Conservation leadership must account for cultural differences

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Abstract

Effective leaders are critical in determining successful outcomes of conservation programs. As the business and economic leadership literature shows, awareness around cultural differences in leadership attributes is important for positive project outcomes set in inter-cultural contexts. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to understand whether, and how, the influence of cultural context was acknowledged when describing successful leadership attributes of conservation leadership. We found fifteen papers from different geographical regions (Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America) explicitly addressing conservation leadership attributes. We further explored how characteristics of four key attributes (i.e. motivating others, establishing a shared vision, effective communication and partnership building) were addressed within these different cultural settings. Our review shows that the discourse on how culture influences attributes of a conservation leader and its implications for conservation outcomes is very limited. Awareness and sensitivity around this influence is important as cultural differences may either facilitate or hinder conservation project outcomes, particularly when people from different cultural backgrounds work together.

Introduction

Biodiversity conservation is a global concern and the field of conservation science has grown rapidly since the mid-1980s (Meine, Soule, & Noss, 2006). Despite the critical need for competent leaders in conservation (Baral, 2013), conservation scientists have only recently started to systematically document the key attributes of successful leadership and its role in more effective conservation actions (Black, Groombridge, & Jones, 2011; Black, 2015; Bruyere, 2015; Dietz et al., 2004; Martin et al., 2012). By comparison, leadership qualities and techniques have been thoroughly researched within the fields of business and politics (e.g. Day & Antonakis, 2012; Den Hartog & Dickson, 2012). Conservation leadership, as with leadership in any other field, is complex as it must take account of aspects relating to gender, ethnicity, geography, development, culture and politics (Game, Meijaard, Sheil, & McDonald-Madden, 2014; Gordon & Berry, 2006). Furthermore, conservation or environmental problems are typically ‘wicked’ problems (Game et al., 2014), owing to the long lead times to solutions, complex interactions between people and issues, the need for multi-disciplinary integration, and confrontational settings (Gordon & Berry, 2006). Tackling such problems often require competent conservation leaders to work across different geographical, ethnic or disciplinary bounds. Examples of successful leadership in conservation or environmental issues within the literature include wildlife reintroduction programs (e.g., Sutton, 2015), environmental governance programs (e.g., Evans et al., 2015), and community management of culturally-important natural resources (e.g., Housty et al., 2014). Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that what leaders do and why they do it is influenced by their specific culture, which is defined by their industry, organization or country (Den Hartog & Dickson, 2012).

Historically, the ways in which researchers study and think about leadership have been strongly influenced by Western-led studies (i.e. originating, or associated, with Europe and Christian religion; Kurth, 2003; Day & Antonakis, 2012). However, as our society becomes increasingly globalized, international leaders and managers are encouraged to develop a wider set of ‘culturally intelligent’ leadership skills and knowledge (Beer, 2012). For instance, these skills can help leaders advance their international (business) relations (Beer, 2012), communicate the organization’s vision (Den Hartog & Dickson, 2012) or account for different sensibilities (Dietz et al., 2004) when working with a culturally diverse workforce. Research in social psychology shows that while assertive and tough leaders may be more desired in certain societies (e.g. Austria, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States), leaders who seek consensus and are intuitive may be more desirable in others (e.g. Costa Rica, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands; Hofstede, 1980; Hofstede, 2001). Thus, having the knowledge and skills to act and make decisions in a culturally sensitive manner has been shown to be more effective when leading multicultural teams, as well as managing projects within an international context (Mendonca & Kanungo, 2007).

