3

“Primus Inter Pares”: Leadership and
Culture in Sweden

Ingalill Holmberg & Staffan Åkerblom

Centre for Advanced Studies in Leadership, Stockholm School of Economics

The opening quotation provides a significant image of the enactment of leadership in Sweden: Vagueness, equality, and consensus are three of the notions that are crucial to (an understanding of) established leadership in the Swedish context. They are all rooted in an ideology that evolved over a period of many years between the late 1930s and the 1990s, permeating most, if not all, aspects of life in Sweden, and to a large extent in the other Nordic countries. This ideology, with its strong emphasis on the notion of the collective, emerged from attempts to combine economic growth with democracy and extensive programs for social development. During the 1990s a conviction arose in many quarters that this ideology no longer had a part to play in the increasingly globalized context of the day. In business management, for instance, traditional stakeholder perspectives were often being replaced by a focus on shareholder values, whereas in the management discourse organizations now take second place to the individuals who populate them. This shift is perhaps most clearly expressed in the economic vocabulary subsumed under the label of the “New Economy,” a phenomenon that has attracted enormous attention in the public space in recent years (Holmberg & Strannegård, 2002). As Sweden entered the new millennium, the ideological dissonance between the old and the new was reaching its peak. The implications of this ideological shift from the perception, enactment, and evaluation of leadership, is one of the several themes that is examined in this chapter.

The aim of the present chapter is to explore leadership and culture in Sweden, and to see how they are interrelated. The exploration is based on a number of empirical studies carried out between 1994 and 1998 within the framework of the GLOBE project. We start with some general facts about Sweden, its history, and its development as a modern welfare state, after which these studies are presented in separate sections.

General Facts About Sweden

Sweden has an area of 450,000 square kilometeres, which makes it slightly larger than the state of California, USA. The relatively small population of 9 million (Statistics Sweden, 2005) is by no means evenly distributed: About 85% live in the southern half of the country. One in every four Swedes lives in one of the 10 biggest cities, of which the capital Stockholm, Göteborg (Gothenburg), and Malmö are the largest.

Sweden's economy is highly international, albeit heavily dependent on a limited number of very large international corporations. Swedish companies were quick to recognize the importance of being represented in foreign markets, and global free trade has been extremely important to the growth of Swedish industry and prosperity. Sweden's main trading partners are the other Nordic countries and the major countries in the rest of Europe. Sweden joined the European Union (EU) on January 1, 1995, and more than half of Swedish exports are to other EU members. In 2003, exports accounted for 44% of the gross domestic product (GDP; Swedish Institute, 2004b).

Sweden is becoming a postindustrial service-oriented society, but manufacturing still dominates foreign trade. The engineering industry accounts for some 40% of all Swedish exports, the main products being machinery, telecommunications, electrical equipment, and motor vehicles. Other important exports are pulp, paper, paper and wood products, chemical products, and pharmaceuticals (Swedish Institute, 2003a).

The Swedish service sector is dominated by public organizations. Services such as child care, health care, and education are all supplied under public auspices in order to guarantee equally high standards for every citizen.¹ In 2003, nearly a third of the total labor force were employed in central and local² public agencies, including the social insurance sector (Swedish Institute, 2004b).

Sweden is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary form of government. The King, Carl XVI Gustaf, has ceremonial functions only as head of state. Parliament consists of a single chamber, whose members are directly elected by proportional representation for a 4-year term. Sweden has universal suffrage and the voting age is 18. Voter turnout has traditionally been very high, 85% to 90%, but was only just above 80% in the last two elections, which has led to an intensive debate as to whether democracy is in crisis (Müller, 2002).

Some Historical Notes

It is rather difficult to select a few historical fragments to say anything significant about the Sweden of today that we are about to explore in this chapter. It can be argued that “history” is in itself always a gross oversimplification of immensely complex and irreducible processes, constantly being rewritten and edited for contemporary interests and purposes. Then, in a chapter like this one, we have the added challenge of reducing and simplifying further what is already oversimplified, while also trying to say something meaningful. What selection criteria should be used? We decided to take the historical themes and events that the Swedish Institute³ uses in presenting Sweden to other countries, and that most Swedes would refer to in everyday talk (self-representation). In other words, the selection itself may say as much about contemporary Sweden as its actual content does.

The Viking Age, 800–1050 AD, was a period of expansion directed primarily eastward. Many Viking expeditions set off from Sweden for the combined purposes of plunder and trade along the coasts of the Baltic Sea and up the rivers extending deep into present-day Russia. The Vikings active in the east traveled as far as the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, where they developed trading links with the Byzantine Empire and the Arab dominions. The Vikings were thus the pioneers in establishing Sweden's foreign trade and international relations.

In the Middle Ages, the loose federation of provinces constituting Sweden became part of the cultural sphere of Catholic Europe. In 1397, Scandinavia was united under Queen Margaret in a union that lasted until the early years of the 16th century, when the Danes besieged Kalmar and Stockholm. Gustav Vasa (1523–1560), one of the most prominent political leaders in Swedish history, regained control over the country and was proclaimed King.

