How Authority and Decision-Making Differ Across Cultures

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Sarah Green Carmichael. Managing across cultures is about as tricky as it gets for a leader. Different assumptions and blind spots can cause all kinds of confusion. So for example, how much should a leader pay attention to someone’s rank or status?

And who makes the tough calls? Does the boss decide or does the team hash it out together? This all depends on the culture you’re working in. And it turns out that even the managers who are savviest at working cross-culturally make a common mistake. They confuse these two things: authority and decision-making styles. That’s because, even in cultures where status is hierarchical, people can decide things by consensus.

Here, to break down these factors and explain why they’re so important and often misunderstood is Erin Meyer. She’s a professor at INSEAD and researches doing business across cultures. And she’s the author of the article, “Being the Boss in Brussels, Boston, and Beijing” in the July/August 2017 issue of Harvard Business Review. Erin, thanks for coming back on the IdeaCast.

ERIN MEYER: Pleased to be here with you, Sarah.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So let’s start by talking about authority. How do different cultures deal with hierarchy?

ERIN MEYER: Different cultures defer to authority at different levels. So we have cultures, for example, in Scandinavia, or Australia, or Israel, or the Netherlands where children are really taught from a young age that the boss or the teacher or the parent is just a facilitator among equals. And in those cultures, we’re taught that it’s very appropriate to disagree with the boss or challenge the boss. And the boss is just there to facilitate the interaction.

And then in other parts of the world, like in India or China or Japan or, even more so, a country like Nigeria or Korea — children really learn from a very young age to defer to the person in charge. And in these countries it would be considered inappropriate or to be a bad follower if you were also to contradict the person who was senior to you. So this has a big impact, of course, on what we expect from our leader in different countries.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Based on the examples you just threw out there, it sounds like maybe one of these ways is more Western-oriented, and the other is more Eastern-oriented.

ERIN MEYER: Yes. We could say, overall, that Western cultures tend to be a little bit, let’s say, less-deferring to the boss and the Eastern cultures a little more. But of course, we have a lot of difference from one Western culture to another, as we would also in the East. So France, where I live, I’m American, but I’ve lived in France for 17 years. And France is a much more hierarchical culture than the United States is, but much less than China.

I interviewed a Chinese woman who was working for the French company Hermes. And she said to me, wow, working with the French it’s just amazing because they really see everyone is being egalitarian in the company. And the CEO is treated exactly the same as the janitor, which I thought was really funny, or just interesting, relative comment. Because if you ask an American working for a French company like Hermes, they will not see it that way.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: How do you measure this kind of thing?

ERIN MEYER: Right. So I have this system that I’ve developed from a bunch of research that positions 55 countries up and down 8 behavioral scales. And you can look at the fact that trust is built differently in different parts of the world, or decisions are made differently in different countries by comparing the gaps between two countries. Of course every individual is different, and when we do their research, we are looking for a range of what would be considered an acceptable or appropriate behavior in each country.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: With that in mind, let’s talk a little bit about decision-making styles. I was surprised to learn from your article that these don’t always map on to the notions of hierarchy. Sometimes that hierarchical cultures have a very consensus-driven decision-making style.

ERIN MEYER: Yeah. So I think that one of the things that’s very complicated is that when we talk about decision-making, we look at how many people are involved in the decision-making process, and then how fixed the decision is once it’s made. So in a country like Sweden or Japan, which are two strongly consensual cultures, in those cultures a lot of people are involved in the decision-making process. The decision takes a long time to be made by consensus, and then after the decision is made it’s fixed. It doesn’t change.

In comparison, in countries like US or, more so, like Russia or India, decisions may be made very quickly, often by the boss. And then later on they may be changed as more information arises. So what we find, then, is that not all egalitarian cultures are also consensual. As the American culture is quite egalitarian, but also values quick and flexible decision-making.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Can you give me an example?

ERIN MEYER: Yeah. We call the boss by the first name. We are comfortable expressing opinions that are different than the boss’s opinion. We’re comfortable putting the boss just like in the middle of the room when we set up the desks, right? But on the other hand, we do want our boss to make a decision. We want him to ask some questions, solicit a little opinion, and then we want him to decide it fast so that we can all move in the same direction.

