This week in class, we discussed an introduction essay to GLOBE, a global leadership organization. This essay focused on the cultural impact of leadership, examing whether leadership qualities are a global phenomenon or if they emerge as a byproduct of culture. GLOBE has developed a system of parameters, or cultural constructs, to quantify different aspects of culture as a means of answering the question of the effects of culture on leadership qualities. In theory, this system allows for the unbiased analysis of the impacts of culture, a vague and controversial word, through crowdsourcing, where a baseline rating can be applied to every region/culture/country in each of the nine categories listed by the GLOBE essay.
My initial reaction to this method of cultural quantification was one of great interest. Once we began the discussion in class, my initial response turned to one of skepticism. Can we put a number to the effects of our culture? As a global society, we can’t even produce a solid definition of the word, let alone come up with parameters and questions that impartially analyze our personal experiences. On a more focused note, creating categories for what makes a good leader excludes certain intangibles of who we are personally and culturally. Suppose we can rank the impacts of culture in a way that ignores personal bias. In that case, we can analyze ourselves and others through a lens of impartiality, but not if the questions/categories themselves are inherently biased.
If we assign numbers to categorize cultures, are we not creating research-based stereotypes in a sense? Although the data and rating system may be impartial, those who use the data are not, and their opinions are reinforced or shaped when given loose data to base their assumptions on. I expressed the beginning of this opinion in class and was agreed with by multiple other students who shared a similar assessment of the quantification of culture and leadership skills. Certain qualities are intangible and cannot be measured by boiling down the traits of a group of people. This dilutes the outlier, the unique attributes that make leadership skills in such high demand, as evidenced by GLOBE’s emphasis on researching and labeling them.
