had enough success in life to have that foundation of self-respect, so I can take the criticism and not deny it. I have nally learned to tolerate my failures and disappointments and not beat myself up.\" Your Development as an Authentic Leader As you read this article, think about the basis for your leadership development and the path you need to follow to become an authentic leader. Then ask yourself these questions: 1. Which people and experiences in your early life had the greatest impact on you? Practicing Your Values and Principles The values that form the basis for authentic leadership are derived from your beliefs and convictions, but you will not know what your true values are until they are tested under pressure. It is relatively easy to list your values and to live by them when things are going well. When your success, your career, or 2. What tools do you use to become selfaware? What is your authentic self? What are the moments when you say to yourself, this is the real me? even your life hangs in the balance, you learn what is most important, what you are prepared to sacrice, and what trade-os you are willing to make. 3. What are your most deeply held values? Where did they come from? Have your values changed signicantly since your childhood? How do your values inform your actions? Leadership principles are values translated into action. Having a solid base of values and testing them under re enables you to https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 9 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 4. What motivates you extrinsically? What are your intrinsic motivations? How do you balance extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in your life? 3/20/15, 2:46 AM develop the principles you will use in leading. For example, a value such as \"concern for others\" might be translated into a leadership principle such as \"create a work environment 5. What kind of support team do you have? How can your support team make you a more authentic leader? How should you diversify your team to broaden your perspective? 6. Is your life integrated? Are you able to be the same person in all aspects of your life personal, work, family, and community? If not, what is holding you back? 7. What does being authentic mean in your life? Are you more effective as a leader when you behave authentically? Have you ever paid a price for your authenticity as a leader? Was it worth it? where people are respected for their contributions, provided job security, and allowed to fulll their potential.\" Consider Jon Huntsman, the founder and chairman of Huntsman Corporation. His moral values were deeply challenged when he worked for the Nixon administration in 1972, shortly before Watergate. After a brief stint in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), he took a job under H.R. Haldeman, President Nixon's powerful chief 8. What steps can you take today, tomorrow, and over the next year to develop your authentic leadership? of sta. Huntsman said he found the experience of taking orders from Haldeman \"very mixed. I wasn't geared to take orders, irrespective of whether they were ethically or morally right.\" He explained, \"We had a few clashes, as plenty of things that Haldeman wanted to do were questionable. An amoral atmosphere permeated the White House.\" One day, Haldeman directed Huntsman to help him entrap a California congressman who had been opposing a White House initiative. The congressman was part owner of a plant that reportedly employed undocumented workers. To gather information to embarrass the https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 10 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM congressman, Haldeman told Huntsman to get the plant manager of a company Huntsman owned to place some undocumented workers at the congressman's plant in an undercover operation. \"There are times when we react too quickly and fail to realize immediately what is right and wrong,\" Huntsman recalled. \"This was one of those times when I didn't think it through. I knew instinctively it was wrong, but it took a few minutes for the notion to percolate. After 15 minutes, my inner moral compass made itself noticed and enabled me to recognize this wasn't the right thing to do. Values that had accompanied me since childhood kicked in. Halfway through my conversation with our plant manager, I said to him, 'Let's not do this. I don't want to play this game. Forget that I called.'\" Huntsman told Haldeman that he would not use his employees in this way. \"Here I was saying no to the second most powerful person in the country. He didn't appreciate responses like that, as he viewed them as signs of disloyalty. I might as well have been saying farewell. So be it. I left within the next six months.\" Balancing Your Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivations Because authentic leaders need to sustain high levels of motivation and keep their lives in balance, it is critically important for them to understand what drives them. There are two types of motivationsextrinsic and intrinsic. Although they are reluctant to admit it, many leaders are propelled to achieve by measuring their success against the outside world's parameters. They enjoy the recognition and status that come with promotions and nancial rewards. Intrinsic motivations, on the other hand, are derived from their sense of the meaning of their life. They are closely linked to one's life story and the way one frames it. Examples include personal growth, helping other people develop, taking on social causes, and making a dierence in the world. The key is to nd a balance between your desires for external validation and the intrinsic motivations that provide fulllment in your work. https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 11 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM Many interviewees advised aspiring leaders to be wary of getting caught up in social, peer, or parental expectations. Debra Dunn, who has worked in Silicon Valley for decades as a Hewlett-Packard executive, acknowledged the constant pressures from external sources: \"The path of accumulating material possessions is clearly laid out. You know how to measure it. If you don't pursue that path, people wonder what is wrong with you. The only way to avoid getting caught up in materialism is to understand where you nd happiness and fulllment.