Leadership Influence & Distance

An organization can be energized by means of diverse behaviors. This book therefore differentiates between different energizing components of leadership and uses the full range leadership theory by Bass (1985) as a framework. The practical insights from case studies with multinational companies in Europe and Asia supported the assumption that, in general, distance will have an aggravating effect and also change the importance of the different leadership components. Geographical distance generally exacerbates the leadership task to energize an organization, whereas ethnic-cultural distance forces a leader to consider cultural differences in his leading style. Consequently, it was not surprising that the effect of the simultaneous occurrence of geographical and ethnic-cultural distance depended on the individual energizing component. With these real-life examples, this book is able to offer recommendations of how a leader can energize an organization across geographical and ethnic-cultural distance. To conclude these recommendations are merged into an integrated approach existing of active leadership behaviors and passive supporting conditions needed to energize an organization across distance.