German culture, on the other hand, in comparison to the US, there’s much more emphasis on the hierarchy on using a formality when you speak to the boss, on showing a level of respect to the boss, maybe putting the boss in a specific seat or in a specific office. But they also are much more focused on including the group in the decision-making.

And there will be much more of a feeling that it’s your responsibility to tell the boss when you disagree with him and to not give in if you don’t believe in what he’s suggesting that you do. And Japan follows that pattern to an extreme — very hierarchical culture that also follows an extreme consensual decision-making pattern.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So let’s zoom in on these egalitarian, top-down, decision-making cultures like the US. What are some other countries and cultures that tend to have those characteristics.

ERIN MEYER: So there aren’t too many egalitarian top-down countries. The US is the one that we see that pattern the most clearly with, but many other Anglo-Saxon cultures also tend towards that pattern. So for example, the British are slightly more hierarchical than the American culture, and about the same on the top-down scale. But overall, I would consider both of those rather egalitarian top-down. We could also see, if we were looking at Australia, for example, Australians are even more egalitarian than Americans are and also a top-down culture.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Why is it that Anglo-Saxon cultures seem to be the ones that operate this way?

ERIN MEYER: So I think if we look at the United States, I think that what’s happened is there are two values systems that have come together. The first is that many Americans, when the pioneers kind of fled, the hierarchies or the persecutions of their own cultures — so when they came to the US they felt that they really wanted to try as best they could to start to remove the deference to authority from the system.

And then every year we’ve seen that that moving away from deferring to authority has become stronger. Yet, on the other hand, in American culture there’s a strong emphasis on speed. You know, getting it done fast. And I think that also comes from the fact that Americans were pioneers. And they came to this new land, there was so much opportunity, and it didn’t matter really if you got it right, if you went a little bit North, or you went a little bit South.

It wasn’t exactly that you were running in the right direction that counted. What counted was that you got there first and that you were the first one to start digging and find the gold. So we really learned that, on the one hand, we wanted to move away from these hierarchical patterns, but on the other hand, we wanted the fastest decision-making system possible. And consensus is a lengthy decision-making process. I think that’s why we’ve brought those two things together.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: You know, if you are an American and coming from this egalitarian, top-down, decision-making style of culture, do you end up looking hypocritical to people from other cultures who, maybe don’t understand. Well, they say everyone’s equal, but then when it’s actually time to make the decision, it’s always the boss who decides.

ERIN MEYER: Right. So that is a very common comment from Germans working with Americans. This German client, he said to me, I’m in the US. And before the meeting, my American colleagues are saying to me, well, I think we should make decision A. And then we go into the meeting, and the American CEO says, oh, well, we’re going to go B, we’re going to take decision B.

And then the American managers, instead of saying no, no, no, we disagree, like they should, they say, oh, yes, boss. Whatever you think. And they just follow along. And we can see here, then, that the German feels that this is real hypocrisy. Whereas to the American, those two things are not incompatible. Because in American culture, it’s fine to express your opinion, but once the decision has been made, it would also be expected that you would quickly align in order for speed of application, so a little complicated.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So the Germans are kind of the opposite side of the imagined 2 by 2 matrix, right? If Americans are egalitarian and top-down, Germans are hierarchical, but consensual, and in the article, you also talk about Japan being that same quadrant. Is that something that actually allows them to be such great manufacturing bases? Maybe because everyone is so well aligned, they’re just able to execute better?

ERIN MEYER: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting because, of course, Germans and Japanese are very different when it comes to all of my communication dimensions. So the Germans are super direct, the Japanese, super indirect. The Germans believe an open and strong debate and are very comfortable with strong disagreement in meetings. The Japanese would deal with disagreement in a much more subtle way and try not to disagree openly with an individual in front of the group.

So in all the communication dimensions, the Japanese and Germans are totally apart. But when it comes to the dimensions that are focused around work style, there tend to be a lot more similarities between the Germans and the Japanese, such as the one that you’ve just described, that they are two cultures that are both more consensual in their decision-making and more hierarchical.