\" Moving away from the external validation of personal achievement is not always easy. Achievement-oriented leaders grow so accustomed to successive accomplishments throughout their early years that it takes courage to pursue their intrinsic motivations. But at some point, most leaders recognize that they need to address more dicult questions in order to pursue truly meaningful success. McKinsey's Alice Woodwark, who at 29 has already achieved notable success, reected: \"My version of achievement was pretty naive, born of things I learned early in life about praise and being valued. But if you're just chasing the rabbit around the course, you're not running toward anything meaningful.\" Intrinsic motivations are congruent with your values and are more fullling than extrinsic motivations. John Thain, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, said, \"I am motivated by doing a really good job at whatever I am doing, but I prefer to multiply my impact on society through a group of people.\" Or as Ann Moore, chairman and CEO of Time, put it, \"I came here 25 years ago solely because I loved magazines and the publishing world.\" Moore had a dozen job oers after business school but took the lowest-paying one with Time because of her passion for publishing. Building Your Support Team https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 12 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM Leaders cannot succeed on their own; even the most outwardly condent executives need support and advice. Without strong relationships to provide perspective, it is very easy to lose your way. Authentic leaders build extraordinary support teams to help them stay on course. Those teams counsel them in times of uncertainty, help them in times of diculty, and celebrate with them in times of success. After their hardest days, leaders nd comfort in being with people on whom they can rely so they can be open and vulnerable. During the low points, they cherish the friends who appreciate them for who they are, not what they are. Authentic leaders nd that their support teams provide armation, advice, perspective, and calls for course corrections when needed. How do you go about building your support team? Most authentic leaders have a multifaceted support structure that includes their spouses or signicant others, families, mentors, close friends, and colleagues. They build their networks over time, as the experiences, shared histories, and openness with people close to them create the trust and condence they need in times of trial and uncertainty. Leaders must give as much to their supporters as they get from them so that mutually benecial relationships can develop. It starts with having at least one person in your life with whom you can be completely yourself, warts and all, and still be accepted unconditionally. Often that person is the only one who can tell you the honest truth. Most leaders have their closest relationships with their spouses, although some develop these bonds with another family member, a close friend, or a trusted mentor. When leaders can rely on unconditional support, they are more likely to accept themselves for who they really are. https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 13 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM Many relationships grow over time through an expression of shared values and a common purpose. Randy Komisar of venture capital rm Kleiner Perkins Caueld & Byers said his marriage to Hewlett-Packard's Debra Dunn is lasting because it is rooted in similar values. \"Debra and I are very independent but extremely harmonious in terms of our personal aspirations, values, and principles. We have a strong resonance around questions like, 'What is your legacy in this world?' It is important to be in sync about what we do with our lives.\" Many leaders have had a mentor who changed their lives. The best mentoring interactions spark mutual learning, exploration of similar values, and shared enjoyment. If people are only looking for a leg up from their mentors, instead of being interested in their mentors' lives as well, the relationships will not last for long. It is the two-way nature of the connection that sustains it. Personal and professional support groups can take many forms. Piper Jaray's Tad Piper is a member of an Alcoholics Anonymous group. He noted, \"These are not CEOs. They are just a group of nice, hard-working people who are trying to stay sober, lead good lives, and work with each other about being open, honest, and vulnerable. We reinforce each other's behavior by talking about our chemical dependency in a disciplined way as we go through the 12 steps. I feel blessed to be surrounded by people who are thinking about those kinds of issues and actually doing something, not just talking about them.