The foundations of the Swedish national state were laid during the reign of Gustav Vasa, who gave Sweden a strong central government in an administration reorganized along German lines, and established Protestantism as the state religion.

In 1818, Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, a French Marshal and opponent of Napoleon, was crowned King of Sweden. The present Swedish Royal Family, which is greatly respected by Swedes but that has no formal political influence, are his direct descendants.

During the later part of the 19th century Sweden was one of the poorest countries in Europe. The majority of the population, 90%s earned its livelihood from agriculture. One consequence of this situation was emigration, mainly to North America, which in relative terms was very substantial: Out of a population of a mere 3.5 million in 1850, and approximately 6 million in 1930, about 1.5 million Swedes emigrated between 1850 and 1930.

Late but Rapid Industrialization

The technical advances achieved during the 16th and 17th centuries were mainly attributable to the immigration of skilled craftsmen, merchants, and professionals—among them many Germans, Scots, Dutch, and Walloons.

In the late 19th century, the Swedish engineering industry entered into a period of rapid industrialization and expansion, unparalleled before or since. Sweden had rich domestic supplies of iron ore, timber, and waterpower. The next few decades witnessed the creation of a number of companies that were to attain a dominant role in Swedish industry through a successful combination of inventors, entrepreneurs, and financiers (Jönsson, 1995a). Industry did not begin to grow until the 1890s, but then developed very rapidly between 1900 and 1930. After the World War II, Sweden became one of Europe's leading industrial nations.

With pride, Swedes recall the achievements of engineers and entrepreneurs like Lars Magnus Ericsson (1846–1926), who together with a partner started a company manufacturing telephones and telephone equipment in 1878. As early as the 1890s, the company established subsidiaries abroad, and the products attracted international attention. Ericsson developed into one of the leading telecom companies in the world today. Other inventors and/or entrepreneurs who started important enterprises at about the same time included Alfred Nobel⁴ (1833–1896), the inventor of dynamite (Nobel Industries); Nils Gustav Dalén⁵ (1869–1937), who invented the automatic maritime beacon (AGA); Gustaf de Laval (1845–1913), who invented the cream separator (Alfa Laval); and Sven Wingquist (1876–1953), who is the father of the modern ball-bearing and founder of AB Svenska Kullagerfabriken (SKF), which remains the world's leading producer of industrial bearings.⁶

Because Swedish companies commanded a small domestic market, they were forced into international expansion at an early stage. Today, Swedish-owned multinational firms account for about half of total Swedish exports and manufacturing output. Many of these firms are extensively global, with almost 90% of sales in foreign markets and with more than 60% of their staff employed outside Sweden.

Access to raw materials, skilled workers, and innovative talent helped Sweden achieve the same level of per capita income as Great Britain by the outbreak of the Second World War. Sweden was fortunate enough not to be drawn into the war. Its industry and infrastructure thus remained intact and were well equipped to take advantage of the upswing in world trade during the postwar period.

Nineteenth-century Sweden was also characterized by the emergence of strong popular movements such as the free (i.e., nonstate) churches, the temperance and women's movements and, above all, the labor movement. The latter, which grew concurrently with the industrialization of the later 19th century, became reformist in its outlook after the turn of the century and by 1917 the first representatives of the Social Democratic movement joined the government. Universal suffrage was introduced for men in 1909 and for women in 1921, and this later date also marked the breakthrough for the principle of parliamentary government.

Building the Welfare State: Folkhemmet and the Swedish Model

An important concept in describing the evolution of Sweden as a modern welfare state is the political Utopia of a “People's home”—or Folkhemmet—as envisioned around 1930 by the Social Democratic Party, which was the ruling political party for more than four decades after 1932.⁷ Folkhemmet is a metaphor of society as the good home, a nationwide community in which “equality, concern for others, co-operation and helpfulness”⁸ (as in any good home) should prevail. It was a vision of a decent and socialist society, entailing economic and social justice, and equality. It proved possible to realize these plans in all their essentials after the World War II.

Important figureheads during the postwar Folkhemmet period were the Social Democratic leaders Per Albin Hansson, Tage Erlander, and Olof Palme, all of them prime minister in turn.⁹ Hansson and Erlander in particular became national father figures, with powerful leader profiles. Palme enjoyed similar status but was much more controversial, partly because his political focus stretched well beyond the domestic arena. Palme became famous internationally for his strong commitment to the Third World and the struggle for the right of the emerging nations to self-determination.¹⁰

These developments in Sweden in general, and the evolution in the country of the modern universal welfare state in particular, are often described in terms of “the Swedish model.” As the name suggests, the model embraces certain factors that, taken together, are typical of Swedish society and unique to it. Although the Swedish model has been more or less abandoned today, it is important to offer a brief description of some of its main characteristics in any account of the development of Swedish society and culture since the Second World War, and of the institutional context that this has provided for managerial leadership in Sweden over more than half a century. If typical management styles are seen as sediments of experience over time, then the collective experience of the Swedish model can certainly be said to have permeated the minds of Swedish managers (Jönsson, 1995b).

