Leadership

It is generally admitted that, in different national contexts, employees expect different behaviours from their managers. This chapter goes further and highlights the diverse culturally rooted conceptions of ‘virtuous authority’ which meets employees’ expectations. It draws upon a comparison between the recommendations on how to develop their leadership addressed to future managers in the United States, Germany, and France. These prescriptions, taken from management consulting sites of the three countries, differ in several respects. The differences relate to the diverse cultural interpretations of the particular social relationship that the hierarchical subordination represents. More precisely, the acceptable ways of exercising hierarchical authority in each country are those that dispel the fears locally associated with subordination. Each way offers counterbalances that, in practice and symbolically, make it possible to rebalance a social relationship that would otherwise be considered too unequal.