\" Bill George's experiences echo Piper's: In 1974, he joined a men's group that formed after a weekend retreat. More than 30 years later, the group is still meeting every Wednesday morning. After an opening period of catching up on each other's lives and dealing with any particular diculty someone may be facing, one of the group's eight members leads a discussion on a topic he has selected. These discussions are open, probing, and often profound. The key to their success is that people say what they really believe without fear of judgment, criticism, or reprisal. All the members consider the group to be one of the most https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 14 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM important aspects of their lives, enabling them to clarify their beliefs, values, and understanding of vital issues, as well as serving as a source of honest feedback when they need it most. Integrating Your Life by Staying Grounded Integrating their lives is one of the greatest challenges leaders face. To lead a balanced life, you need to bring together all of its constituent elementswork, family, community, and friendsso that you can be the same person in each environment. Think of your life as a house, with a bedroom for your personal life, a study for your professional life, a family room for your family, and a living room to share with your friends. Can you knock down the walls between these rooms and be the same person in each of them? Think of your life as a house. Can you knock down the walls between the rooms and be the same person in each of them? As John Donahoe, president of eBay Marketplaces and former worldwide managing director of Bain, stressed, being authentic means maintaining a sense of self no matter where you are. He warned, \"The world can shape you if you let it. To have a sense of yourself as you live, you must make conscious choices. Sometimes the choices are really hard, and you make a lot of mistakes.\" Authentic leaders have a steady and condent presence. They do not show up as one person one day and another person the next. Integration takes discipline, particularly during stressful times when it is easy to become reactive and slip back into bad habits. Donahoe feels strongly that integrating his life has enabled him to become a more eective leader. \"There is no nirvana,\" he said. \"The struggle is constant, as the trade-os don't get any https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 15 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM easier as you get older.\" But for authentic leaders, personal and professional lives are not a zero-sum game. As Donahoe said, \"I have no doubt today that my children have made me a far more eective leader in the workplace. Having a strong personal life has made the dierence.\" Leading is high-stress work. There is no way to avoid stress when you are responsible for people, organizations, outcomes, and managing the constant uncertainties of the environment. The higher you go, the greater your freedom to control your destiny but also the higher the degree of stress. The question is not whether you can avoid stress but how you can control it to maintain your own sense of equilibrium. Authentic leaders are constantly aware of the importance of staying grounded. Besides spending time with their families and close friends, authentic leaders get physical exercise, engage in spiritual practices, do community service, and return to the places where they grew up. All are essential to their eectiveness as leaders, enabling them to sustain their authenticity. Empowering People to Lead Now that we have discussed the process of discovering your authentic leadership, let's look at how authentic leaders empower people in their organizations to achieve superior longterm results, which is the bottom line for all leaders. Authentic leaders recognize that leadership is not about their success or about getting loyal subordinates to follow them. They know the key to a successful organization is having empowered leaders at all levels, including those who have no direct reports. They not only inspire those around them, they empower those individuals to step up and lead. A reputation for building relationships and empowering people was instrumental in https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 16 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM chairman and CEO Anne Mulcahy's stunning turnaround of Xerox. When Mulcahy was asked to take the company's reins from her failed predecessor, Xerox had $18 billion in debt, and all credit lines were exhausted. With the share price in free fall, morale was at an alltime low. To make matters worse, the SEC was investigating the company's revenue recognition practices. Mulcahy's appointment came as a surprise to everyoneincluding Mulcahy herself. A Xerox veteran, she had worked in eld sales and on the corporate sta for 25 years, but not in nance, R&D, or manufacturing. How could Mulcahy cope with this crisis when she had had no nancial experience? She brought to the CEO role the relationships she had built over 25 years, an impeccable understanding of the organization, and, above all, her credibility as an authentic leader. She bled for Xerox, and everyone knew it. Because of that, they were willing to go the extra mile for her. After her appointment, Mulcahy met personally with the company's top 100 executives to ask them if they would stay with the company despite the challenges ahead. \"I knew there were people who weren't supportive of me,\" she said. \"So I confronted a couple of them and said, 'This is about the company.'