The Swedish model should not be interpreted as a precise or unambiguous concept. Nevertheless, a 5-year interdisciplinary research program, “The Study of Power and Democracy in Sweden,”¹¹ did identify a number of distinctive and partially interlocking features that had developed between the end of 1930 and the beginning of 1970, a period coinciding with the years of Social Democratic rule in Sweden. These features can be summarized as follows:

• A non-interventionist stance on the part of the state in the industrial relations system. The labor market actors avoided the threat of state intervention in conflicts, and it is probable that this threat helped to promote cooperation among the actors.¹² In the Swedish model, this cooperation soon became the norm.
• Centralized collective negotiations between the actors on the labor market. This centralization facilitated the pursuit of a wage policy that exhibited solidarity with low-paid workers, in the sense that the general wage level was adjusted and increased to that of the most internationally competitive industries, thus forcing unproductive enterprises either to improve or to close down.
• The potential problem of lay-offs resulting from this wage policy was dealt with by an active governmental labor market policy, aimed essentially at promoting the movement of the labor force from low-productive to high-productive sectors.

To this can be added a unique political climate between the different actors in the labor market, a culture of consensus that prevailed for several decades following World War II. The 1938 “Saltsjöbaden-agreement” was a historical compromise between the two main actors, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisationen, LO) and the Swedish Employers’ Confederation (Svenska Arbetsgivareföreningen, SAF).¹³ This agreement marked the starting point for a period of relatively peaceful industrial relations, cooperation, and mutual trust. The spirit of Saltsjöbaden became the cultural frame within which the Swedish model developed and “signaled the end of worker-employer hostilities and paved the way for the economic basis of the welfare state” (Trädgård, 1990, p. 48; cited in Berglund & Löwstedt, 1996). Economic growth was thus rapid during the postwar period and up to the mid-1970s, during which time Swedish export industry was highly competitive and the Swedish economy was enjoying an exceptional rate of growth.

Sweden's development as a welfare state was thus due, to a large extent, to the Swedish model and its middle-of-the-road strategy between capitalism and socialism, a strategy accomplished in a joint effort by a triad consisting of the state, the labor unions, and the employers. Berglund and Löwstedt (1996) suggest that the Swedish model can be seen as an attempt at realizing a Gesellschaft within a Gemeinschaft (cf. Tönnies, 1963).

Although the Swedish model is a crucial feature of any attempt to describe the institutional context in which industry (and managerial leadership) developed in Sweden during this period, it is naturally not the only one. In his comprehensive work on the historical development of a number of large Swedish companies, Jönsson (1995a) indicates several other contributory institutional conditions. Early internationalization was one factor that has already been mentioned. Swedish companies were quick to adapt to foreign markets and different cultures. A second factor was the strong influence of three dominating banking interests,¹⁴ which, as well as supplying risk capital, also provided active long-term ownership, industrial competence, and a network of industrial leaders and directors from companies within their own spheres and representing a major part of Swedish industry. A third factor consisted of the collaboration between the parties on the labor market aimed at combining modernization (new technology) and rationalization with various enriching and participative models of work organization.

In recent decades, like many other Western countries, Sweden has been evolving as a service-oriented and knowledge-intensive society. In the Swedish case, a service-oriented society meant an expanding public sector, because such key services as medical care, child care, and education were provided predominantly by public organizations. As the country moved into the 1990s the economic trends took a downturn, and as the recession deepened unemployment rose from a very low rate in the 1970s and 1980s toward a more average European level¹⁵ (Swedish Institute, 2004b). The public sector, previously a bastion of employment for women, suffered major cutbacks and family policies became less generous.

In the second half of the 1990s, the economy recovered. Unemployment was reduced to the government's target level of 4% by late 2000. Part of the explanation lay in increasing support to local governments (schools, health care, and social services) and national programs such as the Adult Education Initiative (kompetenslyftet) to promote higher adult education (Swedish Institute, 2004b). Primarily, however, the reduction was due to the creation of new jobs, mainly within the pharmaceutical and telecommunications industries.

A number of indicators bear witness to the transformation of Swedish businesses into knowledge-intensive operations. These are the only kind of operations to show a growth in jobs during the last two decades (mainly in services and knowledge-intensive manufacturing), and Sweden is established among the top countries on research and development (R&D) spending¹⁶ (Swedish Institute, 2003a). The transformation is also evident in that Sweden was among the leading information technology (IT) nations in the world by the beginning of the 21st century. The exceptionally high rate of IT usage has made a powerful contribution to economic growth overall, to the rapid expansion of IT and the Internet companies, and to the fact that Sweden has become an important test market for international IT companies (Ilshammar, 2000). This expansion has made waves internationally. In 1999, for instance, Newsweek magazine devoted a special edition to Stockholm as the proclaimed Internet capital of Europe with regard to its IT industry.

