From Norway to Your Way: Bj?rn Ekelund’s Tips for Leading Across Cultures

Can you be a leader without followers?

Absolutely – at least, if you’re in Norway.?

That’s an oversimplification to introduce a complex fact: cultural differences mean effective leadership looks different across the world. Followership is just one example. Most of the globe takes it for granted that followership and leadership work in ineluctable tandem. That’s been the premise of several of these very articles.?

Norwegian business consultant Bj?rn Z. Ekelund points out that Norway doesn’t have followership in the usual sense. They call it employeeship, with staff having distinct rights and responsibilities that affect leaders. The individual shoulders more responsibility for their own work, as well as their colleagues, the organization’s societal promises…and even their leaders.

Culture matters.

If you want to be an effective leader, adapting to your team’s culture is paramount. It might not be an ethnic, regional, or national culture. Large organizations foster different cultures in different departments in the very same building. Or think about the vastly different cultures of the US Navy’s SEALs and the Navy’s accounting Logistics Specialists. Or the warehouse team vs the sales staff in The Office.

These differences affect how you delegate, make decisions, and communicate.

“Delegate” provides another unexpected example. In the United States, delegation is the prerogative of the leader. Indeed, it’s a key responsibility of the job. But in Norway, delegation is institutionalized as part of the organizational norm, not the leader’s choice. Because of that employeeship mentioned above, the enhanced responsibility and autonomy of employees makes explicit delegation far less critical.

This ripples deeper into Norwegian leadership. Because staff are more involved in what happens in the workplace, they resist purely top-down, chain-of-command decisions, often disregarding written directives if they feel uninvolved in the decision-making process. Dialogue and collaboration thus become core leadership skills to succeed.

One of the biggest cultural differences in American and Norwegian organizations is trust. Distrust has become almost a hallmark of the relationship between U.S. labor and management. A long history of strikes countered by union-busting reinforce that feel. But the propensity to trust soars remarkably high in Norway; they’re in the 85th percentile, far above their American counterparts.

With all that in mind, these quick steps will guide you to leading effectively across cultures:

1. Foremost, share your vision. Your goal for the team transcends cultural differences. They may have different paths, but if everyone knows the destination, each path will get you there.
2. Foster open communication – starting by communicating openly yourself. This is a kind of psychological safety. If everyone knows it’s okay to ask questions and share ideas, your team’s strengths will shine. Those diverse cultural backgrounds will find solutions no monoculture could conceive.
3. Promote trust. This might be your most difficult, because you must walk the talk. Trust only happens when you deliver on your promises, and when your actions match your words. Then encourage your team to do the same.
4. Learn. Whether it’s between departments or between continents, study the various cultures you’ll work within.

Knowing your team’s cultural nuances separates success from failure. Or at least makes your efforts less comedic; one of our American consulting friends couldn’t click with his first Mediterranean customers because he was always right on time for meetings. In that particular nation, it’s disrespectful to be that precise and concerned about time. They finally paid attention when he showed up “late.”

Put much more succinctly: respect the culture, and the team will respect you.

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This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our podcast episode Cultivating Cross-Cultural Leadership: Comparing Americans & Norwegians at Work.

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