\" The rst two people Mulcahy talked with, both of whom ran big operating units, decided to leave, but the remaining 98 committed to stay. Throughout the crisis, people in Xerox were empowered by Mulcahy to step up and lead in order to restore the company to its former greatness. In the end, her leadership enabled Xerox to avoid bankruptcy as she paid back $10 billion in debt and restored revenue growth and protability with a combination of cost savings and innovative new products. The stock price tripled as a result. https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 17 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM Like Mulcahy, all leaders have to deliver bottom-line results. By creating a virtuous circle in which the results reinforce the eectiveness of their leadership, authentic leaders are able to sustain those results through good times and bad. Their success enables them to attract talented people and align employees' activities with shared goals, as they empower others on their team to lead by taking on greater challenges. Indeed, superior results over a sustained period of time is the ultimate mark of an authentic leader. It may be possible to drive short-term outcomes without being authentic, but authentic leadership is the only way we know to create sustainable long-term results. Superior results over a sustained period of time is the ultimate mark of an authentic leader. For authentic leaders, there are special rewards. No individual achievement can equal the pleasure of leading a group of people to achieve a worthy goal. When you cross the nish line together, all the pain and suering you may have experienced quickly vanishes. It is replaced by a deep inner satisfaction that you have empowered others and thus made the world a better place. That's the challenge and the fulllment of authentic leadership. Bill George is professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and former chair and CEO of Medtronic. https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 18 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM Peter Sims is a management writer and entrepreneur. He is the author of Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries and co-author, with Bill George, of True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership. He is also the founder of the BLKSHP. Andrew N. McLean is a research associate at Harvard Business School. Diana Mayer is a former Citigroup executive in New York. This article was adapted from True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership by Bill George with Peter Sims (Jossey-Bass, forthcoming in March 2007). This article is about LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT FOLLOW THIS TOPIC Related Topics: INFORMAL LEADERSHIP | LEADERSHIP | EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE Comments Leave a Comment POST 2 COMMENTS Maurizio MAFFEI 3 months ago remarkable article. thank you mr. Goleman for the hint that brought me here. https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 19 of 20 Discovering Your Authentic Leadership - HBR 3/20/15, 2:46 AM 00 REPLY JOIN THE CONVERSATION POSTING GUIDELINES We hope the conversations that take place on HBR.org will be energetic, constructive, and thought-provoking. To comment, readers must sign in or register. And to ensure the quality of the discussion, our moderating team will review all comments and may edit them for clarity, length, and relevance. Comments that are overly promotional, mean-spirited, or off-topic may be deleted per the moderators' judgment. All postings become the property of Harvard Business Publishing. https://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership Page 20 of 20 Springer 2011 Journal of Business Ethics (2011) 101:435-457 DOI 10.1007/s10551-010-0730-8 What Ethical Leadership Means to Me: Asian, American, and European Perspectives ABSTRACT. Despite the increasingly multinational nature of the workplace, there have been few studies of the convergence and divergence in beliefs about ethicsbased leadership across cultures. This study examines the meaning of ethical and unethical leadership held by managers in six societies with the goal of identifying areas of convergence and divergence across cultures. More specifically, qualitative research methods were used to identify the attributes and behaviors that managers from the People's Republic of China (the PRC), Hong Kong, the Republic of China (Taiwan), the United States (the U.S.), Ireland, and Germany attribute to ethical and unethical leaders. Across societies, six ethical leadership themes and six unethical leadership themes emerged from a thematic analysis of the open-ended responses. Dominant themes for ethical and unethical leadership for each society are identified and examined within the context of the core cultural values and practices of that society. Implications for theory, research, and management practice are discussed. KEY WORDS: cross-cultural leadership, ethical leadership, ethics, leadership, unethical leadership Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. -Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (350 BCE) Lead them with virtue and regulate them by the rules of propriety, and they will have a sense of shame and, moreover, set themselves right. -Confucius (551-479 BCE) Christian J. Resick Gillian S. Martin Mary A. Keating Marcus W. Dickson Ho Kwong Kwan Chunyan Peng Corporate scandals worldwide have raised awareness of and attention to ethical issues in business leadership. At the same time, the ethical issues that leaders confront frequently span two or more cultural boundaries (Carroll, 2004). As a result, business leadership is increasingly facing the challenges of leading ethically across cultures (Resick et al., 2006). Societal cultures inuence beliefs about leadership (see House et al., 2004; Lord et al., 2001) and understanding these differences is critical to leading effectively across cultures (Dickson et al., 2003). Equally, societal cultures inuence sensitivities to ethical issues (Jackson, 2001). Yet, despite the increasingly multinational nature of the workplace, there have been few studies of the cross-cultural differences in the ethics of leadership. In the context of globalization and ethics, the purpose of the current study is twofold. First, we seek to identify the meaning of ethical and unethical leadership held by managers in societies across Asia, North America, and Western Europe. Second, we seek to identify areas of convergence and divergence in beliefs about ethical and unethical leadership