A New Landscape for Swedish Leadership

The institutional context for business management in Sweden has thus changed significantly compared to the situation only a few decades ago. For instance, the increasing dominance of financial investors in the capital market has removed the crucial function of industrial ownership (Jönsson, 1995a, 1995b). This has placed a new emphasis on short-term economic performance and on shareholder values, diverging from the traditional long-term stakeholder perspective that has hitherto prevailed for decades in Swedish businesses. Furthermore, the economic base is now concentrated on large enterprises whose foreign operations represent a considerable share of their activities. Naturally, the interests of a global enterprise are not always compatible with those of the Swedish state, a situation that has generated certain tensions and has reduced the mutual trust that had prevailed for so long. This new landscape obviously shapes the way leadership is enacted, determines what leader qualities are most valued in recruitment situations, affects the expectations and ideals associated with leaders in the public discourse, and so on (House, Wright, & Aditya, 1997). New leadership models and ideals are constantly evolving as an adaptive response to a changing environment, while at the same time they are also actively shaping this environment themselves (Gergen, 1999).

But the landscape is not constituted only by institutional arrangements. Swedish culture in the sense of norms, values, and shared understandings is an equally important component in the landscape that shapes (and is shaped by) the images of leadership as well as the execution of leadership in practice. Before embarking on an exploration of leadership in Sweden (the Images of Leadership section in this chapter), we look first at Swedish culture in this sense, as we analyze the results of the GLOBE study conducted in Sweden.

1. SWEDEN IN THE GLOBE STUDY

The GLOBE project has collected data using multiple methods (cf. House et al., 2004; chap. 1, this volume). This section reports the results that emerged from quantitative data collection, more specifically from a survey of observations and values regarding Sweden as expressed by middle managers in terms of the nine GLOBE culture dimensions. This presentation of results is followed by an elaboration of each dimension drawn from qualitative data such as interview material, public information, and nonobtrusive observations relevant to the different dimensions.

The Swedish questionnaire was distributed among middle managers in 14 business organizations active in three different industries:¹⁷ finance, food processing, and telecommunications. Altogether 896 middle managers answered the questionnaire. Male respondents constituted 82.3%, whereas 17.7% represented female participation. Ages ranged between 25 and 64 years, with a median of 46. As regards cultural conditioning, 97.1% were born in Sweden. Methodological details relevant to this section and an elaboration of the basic demographics of the sample group can be found in the Appendix.

Results for the Swedish Sample

Table 3.1 presents the societal culture dimensions for Sweden. Starting at the higher end, the results show very high aggregated scale scores and rankings (indicated here in parentheses) on the three following dimensions in perceptions of societal cultural (“As Is” scale scores): Institutional Collectivism (Mean [M] = 5.22, Rank 1), Uncertainty Avoidance (M = 5.32, Rank 2), and Gender Egalitarianism (M = 3.84, Rank 8). In an international comparison, we can therefore clearly identify Sweden as a very collectivist society, where equality between men and women is relatively high. The country is further characterized by a large number of institutional arrangements and structures, such as rules and procedures that serve to reduce uncertainty.

TABLE 3.1
Results for Sweden for the Nine GLOBE Cultural Dimensions at the Society Level

^aBands A > B > C > D > E are determined by calculating the grand mean and standard deviations across all scales. These means and standard deviations are used to calculate high, medium, and low bands of countries (Test Banding, cf. Hanges, Dickson, & Sipe, 2004). ^bNumbers in parentheses (Rank) indicate rank order for Sweden among the 61 GLOBE countries. ^cThree group bands identified ranging from A to C (high–low). ^dFour group bands identified ranging from A to D (high–low). ^eFive group bands identified ranging from A to E (high–low).

In terms of values, or “Should Be” scale scores for the same high-end dimensions, the results show that the middle managers would like to see less emphasis on solutions and practices expressing Institutional Collectivism (M = 3.94, Rank 58) and Uncertainty Avoidance (M = 3.60, Rank 58). In the case of Gender Egalitarianism, there is clear evidence of support for promoting this societal issue even more. Although it is high, it should be even higher (M = 5.15, Rank 2).

At the lower end of Table 3.1, we find very low “As Is” scale scores and rankings on the three following dimensions: Performance Orientation (M = 3.72, Rank 48), In-group Collectivism (M = 3.66, Rank 60), and Assertiveness (M = 3.38, Rank 61). In an international comparison, Swedish society is not apparently organized for emphasizing or rewarding performance. A striking and particularly interesting result is that whereas Sweden is ranked as the most collectivist society in the GLOBE study (Institutional Collectivism), it is also ranked as extremely individualist in terms of the In-Group Collectivism dimension. Finally, Swedes emerge as a very timid and nonassertive society by international comparison.

