Afghans and Americans have been exposed to different leadership styles which may have influenced their orientation on leading others. Age, gender, and/or culture are possible factors for such differences in leadership orientations. This research surveyed the responses of 502 Americans and 300 Afghans to better understand their orientation toward transformational leadership. The Afghan respondents had significantly higher scores for transformational leadership orientation. Female American respondents had a significantly higher transformational leadership orientation than their Afghan female colleagues. Younger Afghans had a significantly higher tendency toward a transformational leadership orientation than their American counterparts. Suggestions for managers and implications for future research are presented.
J. M. Kouzes and B. Z. Posner, “Encouraging the heart,” Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2003.
J. Rhodes, P. Walsh, and P. Lok, “Convergence and divergence issues in strategic management – Indonesia’s experience with the balanced scorecard in HR management,” The International Journal of Human resources Management, Vol. 19, No. 6, pp. 1170–1185, 2008.
J. Pounder, “Transformational leadership: Practicing what we teach in the Management classroom,” Journal of Education for Business, Vol. 84, No. 1, pp. 2–6, 2008.
R. Vecchio, J. Justin, and C. Pearce, “The utility of transactional and transformational leadership for predicting performance and satisfaction within a path-goal theory framework,” Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 81, No. 1, pp. 71–82, 2008.
A. Franken, C. Edwards, and R. Lambert, “Executing strategic change: Understanding the critical management Elements that lead to success,” California Management Review, Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 49–73, 2009.
B. G. Mujtaba and B. A. Kaifi, “Afghan and American professionals’ leadership orientation toward tasks and relationships: Are there tendencies toward convergence or divergence?” Fortune Journal of International Management, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 107–125, 2008.
F. Walumbwa, B. Avolio, and W. Zhu, “How transformational leadership weaves its influence on individual job performance: The role of identification and efficacy beliefs,” Personnel Psychology, Vol. 61, No. 4, pp. 793–825, 2008.
B. Kirkman, G. Chen, J. Farh, Z. Chen, and K. Lowe, “Individual power distance orientation and follower reactions to transformational leaders: A cross level, cross- cultural examination,” Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 744–764, 2009.
P. Ricoeur, “Oneself as another,” University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1992.
P. Ricoeur, “The narrative function,” John B. Thompson, Ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 274– 296, 1982
Y. Kim, “A comparative study of the ‘Abilene Paradox’ and ‘Groupthink’,” Public Administration Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 168–189, 2001.
A. Laszlo, K. Laszlo, and C. Johnsen, “From high-performance teams to evolutionary learning communities: New pathways in organizational development,” Journal of Organizational Transformation and Social Change, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 29–48, 2009.
B. A. Kaifi, “21st century leadership in healthcare,” Chapter Twelve in the Pharmaceutical Technician Laboratory Manual by Sandeep Bansal, Jones and Bartlett Publications, Boston, Massachusetts, pp. 90–100, 2009
L. Daniel and C. Davis, “What makes high-performance teams excel?” Research Technology Management, Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 40–45, 2009.
M. Pryor, L. Singleton, S. Taneja, and L. Toombs, “Teaming as a strategic and tactical tool: An analysis with rec-ommendations,” International Journal of Management, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 320–333, 2009.
E. Kearney, “Age differences between leader and followers as a moderator of the relationship between transformational leadership and team performance,” Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, Vol. 81, No. 4, pp. 803–811, 2008.
J. Winter, J. Neal, and K. Waner, “How male, female, and mixed-gender groups regard interaction and leadership differences in the business communication course,” Business Communication Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 3, pp. 43–58. 2001.
P. Lantz, “Gender and leadership in healthcare administration: 21st century progress and challenges,” Journal of Healthcare Management, Vol. 53, No. 5, pp. 291–301. 2008.
L. Babcock, “What happens when women don’task?” Negotiation, Vol. 11, No. 96, pp. 1–4, 2008.
D. Beckman and L. Menkhoff, “Will women be women? Analyzing the gender difference among financial experts,” Kyklos, Vol. 61, No. 3, pp. 364–384, 2008.
D. Wyld, “How do women fare when the promotion rules change?” Academy of Management Perspectives, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 83–85, 2008.
E. Cabrera, “Fixing the leaky pipeline: Five ways to retain female talent,” People and Strategy, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 40–45, 2009.
S. Portillo and L. Dehart-Davis, “Gender and organizational rule abidance,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 69, No. 2, pp. 339–347, 2009.
M. Van Vugt, “Evolutionary origins of leadership and followership,” Personality& Social Psychology Review, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 354–371, 2006.
W. Altman, “Executive coaching comes of age,” Engineering Management, Vol. 17, No. 5, pp. 26–29, 2007.
M. Ashworth, “Preserving knowledge legacies: workforce aging, turnover and human resource issues in the US electric power industry,” International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 17, No. 9, pp. 1659–1688, 2006.
B. A. Kaifi, “A transformational leader,” Sitara Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 48–50, 2008.
G. Karadjova-Stoev and B. G. Mujtaba, “Strategic human resource management and global expansion lessons from the Euro disney challenges in France,” International Business and Economics Research Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 69–78, 2009.
B. A. Kaifi, “The impact of 9/11 on Afghan-American leaders,” Xlibris, Bloomington, 2009.
T. Cooper, “The responsible administrator (4th ed.),” Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, 1998.
B. A. Kaifi and B. G. Mujtaba, “Workforce discrimination: An inquiry on the perspectives of Afghan-American professionals,” Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 1–15, 2009.
T. Rath and B. Conchie, “Strengths based leadership,” Gallup Press, NY, 2009.
F. Morhart, W. Herzog, and T. Tomczak, “Brand-specific leadership: Turning employees into brand champions,” Journal of Marketing, Vol. 73, No. 5, pp. 122–142, 2009.
M. Carter, A. Jones-Farmer, A. Armenakis, H. Field, and D. Svyantek, “Transformational leadership and followers’ performance: Joint mediating effects of leader-member exchange and interactional justice,” Academy of Management Conference Proceedings, Chicago, United States, 2009.
E. Fisher, “Motivation and leadership in social work man-agement: A review of theories and related studies,” Admini-stration in Social Work, Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 347–367, 2009.
Y. Gong, J. Haung, and J. Farh, “Employee learning orientation, transformational leadership, and employee creativity: The mediating role of employee creative self-efficacy,” Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 7765–7778. 2009