across these societies. This research is conducted using qualitative methods; managers from six societies were asked to describe, in their own words and in their own language, the leader actions and attributes they associate with ethical and unethical leadership. The sampled societies include the People's Republic of China (the PRC), Hong Kong, the Republic of China (Taiwan), the United States (the U.S.), Ireland, and Germany. We selected these six 436 Christian J. Resick et al. societies for two reasons. First, each society included in this study is a signicant center of commerce, both regionally and globally. For example, Hong Kong and Ireland ranked second and third among all countries, respectively, in Ernst and Young's 2009 Globalization Index report, and the remaining societies ranked within the top 40 (Ernst and Young, 2010). Of more importance, strong ties exist between the business communities of these societies. For example, the PRC has become the world's largest recipient of foreign direct investment (Peng, 2006), with the U.S. as the third largest investor (Editorial Board of the China Commerce Yearbook, 2009). The U.S. invests a similar amount in the PRC as in the European Union (Frey, 2005). Similarly, the amount of German direct investment in the PRC has reached e1 billion (Frey, 2005). The PRC is now Ireland's largest trading partner in Asia, with trade volumes reaching e6.6 billion in 2008. In the same year, exports from Ireland to the PRC amounted to e2.3 billion. There is also a long history of business relationships between Ireland, Germany, and the United States (Keating et al., 2004). For example, the U.S. is Ireland's second most important international trading partner (behind the UK) while Germany is Ireland's fourth most important trading partner (Auswaertiges Amt, 2009). Given this web of relationships, understanding the meaning of ethical or unethical leadership among managers in these societies is critical for effective cross-border cooperation. Further, due in part, to historical and political reasons, the PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan each constitute a unique environment for conducting business, although they share a broader Chinese culture. For example, Taiwan and Hong Kong are developed economies that emphasize the service industry sector, whereas the PRC is a developing economy with a strong focus on the manufacturing industry sector. The PRC has also experienced unprecedented levels of economic growth during the past two and a half decades (Fu et al., 2007). Compared to Taiwan and the PRC, Hong Kong, as a former British colony, has been exposed to Western culture to a greater extent through the educational system and by serving as a center of Western commerce in Asia. Even after Hong Kong's return to the PRC in 1997, British culture continues to have a strong inuence on management practices in Hong Kong. Leadership, ethics, and societal culture Ethical leadership The importance of ethical or moral leadership for effective leadership has been discussed for centuries (see Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999). Perspectives on the meaning of ethical leadership have emphasized leader character, integrity, ethical awareness, a collective orientation which promotes team or organizational interests over self-serving interests, demonstration of civility and consideration for the rights and needs of others, and management of accountability (Brown and Trevino, 2006; Brown et al., 2005; Fluker, 2002; Gini, 1997; Gottlieb and Sanzgiri, 1996; Kanungo and Mendonca, 1996). Presenting a social learning perspective, Brown et al. (2005) dened ethical leadership as the ''demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision-making'' (p. 120). In essence, ethical leadership addresses how leaders use their social power (De Hoogh and Den Hartog, 2008; Resick et al., 2006) by being both moral individuals and moral managers (Brown and Trevino, 2006; Trevino et al., 2003). In recent years, a number of empirical studies have found that ethical leadership has positive implications for both employees and organizations. For example, ethical leadership has been found to be related to employees' willingness to report problems (Brown et al., 2005), lower levels of unethical behavior among work units (Mayer et al., 2010), and higher levels of citizenship and lower levels of work unit deviance (Mayer et al., 2009). High levels of ethical leadership have also been associated with psychological safety and voice behavior (Walumbwa and Schaubroeck, 2009), intrinsic motivation (Piccolo et al., 2010), and trust, commitment, and organizational optimism (De Hoogh and Den Hartog, 2008). While much leadership theory and research has been conceptualized from Western perspectives, ethical leadership is also integral to Chinese societies (Pellegrini and Scandura, 2008) and has long been studied by scholars under the umbrella of paternalistic leadership (Cheng et al., 2000; Farh and Cheng, 2000). In Chinese societies, ethical leadership is rooted in Confucian philosophy (Cheng et al., 2000) Ethical Leadership which emphasizes that leaders are role models whose actions will be emulated by subordinates. Furthermore, in the PRC, ethics are used to regulate leader behavior as laws and regulations are not as extensively developed as in many other societies (Fu et al., 2007). Ethical leadership has also been found to be related to trust and satisfaction with leaders, team commitment, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship (see Pellegrini and Scandura, 2008). Clearly, ethical leadership is important within both Western and Eastern societies. However, there have been few attempts to clarify the actions and attributes that dene what it means to lead ethically across cultures. This is, in all likelihood, due to the particular conceptual challenges