“Should Be” scale scores for the same low-end dimensions reveal a wish for this to be higher on all three dimensions in absolute terms, but the difference is small for Assertiveness (0.23 score points). The rather big shift in ranking for Assertiveness from 61/61 (“As Is”) to 38/61 (“Should Be”), is thus largely a relative one. The opposite effect is evident for the Performance Orientation score. There is a big difference of more than two points between the “As Is” and “Should Be” scores for this dimension, but the shift in international, relative ranking is a modest one only: from 48/61 (As Is) to 42/61 (Should Be). In other words, although there is a clear desire for an increase in emphasis on performance, this follows a universal pattern. Finally, the equivalent results for In-Group Collectivism demonstrate a major shift both in absolute and relative terms, moving from an “As Is” ranking of 60/61, to a “Should Be” ranking of 11/61.

Future Orientation (M = 4.39, Rank 9), Humane Orientation (M = 4.10, Rank 28), and Power Distance (M = 4.85, Rank 51) are the three remaining dimensions where the Swedish scores and rankings do not diverge markedly in any direction, especially with regard to the absolute “As Is” scores. Although the rankings show that Future Orientation is rather high and Power Distance low, with Humane Orientation in the middle, Sweden is still positioned in the middle country clusters on all three dimensions (see Table 3.1, rank columns).

The “Should Be” score for Future Orientation points in two directions, depending on the perspective. The absolute direction is positive: The middle managers think that more attention should be paid to future-oriented activities such as planning and preparing for future events. In relative terms, however, the direction is negative. Ranking for Future Orientation drops from a positioning of 9/61 (As Is) down to 56/61 (Should Be). In other words, Swedish middle managers think there should be more focus on Future Orientation than there is in what they conceive as the present state. This is in line with their colleagues in most other countries, but to a much lesser degree.

Swedish middle managers think there should be less Power Distance and the difference in absolute numbers between “how it should be” and “how it is” is among the greatest within the sample. Yet the shift is only modest in an international comparison. The ranking is thus actually higher for the “Should Be” score (M = 2.70, Rank 31), than for the “As Is” score (M = 4.85, Rank 51). In other words, values regarding Power Distance seem to follow an international pattern in such a way that a (much) lower Power Distance is universally desired, but to a lesser extent in Sweden relative to most other countries.

Finally, the “Should Be” scores and rankings for Humane Orientation show Swedish middle managers to have a relatively strong preference for increasing arrangements and activities that promote an even more humane society. The “Should Be” ranking is 9/61, which qualifies Sweden for membership in the top country cluster.

Illustrations and Elaboration of the Study Dimensions

In this section, we illustrate and elaborate the results presented previously, using additional data from two sources. One of these entails non-obtrusive measurements using public sources and expert knowledge collected by the Swedish GLOBE team. A second involves direct observations of local expressions relevant to the GLOBE culture dimensions at the society level. These data were collected primarily by the Swedish research team during the spring of 1995, and subsequently supplemented by interviews and observations during 1996–1997.

Institutional Collectivism. In the preceding section, we found that Sweden was the most collectivist society of all the participating countries. Institutional Collectivism refers here to social arrangements at the societal level that promote conformity and interdependence among (groups of) individuals, and a concern for collective rather than individual interests.

One good indicator of this dimension and the promotion of collective interests is represented by the labor unions, for example, their political influence and their level of membership. Sweden is in fact the leading example in a group of countries including members such as Denmark and Finland, which all have a very high unionization rate. Almost 9 out of 10 (87%) of the wage earners in Sweden are members of a union. Some comparable figures are one out of three (34%) in the UK, and one out of four (24%) in Japan. In France, only 9% of the wage earners are members of a union.¹⁸

Another expression of Institutional Collectivism is the relatively high-tax situation in Sweden. The public sector, that is, the national government (the state) and the local government (the municipalities and county councils), have assumed extensive responsibility for many services such as education, labor market, and industrial policies, the care of the sick and elderly, pensions and other types of social insurance, environmental protection, and so on. The tax system is thus a key institution for the realization of political goals regarding collective interests. Although this is true for any country, the high level of taxation in Sweden is in line with the high score for Institutional Collectivism.

A third example of Institutional Collectivism is expressed by the Right of Public Access (Allemansrätten, which literally means “Every Man's Right”). The law grants each and every individual the right, under responsibility, to enjoy the countryside for recreation and tourism, for example, the right to visit other people's property (and to pick wildflowers, mushrooms, berries, etc.), and to bathe in and travel by boat on other people's water. The individual landowner's interests are thus subordinated to collective interests. The Right of Public Access is unique to Sweden and is a very important base for recreation. It also has an important cultural/historical value as a right going back to medieval traditions.¹⁹ The Right of Public Access with its delicate balance of freedom and responsibility captures something essential in the relationship between the individual and the collective.

One last example illustrating the concern for collective rather than individual interests is the “Principle of public access to official records” (Offentlighetsprincipen) that is inscribed in the Swedish Constitution. According to this principle, all official records are to be accessible to the citizens, unless specifically stated otherwise. Openness should be the rule and secrecy the exception. For instance, civil servants and others working for the public authorities are obliged to disclose what they know and to give information to the media, unless the information in question is officially confidential. Court proceedings, parliamentary, and local or regional authority sessions are open to the public and the media. Even the computer logs that track the prime minister's surfing on the Internet, and all of his e-mail correspondence, are publicly accessible.