Now that being said, the Japanese much more hierarchical than the Germans, and the Japanese much more consensual than the Germans, but still they both follow that type of pattern. And in addition, both the Japanese and Germans are very focused on structure over flexibility. So those are two of the cultures in the world that are the most focused on being punctual, organized, structured, on time. And I think it’s because of those dimensions, yes, that we can see that, for example, the Japanese and the Germans are some of the best automotive makers in the world.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So the hierarchical top-down people, this is the one that is kind of least surprising. I would expect a hierarchical culture to have top-down decision-making. And yet the group of countries that you sort of name checked in that section are very, very different from each other in so many ways. So countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, France — tell me a little bit about why we see such a diverse group of countries in that quadrant of our imaginary 2 by 2.

ERIN MEYER: Every emerging market country in the world falls under that quadrant.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Huh. Why?

ERIN MEYER: And I don’t know if I can give a clear reason for why. But I do think it’s very useful in a country where the processes are — that the institutions, and the legal systems are still developing, to have a very strong leader. That’s one of the reasons that we might see that pattern.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: You mentioned earlier that Sweden is one of the egalitarian consensual cultures. The other examples that you give in that group are also Nordic countries. Is that kind of a style that’s unique to that region? What is it about northern Europe that really pushes that style?

ERIN MEYER: Yes, so the countries that fell under the influence of the Vikings are some of the most consensual and egalitarian countries in the world. The Vikings, themselves, managed in tribe by consensus. So there are all of these stories, historically, about Southern Europeans coming to Scandinavia to negotiate and having to come home early because they weren’t able to figure out who was in charge.

So yeah, that pattern started early. In addition, we see when it comes to egalitarianism, that Protestant cultures tend to be more egalitarian than Catholic cultures, especially in Europe, we can see a clear Catholic-Protestant divide. And Protestant religion removed the hierarchy from the church. And we see some different things that came together in both Scandinavia and Finland, the Netherlands, which would be the cluster of the world that we most strongly see the consensual and egalitarian pattern.

I worked for a Danish company many years ago. And my boss explained to me — I use this consensual way of managing. It’s very popular in Denmark. I thought consensual decision-making sounded great. But then when I was in it, I saw my Americanism coming out, which was — he wanted to organize the upcoming management meeting. So he sent out an email to all of the managers.

I think there were 12 of us, saying, well, this is what I was thinking of for the meeting. What you think? And now you know, someone responded saying well, no, I think actually it would be better to talk about this. And then someone responded saying well, I was hoping we would talk about this. And then via email, they were all responding to one another’s emails and putting in their own input. I just was like, oh, please, please just make a decision.

And I saw that decision-making requires a lot of patience in a consensual culture. But I also saw that once the decision was made, it was very fast to implement each time because everyone was on board. And after the decision had been finalized, it was never changed, which was really different than the style I was used to, which was every day the decision might be different.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: The idea that Vikings and the way they operated 1,000 years ago might be affecting the number of emails that you’re getting today about some decision is super interesting. And it makes me wonder, in a very large country like the US or like Russia where you had very different influences in different parts, do you see regional differences within large countries too, when you look into this stuff?

ERIN MEYER: On the one hand, there are some dimensions, like if we look across the US, of course, there are regional differences in the US, how direct we are with negative feedback has a big difference regionally. So New Yorkers are by far the most direct in the United States. And then the least direct you would find if you went to Southern states. And I think you can have very strong culture shock if you have someone from Georgia who is now managing someone in New York City.

So those regional differences can be strong. Because usually we’ll find that people from a culture experience the regional differences in their country much stronger than someone coming from another country would feel those differences. So for example, like in India, there are really strong regional differences. And the Indians feel those differences so strongly. But for an American, a company working with India, they won’t feel the regional differences in the same dramatic way that an Indian would.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: And there might be differences company-to-company too, it seems.

ERIN MEYER: I often have people say to me, you know, Erin, we deal with cultural differences in our multinational company by creating a strong corporate culture that we reinforce. And I do think that that can be very useful. So if you look at Google — I mean, Google who hires Googlers. If you go to Google here in France or you go to Google in India, you’ll find that the people working at Google act a little bit like they’re from California.