of studying ethical issues across cultures (Guirdham, 2005). While on the one hand, research shows that views about the ethical appropriateness of activities such as whistle-blowing tend to differ across cultures, other factors such as integrity would appear to be universally supported ethical standards (Schneider and Barsoux, 2003). However, Audi and Murphy (2006) have argued that the meaning of integrity may, in fact, be culturally bound. Given the practical and theoretical importance of these ethical issues, there have been several recent calls for a better understanding of the universally supported and culturally specic expectations for behavioral ethics and ethical leadership (e.g., Brown and Trevino, 2006; Trevino et al., 2006). Several studies have provided empirical evidence suggesting that there is both convergence and divergence in the meaning and importance of ethical leadership across cultures. In a series of studies, Resick et al. (2006, 2009a) used data from the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness study (Project GLOBE; House et al., 2004) to examine the endorsement of ethical leadership across cultures. Characteristics of ethical leaders such as integrity, altruism, empowerment, and collective motivation were found to be universally viewed as facilitators of effective leadership across cultures, although the degree of emphasis varied signicantly (Resick et al., 2006). In a followup study, the endorsement of ethical leadership was found to vary systematically with societal characteristics such as institutional collectivism values and levels of corruption (Resick et al., 2009a). In addition, some evidence also suggests that ethical 437 leadership may hold different meanings in different cultures (e.g., Keating et al., 2007; Martin et al., 2009). However, while providing some initial insights into beliefs about ethical leadership across specic cultural boundaries, these studies were based on a positivist approach using a pre-determined list of leadership factors. To gain a more complete and differentiated perspective on beliefs about ethical leadership across and within cultures, a qualitative approach which does not restrict responses to a pre-dened list of attributes is adopted in the current study. Leadership across cultures Societal culture is a core social contextual characteristic that creates expectations of acceptable or unacceptable behavior in a given situation (Heine et al., 2002; Hofstede, 1980; House et al., 2004) and places constraints on the types of leader behaviors and characteristics that are endorsed within a particular culture (Lord et al., 2001). Cross-cultural leadership research has found that, while some aspects of leadership are universally endorsed, many leadership practices and expectations vary systematically and considerably across societal cultures (see Den Hartog et al. 1999; Dickson et al., 2003; Gerstner and Day, 1994). As societal cultures create expectations for both leadership and ethical behavior, we expect there to be some degree of convergence and divergence in the meaning of ethical and unethical leadership across cultures. Based on the ndings from Project GLOBE, we briey review the core cultural values and practices that have been found to characterize each of the six societies included in the current study and also examine the core leadership styles that have been endorsed as facilitating effective leadership in these societies. The nine culture dimensions examined by GLOBE researchers, together with a summary definition of each dimension, are provided in Table I. On the basis of managers' responses across a range of societal culture values and practices, GLOBE researchers grouped together societies with similar cultural characteristics into 1 of 10 culture clusters (see Gupta and Hanges, 2004) and explored the dominant leadership preferences within those clusters. The PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong were 438 Christian J. Resick et al. TABLE I GLOBE culture dimensions and denitions Dimension Power distance Uncertainty avoidance Humane orientation Institutional collectivism In-group collectivism Assertiveness Gender egalitarianism Future orientation Performance orientation Denition The degree to which members of a society expect power to be distributed equally The extent to which a society relies on social norms, rules and procedures to alleviate unpredictability of future events The degree to which a society encourages and rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring and kind to others The degree to which societal institutional practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action The degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty and cohesiveness in their families The degree to which individuals are assertive, dominant and demanding in their relationships with others The degree to which a society minimizes gender inequality The extent to which a society encourages future-orientated behaviors such as delaying gratication, planning and investing in the future The degree to which a society encourages and rewards group members for performance improvement and excellence Source: House et al. (2004). grouped in a Confucian Asia culture cluster that also includes Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. GLOBE researchers assigned Ireland and the U.S. to an Anglo culture cluster also containing Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, and White South Africa (see Ashkanasy et al., 2002; Gupta and Hanges, 2004), thus conrming previous crosscultural research (Ronen and Shenkar, 1985). Germany, both the former West and former East, forms part of the Germanic Europe cluster alongside countries such as Austria, the Netherlands, and German-speaking Switzerland. Below, we briey describe the GLOBE cluster and country results. Confucian Asian