In an excerpt of Global Business Leadership: A Book in the Managing Cultural Differences Series, E.S. Weibbeke writes about the way culture determines the actual pattern of leadership behaviors in an organization.

He notes that cultural values and norms likely influence the attitudes and behaviors of leaders in ways unconscious to them and that culture remains one of the most misunderstood constructs within organizations.

Only recently, he writes, has the leadership-research community begun to realize universal and culture-specific leadership behaviors are not mutually exclusive categories, but can instead co-exist in a single culture simultaneously. He identifies nine cultural dimensions that have implications for managers.

Global Business Leadership by E.S. Wibbeke. Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Inc. www.elsevier.com. Reprinted with permission.