Abstract:
A key approach to understanding cross-national variations in leadership is to examine how leaders handle routine events within their span of control. The sources of guidance employed by samples of middle and senior managers in four Arab nations were surveyed. Saudi managers showed the expected traditional and personalistic pattern of relatively strong reliance on both formal rules and unwritten rules, as well on as co-workers and subordinates. Respondents from Qatar, Oman and Lebanon each differed from this pattern in ways consistent with theories of modernity. Correlations with evaluations of how specific work events had been handled in each nation confirmed the presence of distinctive leader styles. The assumption that there is a relatively uniform style of leadership across Arab nations is thus questioned. Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications.