Performance Orientation

The cultural dimension named "performance orientation" emerged from the research as exceptionally important, so I will discuss it first.  It “reflects the extent to which a community encourages and rewards innovation, high standards, excellence, and performance improvement”.  Here are a just a few of the characteristics of societies that have high and low performance orientation.

HIGH PERFORMANCE ORIENTATION societies have characteristics such as:	LOW PERFORMANCE ORIENTATION societies have characteristics such as:
Value training and development. Value competitiveness and materialism. View formal feedback as necessary for performance improvement Value what one does more than who one is. Expect direct, explicit communication.	Value societal and family relationships. Value harmony with the environment. View formal feedback as judgmental and discomfiting. Value who one is more than what one does. Expect indirect, subtle communication.

1. VALUES AND PRACTICESAccounting for all 61 societies , the average score for performance orientation practices (“as is”) was 4.10 on the 1-to-7 scale, while the average for performance orientation values (“should be”) was substantially higher: 5.94.  Across all nine dimensions, no other 61-society value average was as high as 5.94.It’s worth noting as well that the lowest value score for any society was 4.92, above the 4.00 midpoint.  As the researchers put it, “Respondents’ aspirations about how much their societies should focus on performance are far beyond their perceptions of the level of their societies’ current practices”
   
2. APPLICATION TO LEADERSHIPThe GLOBE researchers concluded that a society's level of performance orientation strongly affects the degree to which leaders and leadership are viewed as effective.  Outstanding leaders worldwide are associated with strong emphasis on performance orientation.More precisely, a high value placed on performance orientation was found to be strongly and positively associated with the global leadership dimension, or CLT, named Charismatic / Value-Based leadership. Because of the worldwide appeal of Charismatic / Value-Based leadership, its association with high performance orientation is especially noteworthy.  The authors underscore this by saying…A major finding was the large influence of the Performance Orientation cultural dimension as the most important predictor of the Charismatic / Value-Based leadership dimension.  Societies and organizations that value excellence, superior performance, performance improvement, and innovation will likely seek leaders who exemplify Charismatic / Value-Based qualities, and such leaders are likely to be effective [p. 711].A high value placed on performance orientation was also found to be significantly and positively associated with both participative leadership  and Autonomous leadership.

NOTE: Societies that highly value PERFORMANCE ORIENTATION strongly associate the following global leader behaviors (CLTs) with outstanding leadership