Essay On Individualism Vs Collectivism

Retaining work relationships with peers and subordinates is considered to be an essential aspect of effective leadership. Leaders/managers should be able to recognize and understand their co-worker’s/supervisor’s strengths, weaknesses, personality types and preferred way of communication. This often results in productive collaboration of the organization leading to the accomplishment of the desired goals. Leaders should also be able to manage diversity at their workplace. Diversity generally strengthens the organization and a diverse workforce is a key to success. “A diverse workforce can deliver better decision making, better products and services, happier customers, increased productivity and a better bottom line” (Kampf, 2011, p. 44). However,

collectivism is the degree “to which a society is based on satisfying the needs of the individual versus satisfying needs of the group” (Hofstede, 2001). U.S. scores higher (91%) than India (48%) in terms of individualism. Individualism (I) stands for a society where everyone is expected to look after themselves and their immediate family only. It also signifies that success is based on an individual’s achievement and people deliver their best performance when they work alone. In contrast, collectivism (We) stands for a society where people prefer to live in cohesive groups that take care of them in exchange of loyalty. They value the welfare of their group, sacrifice for them over their own individual needs and are actively attached to them throughout their life. Thus, the contradiction in the perception of this dimension significantly impacts work relationships between U.S. and

It displays how a society deals with any ambiguous or unknown situations and based on that situation develop beliefs. U.S. scores 46% on the uncertainty avoidance dimension since it is regulated by laws and norms that reduce ambiguity among the society people. Whereas India is a flexible country, where fewer rules are followed, change is accepted easily, and risk taking is more common (Hofstede, 2001). Thus, India has a medium to low 40% preference for avoiding uncertainty. It is evident that such different outlooks on avoiding uncertainty certainly impact work relationships between U.S. and