Attributes (i.e. qualities or characteristics of a person) are often used to describe effective leaders. The Global Leadership & Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) project identified that although some leadership attributes are considered to be universally endorsed (such as being trustworthy) or universally rejected (such as being egotistical), the majority of leadership attributes were actually found to be culturally contingent (Chhokar, Brodbeck, & House, 2007; House et al., 2004). Moreover, the behavior of a leader can be governed by what is expected or desired from the society within which they are operating, and successful leaders were found to be those who aligned their behavior with the desired societal leadership style (Chhokar et al., 2007; House et al., 2004). The recent literature on conservation leadership identifies key attributes that are necessary for conservation leaders, as well as for those teaching conservation leadership. These include: effectively developing a vision and establishing values (Black et al., 2011; Bruyere, 2015), clearly identifying a sense of purpose (Black, 2015) and being able to foster pluralistic viewpoints and approaches (Green et al., 2015). However, given the importance of being cognizant of, and sensitive to, different societal leadership styles within the large number of ongoing international conservation projects (Wilson et al., 2016), we sought to understand whether and how cultural differences were acknowledged in relation to conservation leadership attributes in the existing literature. We acknowledge that culture is a set of distinctive features of society or a social group (e.g. spiritual, material and intellectual), and includes ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs (Matsuura, 2001). We further recognize that a number of factors can influence culture, such as a person’s educational, professional, and organizational characteristics (Beer, 2012). Therefore, large cultural differences can exist within a society (Koch & Koch, 2007). For the purpose of this study, we use the geographical area of the world in which a study was set as a proxy for culture. We undertook a systematic review of the literature to address two specific questions:

  • (1)

    Which leadership attributes were most prominent in the current conservation and environmental literature?

  • (2)

    How does culture (as represented by country or nationality) influence conservation leadership attributes in the literature?

Following a recent comprehensive study on international conservation leaders (Bruyere, 2015), we examined whether attributes listed in this study were, among others, mentioned in the papers of our review. We also discuss a subset of these attributes to evaluate the importance of ‘cultural competency’, which we define as the ability to account for cultural differences, in leadership. Our review aims to provide novel insights regarding cultural differences in conservation and environmental leadership, and raise awareness about the issues that may arise when people with different cultural backgrounds work together. We hope these insights can encourage more effective collaborations to help improve conservation outcomes in the long run and build a more robust understanding of what it means to be an effective leader in international conservation projects.

Section snippets

Methods

Following the methodology outlined by Pullin and Stewart (2006), we searched for journal articles published in English between 1990 and 2015 using the keywords ‘sustainability leadership’ OR ‘conservation leadership’ OR ‘conservation leader’ OR ‘environmental leadership’ OR ‘environmental leader’ under TOPIC in the database of ISI Web of Science (n = 135). We included 25 additional studies from an accompanying search using the search terms ‘conservation’ AND ‘leadership’ AND ‘culture’. We

Results

We found 15 papers describing conservation activities in five continents (Africa: 1, Asia: 5, Europe: 3, North America: 4, South America: 2), and 13 countries or groups of countries (Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Latin America, Romania, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam) to be relevant for our review. Most studies (60%; 9 papers) did not mention the influence of culture on conservation leadership attributes but it was possible to infer cultural

Discussion

The small number of studies (n = 15) found in our review confirms that cultural aspects of conservation leadership is underrepresented in the literature and studies discussing leadership attributes are particularly limited. The selected studies spanned five continents, with most studies originating from Asia, indicating a lower North American bias than is generally present in the leadership literature (Den Hartog and Dickson, 2012). The cultural diversity across the reviewed studies indicates a

Conclusion

The complexity of environmental management requires a diversity of solutions (Gordon & Berry, 2006). Conservation science needs to be representative of our diverse global society (Hughes & Smith, 2016), and embracing the cultural context within the practice of conservation leadership can only lead to ecological and social gains. Although conservation and environmental leadership training is a growing area of conservation science (Dietz et al., 2004), our review shows that the influence of

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Acknowledgements

A workshop organized by the Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) Early Career Leadership Program provided the opportunity to draft the ideas behind this study. We thank CEED for funding this program and the participants for their valuable discussions. We are also grateful to Brett Bruyere for sharing information from his survey on conservation leadership.

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    Current address: Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Alfred-Kowalke-Str. 17, 10315 Berlin, Germany.

    2

    Current address: School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Melbourne, Australia.

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