Finding the Middle: Swedish Leadership Adaptation in the Middle Kingdom, How and Why Swedish Senior Managers Adapt their Leadership Styles when Leading in China

Abstract: This report aimed to provide an understanding for how and why an expatriate leader may adapt their leadership styles when leading abroad. It was explored through a qualitative, abductive study on Swedish leaders in China. To find the modes of adaptation, the Culturally Endorsed Implicit Leadership Theories (CLT) framework, established by GLOBE, was used, defining how the twelve Swedish leaders had adapted their leadership styles in connection to the six dimensions of the framework. The report further delved into the underlying reasons behind the adaptation, grounded in the theory of Cultural Intelligence (CQ). The CQ-scales were then used to determine the presence of cultural intelligence among the interviewees, exploring it as an underlying reason for leadership style adaptation. Together, the two theories provided a new CQ-CLT framework attempting to explain not only how a leadership style may shift in a foreign cultural setting, but also underlying mechanisms pertaining to why it shifts. Findings show that Cultural Intelligence can result in different directions of cultural leadership style adaptation, suggesting that it may be hard to define a "one path of efficient leadership style adaptation". In addition to adaptation not being linear, finding a middle ground through combining a Swedish and Chinese leadership style is an approach widely adopted. Cultural leadership style adaptation is deemed important, and increasing one's level of cultural intelligence - in regards to Cognitive and Metacognitive CQ - is an efficient competence to assess the leadership style adaptation needed in the specific cultural context.