{"id":15635,"date":"2017-12-06T09:13:56","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T17:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=15635"},"modified":"2017-12-06T09:13:56","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T17:13:56","slug":"how-do-you-say-leader-in-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/how-do-you-say-leader-in-french\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you say “leader” in French?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice<\/em>, a volume based on Harvard Business School\u2019s Centennial Colloquium, boasts a diverse and celebrated list of contributors. Each chapter has a unique focus, exploring the concept of leadership from various fields of study, including psychology, economics, sociology, and history. According to editors, Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khuranra, \u201cThis edited volume has one primary purpose\u2014to stimulate serious scholarly research on leadership.\u201d[1]<\/a> So rather than answering all of our leadership questions, The Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice <\/em>teases out those questions and offers them up as bait for researchers. Nevertheless, their observations and subsequent questions are fodder for thought and left me with much to consider.<\/p>\n

As an American missionary in France, I was drawn to Chapter 13, \u201cLeadership and Cultural Context: A Theoretical and Empirical Examination Based on Project GLOBE.\u201d[2]<\/a> Acknowledging the fact that globalization has created leadership challenges for international business, the authors write, \u201cThus, a critical question of importance to management scholars and researchers is the nature and dynamic of leadership in a cross-cultural environment.\u201d[3]<\/a> Using well-established criteria that measures cultural values, the authors analyse findings from Project GLOBE to assess how some societal cultural preferences may influence organizational leadership styles. They rightly conclude that a culture\u2019s value orientations will determine the \u201coptimum leadership profile for that country.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s just one problem with that approach. It presupposes an understanding of the concept of leadership in the first place. The word \u201cleadership\u201d doesn\u2019t even exist in French, except as an imported word from English that gets pronounced \u201clee dare sheep<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0The French have the verbs diriger<\/em> (which would translate as to direct, to guide, or to steer), ma\u00eetriser<\/em> (which means to control or to overpower), and pr\u00e9sider <\/em>(to preside over or to chair), none of which capture what an American would mean by \u201clead.\u201d And the nouns closest to the word \u201cleader\u201d in French don\u2019t come close to hitting the mark of what any of our American leadership gurus describe. They have le<\/em> chef<\/em> (the boss), le responsable<\/em> (the person responsible or manager), and le directeur<\/em> (the director). While all of these French words are related to the concept of leadership, none of them actually capture it. And since a culture\u2019s lexicon reflects its values, perhaps even the well-established criteria for analysing cultural values with regard to leadership reflects a cultural bias.<\/p>\n

For example, one of the cultural dimensions that project GLOBE uses is \u201cPerformance Orientation\u201d which is described as \u201cThe extent to which an organization or society encourages and rewards group members for performance improvement and excellence.\u201d [5]<\/a> But how are they measuring \u201cperformance improvement and excellence\u201d? Another word that doesn\u2019t exist in French is the word \u201cefficient.\u201d Efficiency is a strong USAmerican value, we tend to believe that being efficient is important and good. It would be something that is associated with performance and excellence in and American business. But the French don\u2019t even have a word for it because it is not a strong value in France! So I can\u2019t help but wonder if the questions asked by project GLOBE resulted in a comparison of apples and oranges.<\/p>\n

Given the fact that missionaries have been leading cross-culturally for centuries, I think they have something to contribute to the global leadership conversation. Let me be the first to admit that missionary leadership has not always been GOOD leadership. And with Sherwood Lingenfelter, I also acknowledge that there are critical differences between the leadership goals of missionaries and secular governments or business entities.[6]<\/a> But the need to cross cultural barriers to reach certain goals is common to both the missionary and the business person. In his book Leading Cross-Culturally: Covenant Relationships for Effective Christian Leadership<\/em>, Lingenfelter identifies five critical characteristics of cross-cultural leadership\u2014establishing relational trust, defining a compelling vision, stepping out ahead, calling others to follow, and empowering those who follow you.[7]<\/a> All of these are based on the life and actions of Jesus, and thus deemed to be applicable to all cultures. While I would agree that the person of Christ transcends all cultural differences, I think we must be careful not to put our own interpretation of Christ\u2019s life and actions into that same category. Nevertheless, I do think that Lingenfelter offers some important insights that might get overlooked by those coming at the study of culture from a profit-driven standpoint. I\u2019ll offer an example based on the first characteristic that Lingenfelter identifies\u2014the need to build relational trust.<\/p>\n

A French businessman told me a story about a contract that his company was competing for in Peru. The other company that was competing for the contract was an American company. The American team showed up at nine a.m. one morning and spent the entire day giving a dazzling presentation about their extraordinary product\u2014a product that (according to our French friend) was superior to the French product. They had videos, samples, market research, and experts in the field, all of which sang the praises of the American product. When the business day was over, the American company packed up and headed home, confident that they had convinced the Peruvian client of the advantage of their product. The next day, the French team showed up. They had planned to spend a week in Peru, so the first day they simply toured the city and sampled the food. The second day they had a lunch meeting with the Peruvian clients, just to get to know them. They did not discuss business at all. The third day they all played golf together and the fourth day the French team was invited to the Peruvian director\u2019s home for dinner. On the fifth day, the French team came into their clients\u2019 place of business and talked a little about their product and pricing, and when they left they said that they would be in town for two more days, available if the client had any further questions. By the time they left on the seventh day, the French team was offered the contract. The Americans were selling a product. The French were sere selling a relationship, and that\u2019s what the Peruvians were buying.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana, eds., Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice: An HBS Centennial Colloquium on Advancing Leadership<\/em> (Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Press, 2010). Kindle Loc 76.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Nohria and Khurana. Kindle Loc 4161.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Nohria and Khurana. Kindle Loc 4165.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Nohria and Khurana. Kindle Loc 4250.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Nohria and Khurana. Kindle Loc 4271..<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Sherwood G. Lingenfelter, Leading Cross-Culturally: Covenant Relationships for Effective Christian Leadership<\/em> (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2008). Kindle Loc 1152<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Lingenfelter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, a volume based on Harvard Business School\u2019s Centennial Colloquium, boasts a diverse and celebrated list of contributors. Each chapter has a unique focus, exploring the concept of leadership from various fields of study, including psychology, economics, sociology, and history. According to editors, Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khuranra, \u201cThis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[410],"class_list":["post-15635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-nohria-and-khurana","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15636,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15635\/revisions\/15636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}