Uncertainty Avoidance. Uncertainty Avoidance is defined as the extent to which a collective strives to avoid uncertainty by relying on social norms, structural arrangements, rituals, and bureaucratic practices to alleviate the unpredictability of future events. The mean value scored by Sweden was 5.32, which positions it second out of the 61 countries in this dimension. This result indicates very high Uncertainty Avoidance. Protecting the rights of individuals in their contacts with the authorities is fundamental to the process of law in Sweden, and it is one of many expressions of uncertainty reduction. In this context, the Swedish ombudsman system is a guarantee against oppressive measures and misgovernment in the judiciary or the public administration. The parliamentary ombudsmen investigate suspected abuses of authority on the part of civil servants. Other ombudsmen protect the public by keeping a watchful eye on consumer rights, ethnic and sex discrimination, press ethics, and the rights of children, young people, and those with disabilities.

Another example under this heading is that all residents in Sweden are covered by the national health insurance. If someone is ill or has to stay home from work to care for sick children, they receive a taxable daily allowance: 75% to 85% of lost income, depending on the length of the absence. Finally, the social norm that calls for people to be “on time” is related to Uncertainty Avoidance, and sticking to an agreed-on time is important to the maintenance of good social relations in both working life and private life. Only deviations by a few minutes are accepted as being “on time”: 10 minutes after the agreed-on time counts as being “late.”

Gender Egalitarianism. In the dimension of Gender Egalitarianism—the extent to which a society minimizes gender role differences—Sweden ranks eighth, scoring 3.84. The score indicates that men and women are attributed almost equal status, although there is a slight bias toward the male side.

The 1994 elections in Sweden resulted in a substantial increase in the proportion of women in Parliament. Of the 349 members, over 40% were women.²⁰ This world record in women's participation was maintained at the subsequent election 1998. The latest election, in 2002, gave women 45.3% of the places in Parliament. Another breakthrough for equality occurred in the cabinet created by former Social Democratic Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson in 1994, in which half the members were women. The present cabinet headed by Prime Minister Göran Persson also breaks even, with 11 female and 11 male ministers (January 2004). These figures are obviously highly symbolic of the gender-equality ambitions in the Social Democratic movement.

However, the situation in working life in general is still far from equal—at least by Swedish standards. Though labor force participation is more or less equal between men and women,²¹ the labor market is segregated, despite a general political consensus on the principle of gender equality.²² Of all the women in the labor market, 51% are active in the public sector and 49 percent in the private. The equivalent figures for men are 19% and 81% respectively. Although women have gained power over the last decade and hold influential positions more than ever, men still dominate in certain domains. For instance, 56% of the people holding a management position in public organizations are women, but only 19% in the private sector (Statistics Sweden, 2004).

The main statute governing the practical realization of equality between women and men is aimed at working life. The Act on Equality between Men and Women at Work, generally known as the Equal Opportunities Act,²³ came into force in 1980. A new and stricter Equal Opportunities Act replaced the existing one on January 1, 1992.

A separate Equality Affairs Division (Jämställdhetsenheten) was established at the central governmental level in the early 1980s. The Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman (Jämställdhetsombudsmannen, JämO) is an independent government authority under the Ministry of Labor. It was set up when the first Equal Opportunities Act came into force in 1980. The main purpose of the Act is to promote equal rights for men and women with respect to employment, working conditions, and opportunities for personal development at work. The rules are of two types: those prohibiting an employer from discriminating against a person on account of gender, and second, those requiring an employer to take active steps to promote equality at the workplace.

One last example concerns an institution that promotes equality in the private domain. When a child is born, its parents are legally entitled to a total of 15 months paid parental leave from work. This leave can be shared between them and can be taken any time before the child's eighth birthday. One of the months is reserved specifically for the father, and is forfeited if he does not use it. Surveys show that more than 50% of fathers utilize their right to paid parental leave during the child's first year. In addition to these benefits, all fathers are entitled to a 10-day leave of absence with parental benefit in connection with the child's birth. About 80% of fathers take advantage of this opportunity (Swedish Institute, 2004a).

Future Orientation. Future Orientation is the degree to which an organization or society encourages and rewards future-oriented behaviors such as planning, investing in the future, and delaying gratification. Sweden's Future Orientation ranks fairly high (9/61), with a scale score of 4.39. This result suggests a leaning toward a long-term rather than a short-term focus.

One obvious expression of Future Orientation is represented by the investments into various kinds of education and personnel development (competence development, postgraduate education, conferencing, etc). Sweden has been among the leading countries in the world for many years in terms of investment in education (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2005), and the educational attainment of the population is high. In 1996, only 30% of the population had left school after the primary/lower secondary level. Furthermore, Swedish employees spend more time at internal conferences than their counterparts in any other country in Europe,²⁴ and the market for executive education such as MBA programs and similar postgraduate courses is growing.

