Tailoring Leadership Theory to Indonesian Culture

Abstract

Leadership in Indonesia is facing a dilemma. Taking into consideration the pressure exerted due to the country’s instability over the past 10 years, there is an appearance that there is a lack of leadership capabilities in this multicultural country. In order to tailor effective leadership theory into the Indonesian environment, this article discusses the importance of valuing leadership from cross-cultural perspectives by beginning with the transformational leadership. The similarities in the values in Asian countries can help in the generalization of the implementation of leadership theory. Such as that in Taiwan which provided strong evidence for the practice of paternalistic leadership. However, there is no empirical evidence on the leadership style preferred by Indonesians. To address these theoretical weaknesses, this study presents a comparison of several characteristics of paternalistic leadership in Taiwan and Indonesia as a prerequisite for facilitating paternalistic leadership effectiveness.