Being A Grateful Leader – Day Three

As the world shrinks, expectations of what normal business practice will need to adjust. Today we look at how gratitude is approached in the offices and factories of Asia and specifically China.

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Transcript

Good day and welcome to the leading with nice daily. My name is Mathieu Yuill. This week we’re looking at leadership and gratitude. Today I want to look at leadership and gratitude and what it might mean in Asia, specifically China opposed to here in North America or other Western cultures. And I’m going to turn to two source materials. The first is a study from the Asian journal of psychology called paternalistic leadership and subordinate responses establishing a leadership model in Chinese organizations by four authors and the other Aaron Meyer, who is the author of culture mapping. And what is really interesting about the difference between North America and China is this, often in North America, you’ll hear, Oh, we’re like one big family at this workplace. But really that is not true. It’s often used as an excuse to actually treat each other poorly. But in China, it actually is more like a family. The subordinates look to the boss and manager in a patriarchal or matriarchal way.

And what that means is that the subordinates actually do look to the head, like family and subordinates treat them like family. And so the words you hear around describing their relationship with gratitude is that of benevolence. They look to their leader for morality cues, and it’s just something very different than what we’re used to in North America. In fact, in China, it is more common for them to want to know you as a person before they’ll do business with you. Because it’s a huge trust culture and it’s just something that we’re not used to here in Canada and in North America and other Western cultures. And I want to just do a very quick take on this today because it’s, it’s so important for us to understand how leadership and in this case, gratitude is viewed in other countries and other cultures as we move to a more integrated way of life around the world.

Well, that’s all for today for Marla’s topic visit leadingwithnice.com where we want to help you inspire others, build loyalty and get results. Talk to you tomorrow.