Cluster Compared with other clusters, Confucian Asia has high scores for In-Group Collectivism, Institutional Collectivism and Performance Orientation, and middle scores on the other six dimensions for cultural practices (see Gupta and Hanges, 2004). Importantly, there is also within-cluster variation in terms of positioning on a number of the cultural dimensions and in the endorsement of particular leadership styles. The PRC In the PRC, managers endorsed charismatic/valuesbased, team-oriented, and humane-oriented leadership (Fu et al., 2007; Javidan et al., 2006), which is consistent with the Chinese emphasis on cultural dimensions such as In-Group Collectivism, Institutional Collectivism, Power Distance, and Humane Orientation. In the PRC, there is an emphasis on building interpersonal ties. A preference exists for leaders to use indirect communication to avoid damaging group harmony, to maintain positive relationships, and to be viewed as a supporter of their employees (Fu et al., 2007; Javidan et al., 2006). Conversely, leaders who focus on their own interests and damage group harmony are viewed less favorably. Hong Kong Compared to the PRC and Taiwan, Hong Kong had lower scores for In-Group Collectivism, Institutional Collectivism, Power Distance, Humane Orientation and higher scores for Assertiveness and Gender Egalitarianism for cultural practices. This may be a consequence of the prolonged Western inuence in Ethical Leadership Hong Kong (Chow, 2007). Similarly, in Hong Kong, people tend to appreciate assertiveness in social relationships, while also emphasizing harmony, face saving, and avoiding confrontation (Chow, 2007). Similar to the PRC, GLOBE researchers found that managers from Hong Kong endorsed charismatic/ values-based, team-oriented, and humane leadership styles and that self-protective leaders were perceived as less effective (Chow, 2007). However, because of the strong beliefs about assertiveness, autonomous and autocratic leadership styles were also endorsed by managers from Hong Kong. Leaders in Hong Kong are expected to solve problems by themselves without asking for help from others. Republic of China (Taiwan) Taiwan shares a similar cultural prole with the PRC and Hong Kong on a number of culture dimensions (House et al., 2004). As Taiwan has long established business relationships with Western countries, the inuence of traditional Chinese values is weaker than in the PRC. On the other hand, Taiwan has not been exposed to Western culture as much as Hong Kong because of the latter's long history as a British colony. This may explain why Taiwan has comparatively lower scores for the cultural practices for Collectivism and Humane Orientation than the PRC and lower scores for Assertiveness and Gender Egalitarianism than Hong Kong (House et al., 2004). Consistent with the proles of the PRC and Hong Kong, Taiwanese managers endorsed charismatic/values-based, team-oriented, and humane-oriented leadership. However, compared with Hong Kong, integrity and face saving leadership attributes were viewed by Taiwanese managers as more important than autonomous and autocratic leadership attributes (Chow, 2007). Anglo Cluster According to ndings from Project GLOBE (see Gupta and Hanges, 2004), countries belonging to the Anglo cluster emphasize performance, are future-oriented and individualistic in their orientation. Levels of Power Distance and Gender Inequality are comparatively high in terms of societal practices, although managers in these societies espouse a preference for lower Power Distance and greater Gender Egalitarianism, alongside greater InGroup Collectivism. 439 The U.S. U.S. is one of the highest ranked nations on Assertiveness and Performance Orientation and is at the middle level on the remaining other culture dimensions for practices (Javidan et al., 2004). These results differ substantially from other cross-cultural research on Individualism-Collectivism, which has typically found the U.S. to be among the most individualistic of cultures (e.g., Hofstede, 1980). American beliefs about leadership were found to emphasize charismatic, participative, team-oriented, and humane orientation attributes (Hoppe and Bhagat, 2007). Charismatic/transformational theories of leadership have largely originated with American scholars (e.g., Bass, 1985; Bass and Avolio, 1993; Burns, 1978; House, 1977; Sashkin, 1988) and have been broadly accepted in best-selling leadership writings by American authors as the ''right'' way to lead (e.g., Kouzes and Posner, 2007). These theories build on individual leader charisma and a humane/ paternalistic approach to working with subordinates, along with a strong emphasis on enhancing performance (Bass, 1985). Ireland Compared to the U.S., Ireland's cultural practices scores for In-Group Collectivism and Humane Orientation are markedly higher, while levels of Assertiveness are lower. Irish beliefs about leadership were found to be characterized by a strong charismatic, team-oriented approach coupled with a participative and humane orientation (see Keating and Martin, 2007). Irish societal culture is high on Humane Orientation and relatively non-assertive (Keating and Martin, 2007) with Irish leaders espousing a preference for indirect and non-confrontational communication and social competence. The importance of social competence is underpinned by strong collectivism, which creates high expectations of team integration and participation in decision making among followers. Moderate levels of Uncertainty Avoidance practices and values mean operating with fewer rules and regulations or accepting the tendency to nd a way around these rules and regulations. Germanic Europe Societies of the Germanic Europe cluster were among the societies ranking highest on Assertiveness 440 Christian J. Resick et al. and Uncertainty Avoidance. They were also the highest