The Anglo Cluster

This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.

- Jack Kerouac, On The Road -

 

As anticipated in the previous article , the Globe Project - a study on cross-cultural leadership - groups the societal cultures object of the research into ten major culture clusters, characterised by nine cultural dimensions.

The guilt-based Anglo (Anglo-American, actually) cluster - that includes Australia, English speaking Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, UK, South Africa (white sample) and the United States of America - is characterised by direct communication (low-context cultures), a strong future orientation (monochronic time), high levels of individualism, a doing orientation, a competitive attitude, a moderate tolerance to risk, fairly low levels of power-distance.

In this cluster people tend to value individual rights and to believe that everyone is responsible for their own success, high-performance tends to be expected, material wealth is is admired: the society in the Anglo- American cluster favours high achievers and risk takers.

With regard to leadership, it’s worth noting that all the countries in this cluster are democracies: people expect to be involved in the decision- making process, to be able to share their view, to have the right to challenge authority figures. As a consequence, the ideal leader for Anglo- American societies is charismatic (inspirational/visionary/decisive), team- oriented and participative, while a self-protective leadership style (status conscious, self-centered) is not appreciated.
 

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Related posts:

- The Sub-Saharan Africa Cluster 
- The Middle East Cluster 
- The Latin Europe Cluster 
- The Germanic Europe Cluster 
- The Eastern Europe Cluster 
- The Nordic Cluster 
- The Latin America Cluster 
- The Southern Asia Cluster 
- The Confucian Asia Cluster 

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SOURCES:

- House, R. J., Hanges, P. J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. W., & Gupta, V. (2004). "Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies". CA: Thousand Oaks

- Hall, E. T. (1959). “The Silent Language”. New York: Doubleday

- Hall, E.T. (1966). "The Hidden Dimension". New York: Doubleday 

- Hall, E. T. (1976). "Beyond culture". New York, NY: Doubleday

- The Globe Project, Online: https://globeproject.com/

- Hofstede, Geert H. (1997). "Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind". New York: McGraw-Hill

- Herbert R. (1946). “The chrysanthemum and the sword: patterns of Japanese culture”. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co.

- Kluckhohn, F. and Strodtbeck, F. (1961). "Variations in value orientation". New York: Harper Collins

- Gudykunst, W. B., & Kim, Y. Y. (1984). "Communicating with strangers: An approach to intercultural communication". New York: Random House

- Hiebert, Paul G. (1985). ”Anthropological Insights for Missionaries”. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House

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