But if you’re working for a company that has a lot of local competition, you might find that having a very strong corporate culture can actually be a disadvantage for you. So for example, I worked with one big multinational American company who was huge in Nigeria. And they hired some Americans [who] are very task-oriented, and this company was very task-oriented, so they hired the most task-oriented Nigerians that they could find.

And that helped them internally, but it also was hard for them. Later they found out that actually these Nigerians were not very good at selling to the local population because they were more like the corporate culture than the national culture. So we need to think about not stamping out diversity or removing our employees from local preferences if we are emphasizing a strong local corporate culture.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: English is often the common language of business around the world. Do you think that there is a common international business culture that’s emerging around the world, especially in countries that are more globalized and do a lot of business with other countries?

ERIN MEYER: Overall, there’s been a big trend in that kind of global elite to move to more and more egalitarian methods of management, which is something that we teach in US business schools. So no matter where you come from, if you go to Harvard, you’re going to learn about management by objective, and 360 degree feedback, and empowerment, open door policies.

But that being said, the countries that are emerging in the world that, like China and India, are really the countries that the world is looking to for growth and opportunity. Those are countries where more hierarchical patterns of management or top-down styles and management are deeply instilled. I believe it’s really important that we stop and ask ourselves: just because I learned to be an egalitarian manager at that business school I attended in the US, doesn’t mean that that’s the future.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So if there is someone who has a degree from either a top American business school or one of the top global business schools like INSEAD, what do you think that person’s role is when they’re acting locally? Because it seems like in some ways, that person might have more in common with other members of the elite than, say, the people they are managing who are locals and maybe only speak one language.

ERIN MEYER: If you were raised in Korea or you were raised in Australia, you are not the same. Because these differences are deep in us. But if you were raised in Korea, and then at age 18, you had the opportunity to go live in Germany — and if you were raised in Australia, and then at the age 18, you had the opportunity to go live in Indonesia — what you have in common is not that you are the same, but that you’ve already started to recognize what your own culture looks like from a distance.

And because of that, you can recognize inside you what is cultural and what is personal. And you can then move to thinking, in this situation, I really want to adapt to that culture. And in the next situation, I think I’m going to use my own style, the style I learned in my own culture. So it gives us options. Multinational companies more and more need people with a strong level of cultural flexibility to lead their global departments, people who can say, you know what, in the conference call on Monday in Mexico I’m going to do it this way.

And then the next week when I’ve got Finland on the phone, I’m going to do it this way. And when I have Finland and Mexico and China all together on the phone, I’m going to manage the team in a way that gives everybody an opportunity to share their viewpoint. And that’s really, I believe, the most important thing that multicultural people can bring to our globalizing societies.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: It just all sounds very complex and complicated. You know, at the end of the day, work does have to get done. So if you feel like you’re maybe having some trouble moving ahead because of a cultural conflict, what are some suggestions for how to keep the work moving forward?

ERIN MEYER: Well, let me give you a really simple and practical example. So one of the things that I hear the most from clients is that, on their global teams, some of the cultures end up doing all of the talking, and other cultures don’t participate very much in the meetings. This could happen with many different cultural combinations, that one of the cultures speaks less because they want to prepare their thoughts or they want to check with others, and the other feels very comfortable speaking up.

So the way to deal with that is to then say, in our conference call on Wednesday, I’m going to be asking for your input on these five questions. Please prepare to answer each of them, I will be calling on you. And that gives the Americans, the Japanese, everybody else an opportunity to prepare if they want to, an opportunity to check with others if they want to.

And then most importantly, in the global meeting, you need to recognize that you have to clearly call on everybody, because we have such different ideas about when the moment to speak comes up. And it’s the global leader, above all responsibility, the team leader, to make sure that everyone gives a clear moment to talk in the meeting. So that’s just one of many techniques that we can use, no matter which countries we’re working with.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Erin, thank you. This has been really fascinating. And I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today.

ERIN MEYER: It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you very much, Sarah.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That’s Erin Meyer, a professor at INSEAD. Her article, “Being the Boss in Brussels, Boston, and Beijing” is in the July/August 2017 issue of Harvard Business Review. You can also find it at hbr.org. Thanks for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. I’m Sarah Green Carmichael.