ranking societies in terms of endorsement of participative leadership and among the lowest on self-protective leadership. Germany German societal cultural practices are characterized by low levels of Humane Orientation and Collectivism (both Institutional and In-Group), the latter suggesting a strongly individualized society. According to the GLOBE ndings, while charismatic/values-based and team-oriented leadership styles are perceived to facilitate effective leadership, German business leadership is distinguished by the strong emphasis on participation, high autonomy, and lower Humane Orientation. This is compatible with a societal cultural prole that emphasizes higher levels of individualism, Assertiveness, and Uncertainty Avoidance, and lower levels of Humane Orientation (Martin et al., 2004). Thus, in Germany, interpersonal relations are straightforward and conict is moderated by institutional participation. In summary, while strong business community ties link these six societies together, considerable variation exists in their cultural values and practices. This variation exists to a lesser degree among societies within a culture cluster, and to a greater degree among societies across culture clusters. The existence of such variation is important to bear in mind when considering the meaning of ethical and unethical leadership in the six societies and the practical implications for those leading within and across clusters. Method In the present study, we use qualitative methods to explore the culture-specic behaviors and characteristics of ethical and unethical leadership in these six societies. We asked managers from each society to describe, in their own words and in their own language, the leader actions, attributes, and tendencies they associate with ethical and unethical leadership. To do so, we designed a 4-item, openresponse questionnaire. Two questions focused on the meaning of ethical leadership; managers were asked: (a) Which behaviors and personal characteristics do you associate most closely with ethical leadership in organizations? and (b) Think about a situation where you consider an organizational leader to have demonstrated ethical leadership. Describe this situation and explain why you consider the person to have behaved ethically. Two similar questions focused on the meaning of unethical leadership; managers were asked: (a) Which behaviors and personal characteristics do you associate most closely with unethical leadership in organizations? and (b) Think about a situation where you consider an organizational leader to have demonstrated unethical leadership. Describe this situation and explain why you consider the person to have behaved unethically. By including two questions asking managers to provide examples of ethical and unethical leadership, we hoped to gain richer insights into the meaning of these concepts. An English language version of the questionnaire was rst developed, and then translated and back-translated into German and into both simplied and traditional Chinese so as to ensure accuracy and semantic equivalence in the translation (Brislin, 1980). We contacted prospective participants through alumni directories and representatives at graduate programs in each of the six societies. A total of 185 managers responded (n = 40 the PRC; n = 31 Hong Kong; n = 23 Taiwan; n = 40 the U.S.; n = 29 Ireland; and n = 22 Germany). Sample characteristics are summarized in Table II. Respondents were asked to complete the questionnaire on-line. In general, respondents from each society completed the survey in their native language. However, respondents from the three Asian societies were given the option of completing the survey in either English or Chinese: the majority opted to complete the survey in Chinese. Responses from managers who responded in Chinese or German were translated into English and then back-translated to ensure accuracy (Brislin, 1980). We conducted content analyses of the responses by rst systematically analyzing the manifest content and then conducting an interpretive analysis of the latent content across societies (Boyatzis, 1998). The manifest content was analyzed inductively through a series of iterative cycles to identify distinct categories or themes of ethical and unethical leadership. A vestep approach was used. First, two members of the project team identied the unique responses to the ethical leadership questions and then the unique Ethical Leadership 441 TABLE II Sample characteristics United States n Male (%) Mean age Level Senior (%) Middle (%) Entry (%) No response (%) Ireland Germany The PRC Hong Kong ROC Taiwan 40 63 49 29 81 43 22 65 44 40 63 26 31 55 34 23 29 38 58 26 16 77 15 8 43 26 26 5 9 27 64 11 78 11 24 41 35 responses to the unethical leadership questions. Second, these project team members then grouped together similar responses. Third, the remaining members of the project team independently reviewed the groupings of responses and incorporated amendments, in terms of recombining or decoupling characteristics. Fourth, the six project team members then discussed the categories, incorporated changes, and further reviewed the groupings of attributes and categories until nal agreement was reached. The fourth step took ve rounds of discussion, review, and modication. As a nal step, once the project team reached agreement on the categories of similar attributes and behaviors, each category was labeled. These categories represent themes across cultures in terms of the attributes and behaviors that dene the ethical and unethical leadership construct space. Next, two members of the project team independently coded the actual survey responses to the six ethical and unethical leadership themes. Different members of the project team worked on each society, and at least one of the two coders was either a citizen of that society or had spent