Leading with Cultural Intelligence, 2012a

toward laissez-faire leadership, on the other. Hofstede found that low-power-distance cultures
emphasized equality and minimized power and status. The following is an example of this:
Susan is the president of a large manufacturing business. Although she is in a position of leadership and
authority, she takes a “hands off management approach” to her employees, and in meetings provides a
participatory, democratic engagement process.
Susan’s dimension of power is illustrated in Figure 2.6 "Power Value Dimension".
Figure 2.6 Power Value Dimension
Gender
Hofstede [3] describes the value dimension of gender as representing two paradigms of thinking and
practice about the world in relation to traditional values associated with gender roles. Gender refers to the
culture’s tendencies or orientation toward enforcing or reinforcing masculine and feminine roles in work.
Masculine cultures tend to emphasize ambition, control, competition, assertiveness, and achievement,
whereas feminine cultures emphasize nurture, care, sharing, quality of life, and relationships. Sometimes
these values are expressed as the “quantity of life” and the “quality of life.”
In his findings, Hofstede indicated that cultures that rate high in masculinity, such as Japan, Austria,
Venezuela, and Italy, revealed a high proportion of males in dominant structures; in low masculine
cultures, such as Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, and Sweden, women were treated more equally in their
social systems.
It is important that you recognize that these values are not associated with being male or female. In other
words, this does not mean that men cannot be part of feminine cultures or that women do not orient
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