Another expression of a strong Future Orientation is that Sweden is among the top countries in terms of spending on industrial R&D as a percentage of GDP. In 2001, industrial R&D expenditures alone corresponded to 3.3% of GDP (Swedish Institute, 2003a).

Humane Orientation. Humane Orientation is the degree to which an organization or society encourages and rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, friendly, generous, caring, and kind to others.

The social concern that is characteristic of Swedish culture is captured in part by this dimension, where Sweden scores 4.10 and ranks 28/61. This result is rather surprising at a first glance, because Sweden is internationally famed for being a very humane society. However, the dimension as defined here focuses on individual humane characteristics rather than on the institutional arrangements that are the primary source of Sweden's reputation. These can be exemplified by the arrangements instituted in Sweden for two groups, namely criminals and disabled people.

The Swedish Prison and Probation Service is the public institution responsible for people sentenced to imprisonment or probation.²⁵ The basic ideas underlying their operations are summarized in their own words as follows (our translation):

• As little intervention as possible, probation and parole being the best way of rehabilitating offenders.
• Care in prison should be designed to promote the rehabilitation of inmates, to prepare them for their return to society and to mitigate the harmful effects of incarceration.
• During the period in care, time is spent on persuading the inmate to live a life free of crime and drugs on release.
• The regular resources of the community, for example, medical care and the social services, are to be utilized as far as possible. (Kriminalvårdsstyrelsen, 2005)

These ideas or principles for the Prison and Probation Service are clearly rooted in an explicit Humane Orientation. With regard to the conditions of prison life, prisoners work while serving their sentences and are paid for it; they have their own TVs in their personal cells; and they have easy access to a physician when necessary.

Another example of the Humane Orientation in Sweden can be seen in the policies regarding disabled people. The very interpretation of the “handicap” concept, which naturally plays a central role in any disability policy, is fundamentally humane. In Sweden a handicap is viewed not as a characteristic of a person, but as something that arises when an inaccessible environment confronts a person with a functional impairment. Thus, a common theme in the various policies is to place the responsibility on all organizations to create and sustain environmental conditions as such that an individual disability is not transformed into a handicap. Apart from various rights to financial support and personal assistance, disabled people have their own ombudsman, the Office of the Disability Ombudsman (Handikappombudsmannen), an authority that monitors their rights and interests.

Performance Orientation. Performance Orientation refers to the extent to which an organization or society encourages and rewards group members for performance improvement and excellence. Sweden was ranked rather low in the international comparison: 48/61, with a score of 3.72.

The relatively low score reflects the Swedish approach in relation to this dimension, which is to focus on the performance of organizational units rather than specific members of those units. For instance, a common procedure at universities is to provide regular feedback to faculty departments about their scholarly performance in terms of research projects and publications. On the other hand, the teaching performance of faculty members is generally not evaluated, nor are individual students with the best grades generally honored.

This general observation does not exclude a number of practices for encouraging and rewarding individual performance excellence, for instance, in major companies where promotion is given to individuals on the basis of such excellence. Furthermore, if politicians at the top three levels of the national government happen to have kinship ties with other politicians at the same level, this depends solely on coincidence: What counts is competence in the performance of the duties concerned, and not social connections or any other such criteria. Nonetheless, most organizations avoid applying formal, explicit performance appraisal systems to individuals. Again, the organizational department or equivalent group is the normal unit for performance evaluation.

Power Distance. Power Distance is defined as the degree to which members of an organization or society expect and agree that power is unequally shared. Sweden scored a mean of 4.85 in the Power Distance dimension and was ranked 51/61, thus being perceived as a low–Power Distance society.

Non-obtrusive measures provided eloquent examples of various characteristics relevant to Power Distance. For instance, most business organizations lack any dress codes based on employee status, and titles are seldom listed on door signs (the door sign for Sweden's prime minister simply gives his name, Göran Persson, on a plain label). Nor are titles generally used when addressing people. Eating places at work are not generally segregated on a basis of position, although certain privileges such as special parking places or bigger offices are allocated to senior managerial levels.

Outside the sphere of work, low Power Distance can be revealed in various ways. Burial grounds, for instance, are generally similar for everyone regardless of family wealth or status. Nor is ability to get on a bus or any other public transportation helped by personal status, as everybody is obliged to queue.

Also significant in this context is the absence of pictures of living political leaders in any public place or on symbolic artifacts such as stamps (apart from members of the royal family—but then again they have no formal political influence). Only in very special circumstances is there any symbolic recognition of political, business, or religious leaders in public places. One such case occurred after the murder of the former Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986, when the name of the street at the end of which the lethal shot was fired, was changed to Olof Palme Street. In general, if a street name acknowledges an individual at all, it is most likely to be of historical origin.

Two phenomena that demonstrate reductions in Power Distance in Sweden are the country's system of progressive income tax, and the contents of the 1976 Codetermination Act (Medbestämmandelagen), which guarantees the unions the formal right to membership of company boards.

