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Comparing Western and Chinese Leaders
Sat, 12/06/2008 - 04:10 — Frank Gallo
Frank T. Gallo, Ph.D.
(A Version of this article originally appeared in AmCham China Brief in 2007)
When I first arrived in China, I worked as the president of a major Western consulting firm. There were nearly 200 employees in four offices stretched from Hong Kong to Beijing. One of my responsibilities was finalizing contracts with clients. I tried my best to give clients what I believed was a fair price in return for excellent work that aimed to make their companies more effective in the area of human resources and therefore more competitive in the market – for both products and talent.
No matter what I tried, I always left the negotiations feeling as though I had lost. At the time, my strategy in China was to gain the highest market share. In order to do this, I was willing to give fairly steep discounts. Even when I did this, clients still wanted more. Sometimes we just “walked away,” but often we conceded in order to win the business.
After about six months, our revenues continued to grow, but we had yet to make a profit. Around this time, I had an epiphany. It occurred to me (finally) that I was playing by a different set of rules from my clients. My schooling and practice was in the Western negotiation approach of “win-win,” while Chinese managers were playing “win-lose.”
The “win-win” approach rests on a concept of trust that is less common in China than in the West. In China, trust is extremely strong in the family and among close friends – perhaps stronger than in the West. The further one moves from this inner circle, the more trust dissipates. This is true in most cultures, but particularly so in China. Chinese executives often expect negotiating parties to be distrustful. They are usually unwilling to believe that someone would offer a “fair” price for something unless they have worked together before and established some guanxi that, in turn, would lead to more trust.
My story points out how even someone with the best intentions, and who prided himself on trying hard to understand where the other person was coming from, could fall into the cultural trap that many Western managers do. It is not a matter of ethnocentrism. Rather, it is about getting deeper and deeper into a country’s psyche to understand why one’s long-held and trusted beliefs about best practices may not work. It is not that those beliefs and practices are wrong, but that they are for another time and place.
Classic Chinese vs. Western Values
All of the following values are important in both Chinese and Western cultures; however, there tends to be an emphasis as follows:
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Chinese values
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Western values
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Reverence for family
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Independence
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Humility
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Individualism
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Tolerance
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Diligence
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Moderation
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Risk-taking
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Patriotism
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Self-reliance
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Patience
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Freedom
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Harmony
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Trust in others
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If we can accept that people will most comfortably represent the values from their childhoods, we can see how Chinese and Western leaders might differently perceive their roles. Likewise, employees will expect their leaders to represent certain values and may be uncomfortable with variance.
Cultural differences between leaders
Geert Hofstede’s seminal works on culture often present cultural dichotomies to emphasize differences. While the following distinctions come from personal experience and specifically target differences between China and the West, Hofstede originally used some of them.
Individualism vs. collectivism: Western leaders learn to seek the advice and consent of their peers and subordinates, but then to act independently and make a decision. Chinese leaders generally work toward consensus on a decision deemed best for the group, an approach that leads to a “safe” decision - or even, no decision
Westerners might see this as a failure, but Chinese often think it better to wait things out than force a decision based on one person’s opinion. In this regard, Chinese employees sometimes see their Western managers as reckless and inconsiderate. On the other hand, Westerners often see the Chinese manager as indecisive. Both situations cause enormous frustration.
Equality vs. hierarchy: One of my first “startling” experiences in China came while visiting a client company’s headquarters in Jinan. The CEO gave me a tour of the facility and, as we entered each new space, employees would immediately stand at attention until we left. Some employees saluted. I soon learned that this was an exceptional situation – a state-owned enterprise run by a retired army general.
In contrast, in the U.S. I worked for a very egalitarian high-tech company. Everyone was on a first-name basis, the CEO drove his own car and parked in the employee lot just like everyone else, and we all ate in the same dining room - first-come, first-served.
These examples are extreme, but the roots of hierarchy vs. equality are clear. I remember the discomfort of my Chinese staff when I asked for a smaller office and car than they thought I should have. I eventually realized that Chinese expect certain things of a CEO and my egalitarian view was not all I thought it was.
Change vs. tradition: Westerners generally think change is good. We frequently change jobs, houses, cars and even spouses. Chinese are more inclined to stay put—in their firms, homes and families. While there is a trend away from this in China, especially in terms of jobs, society is still much more traditional here than it is in the West. Thus, while employees in both cultures may feel stress from change-oriented leaders, those in the West are more able to tolerate it while those in China express greater dissatisfaction.
Doing vs. being: Westerners climb a mountain with one purpose in mind – to get to the top. Easterners can climb a mountain every day, never reach the top, and still be extremely satisfied with the experience of their beautiful surroundings. We have a saying in the U.S. about the importance of “stopping to smell the flowers.” Most Westerners, especially Western leaders, hardly notice the flowers at all, let alone smell them. The two cultures may be able to benefit each other here - Westerners can worry less about results and more about process, and Chinese leaders, in the global economy, can look more closely for results.
Truth vs. courtesy: Western and Chinese culture both value truthfulness and courtesy. However, Westerners are more direct and thus willing to get to the truth at the expense of courtesy, while Chinese are more likely to circumvent a direct response in order to allow everyone to save face.
Again, I can take from my experience at my prior firm in Beijing. As head of the firm, I needed to know everything I could about our company and the competition. With a weak knowledge of the language, I depended on my staff to keep me informed, but found I was usually the last one to know bad news. If a competitor won a project, I needed to probe to find this out. (In the United States, I would have been flooded with e-mails.) If an employee planned to leave the firm, especially to join a competitor, neither the employee nor his or her supervisor would tell me. (There was usually some excuse about going to graduate school or traveling abroad, and I would only find out the truth a few weeks later.) Western leaders get frustrated in China with this focus on courtesy over information. Conversely, Chinese leaders are frustrated by foreign employees and headquarters’ desire to be informed quickly, regardless of the impact on “face.”
What’s next?
This article shares some personal experiences as a Western leader in China and makes the point that, even when one thinks that they know the “right” way, there still might be a better way. Chinese leaders in multinationals (MNC), as well as any Western leader in China, need to acknowledge that their deepest held beliefs are the hardest to see.
It takes a great deal of time to do this. The MNC that wants to “empower” its employees, have a “pay for performance” culture and expects contracts to be the last word – because such practices have proven extremely successful elsewhere – needs to take a second look. These strategies can work, but a company needs to be patient and tread carefully as its leaders implement such programs in China.
