What is meant by: individualism/collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, time orientation, and fatalism

What is meant by: individualism/collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, time orientation, and fatalism (locus of control)? How might each play a role influencing leadership?

The individualism is defined as the person’s self and moral worth s and individuals. It is opposite to the collectivism. The individualism is based on political philosophy, ideology and social context of a person. The concept of individualism may also affect leadership. The leadership that is more cantered around self-will l only look for the interest that best serve the leadership himself.

The collectivism is opposite to individualism. It is about political philosophy, ideology and the social outlook of a team or group collectively. The gals and interest of the groups are highlighted and served in this manner. The group interest and gaols are considered superior to the individual interest and goals. The impact of collectivism on leadership influence is positive. Since the collectivism considers the interests of all the team members, it allows the leaders to derive the interest of the individual members in the team and achieve the collective goals effectively and within time.

Rotter (2004) through the concept of power distance has addressed the issues of the power distribution amongst people and how the less powerful accept that the power distribution is not equal. The cultural difference highlights the factors that people perception regarding power distance is different in different cultures. The power distance for leadership will hence also be different for different cultures. Cultures where the power distance is high the leadership  will have more control on decision making and controlling processes while in the cultures where leadership shares the control and power with others,  will have different outcomes (Rotter, 2004).

The uncertainty avoidance is the concept in which the people avoid uncertainty or minimize it to accept the change and anxiety that follows. The leadership is influenced by this concept when the leadership relies on the values, norms and experiences form the past to avoid future uncertainty and predict the future patterns.

The concept of masculinity and femininity are related to the social structure. In the society that is considered masculine, the traits are categorized as male. These characteristics are often expressed as strength, assertiveness, egotism and dominance in the society and hence have the same impact in the society of the organization. The culture that is male dominant will also affects the masculinity and femininity. The male leadership will be different in dealing with the organizational players differently as do the female leader. Also the expectations with the female leaders will be different from the male leaders. The Feminine society is considered to have traits of care, support, relationship oriented and empathetic. The societies react to such leadership and the Feminine society differently as it does to the masculine society.

As per Rotter (2004), time orientation is based on two factors. How the time is values and how the time is controlled. The time orientation is a cultural attitude to consider time in preferences of past, present and future. The time orientation is used to control time as well. The leadership is affected by the time orientation. The leadership that stresses on past and present or future time orientation deal with the problems accordingly based on the learning and values they have gathered from the past present or expect from their future.

The locus of control is the concept that explains the individual believes in how much they can control the environment and events from occurring. The concept shows the ability of the individual to control the events from occurring. It is a sense that allows the person to think through the future uncertainty. The leadership influence in this regard is measures in terms of how much control does the individual have on the vents around them. The perception of control affects the responsibilities as well. The leadership with sense of control over the event will trigger the responsibilities to make sure such events do not affect the organization in a negative way (Rotter, 2004).