ABSTRACT
This chapter First, demonstrates that country and culture really do matter when trying to determine what makes up that chimera called effective leadership. Second, it shows that managers and executives who deal with cultural issues relating to leadership can meaningfully apply well-designed scholarly research on cross-cultural leadership. It describes several cross-cultural research studies, with a primary focus on the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness GLOBE Project in which it have both been active for several years. One of the biggest challenges for people attempting to apply the results of cross-cultural research is being able to find the balance between understanding that there are behaviors and values that are more common or typical in a given culture, and engaging in stereotyping. Finally, it provides some concrete recommendations for managers and executives about the sorts of research-based information that they may find useful when wrestling with leadership and culture, and for how to go about finding that information.
