Mexican and U.S. Leadership Practices

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I will provide my evaluation of the United State cultural influence on leadership based on Geert Hofstede's dimensions of culture. I am also going to include some general information on Hofstede's theory. In order to offer you as much information as possible, I am going to use information I have used in other postings and original thoughts in my response. Also, there is a really good website that offers insight into national culture according to Hofstede's theory: http://www.cyborlink.com/besite. You might want to review the site and compare Mexico and the United States.

1. Here is some general information on Hofstede's theory:

Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions

Hofstede (1993) proposes five cultural dimensions to help forecast how a society functions on personal and professional levels. Hofstede (1993) describes culture as cognitive programming that individuals learn during socialization. Motivation, communication, and leadership behaviors in organizations will need to be appropriate based on the dominant cultural dimension of the society. The five dimensions proposed by Hofstede (1993) include power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation. While a culture will have aspects of each dimension, one domain may be dominant.

The power distance dimension is the amount of power disparity that is acceptable in a society. For instance, low power distance cultures are comparatively equal. High power distance cultures have considerable distance between the individuals that have power and the rest of the population (Hofstede, 1993). Generally, low power distance cultures are more democratic and high power distance cultures are more autocratic in nature. Power distance is the perception of power by members of the society (Hofstede, 1993).

The next dimension is individualism, which is in contrast with collectivistic cultures. Individualistic cultures, like the United States, are focused on individual achievement and independence. Members of an individualistic culture view themselves as an individual over a member of a group. Collectivistic cultures value the group and see themselves as group members first. Collectivistic cultures, which include many Asian nations, adhere to the rules and expectations of the group in order to reap the benefits of group membership.

Masculinity is the next of ...