In-Group Collectivism. According to Table 3.1, Sweden ranks as one of the most individualistic nations investigated in GLOBE (60/61), in terms of the In-Group Collectivism scale. This result is very noticeable together with the high Institutional Collectivism score reported earlier.

Modal values in Sweden stress individual independence and strength. The strong need for independence can be expressed not only as a wish to be left alone, to “be spared other people,” but also as a desire “not to be beholden to anyone.” The word ensamhet (solitude) has a positive connotation. It suggests inner peace, independence, and personal strength.

Hendin (1964) explains the relation to solitude by reference to the Swedish way of bringing up children. Swedish children are encouraged to become independent at an early stage: the earlier in life, the greater the sign of what the Swede regards as maturity. It is certainly no coincidence that the world-famous character Pippi Longstocking (Pippi Långstrump) was created by a Swedish author, Astrid Lindgren. Being able to take care of oneself independent of a family, as Pippi always does, is regarded as something positive. Consequently, the family does not occupy a significant role in Swedish society in an international comparison.

It is not therefore surprising that the proportion of single households is the highest in the world. One reason is that the different generations do not as a rule live together. Widowed parents or older family members do not live with their relatives. Instead, residences for old people are common in Sweden. It is certainly rare to find unmarried adults living with their parents, but even the youngest offspring are encouraged to leave the family home early, supported by state loans. In Sweden a 22-year-old person still living with his or her parents is regarded as being slightly odd.

In 2003 approximately 74% of all Swedish children aged 1 to 3 years, and 96% of all children aged 4 to 6 years, were spending (at least part of) their day at a child-care institution of some kind (Skolverket, 2004). In the typical Swedish family, both parents are thus working and their children are either at a child-care institution or at school. The grandparents live on their own. This means that in Sweden family life, as usually understood, is enacted almost exclusively at the weekends.

Assertiveness. Assertiveness refers to the degree to which individuals in a society are assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in their relationships with others. Sweden has the lowest international ranking in this dimension (61/61), with a scale score of 3.38. This result suggests that Swedes are typically nonassertive, that is, timid, nondominant, and nonaggressive in social relationships.

This result confirms the findings of previous studies and informed accounts on Swedish culture. Foreigners often regard Swedes as shy, reserved, and “cold-hearted.” This does not necessarily mean that Swedes are actually feeling less emotion than other nationalities. It is the way of expressing feelings that is culture-specific, and the subtle signals can be very difficult for foreigners to interpret. Swedes do not reveal their emotions as often or as overtly as people from most other countries, and the importance of keeping control over one's feelings is introduced early, as part of a child's upbringing. In this respect, Swedes are strikingly similar to the Japanese (Daun, 1986). For instance, it is rare to use car horns in traffic unless it is to ward off danger. To blow your horn is generally considered to be an unnecessary, aggressive act. Swedes are internationally famed for their desire to avoid conflict.

Furthermore, there are relatively few hugs and kisses, or verbal expressions of emotion among Swedes. Because strong emotions are rarely expressed openly in Sweden, indirect forms are used instead—something that finds expression in the special love of rituals. For instance, the well-prepared speech made by the managing director to the accountant on retirement, complete with its almost obligatory little joke, may well be the only way of expressing affection and gratitude to a loyal employee, but one that is recognized and appreciated by the recipient as being just that.

Cultural Themes for Sweden

In the following analysis, we synthesize the quantitative and qualitative results presented previously into a number of empirically grounded cultural themes applicable to Sweden: metaphors that together seem to us to capture some particularly important aspects of Swedish culture. We also present some additional information about Swedish society and Swedish culture drawn from a number of ethnographic and sociological accounts.

Two Life Worlds: Socially Concerned Individualism. The extreme positions of Sweden relative to other countries in the two dimensions Institutional Collectivism (Rank 1) and In-Group Collectivism (Rank 60) are certainly striking and puzzling results. Sweden is at one and the same time an extremely collective and individualistic society. How can we make sense of this paradoxical finding? It can be compared with the result reported by Hofstede (1980), whereby Sweden was labeled an individualistic culture²⁶ according to the author's IDV (individualism) index. One explanation of this difference is that Hofstede did not distinguish between the small in-groups and the much wider anonymous, institutionalized collective that constitutes society as a whole. This distinction is obviously important in the Swedish case, and Hofstede's measure and definition (which most closely correspond to In-Group Collectivism) reveal only half of the picture.

In ethnographic descriptions of Sweden, it is often asserted that Swedes draw a strict line between public and private life, whereas in many other parts of the world the two are inseparable (Daun, 1989). In many respects the two spheres are very different, and blending them could be problematic. As we have noted, independence and solitude are two concepts with a strong and positive charge among Swedes in general, but they are associated mainly with the private sphere. One function of the strict borderline between public and private could be to defend the individual's integrity, and guarantee that much-valued feeling of independence vis-à-vis the outside world. The two life worlds are preferably kept apart, in both time and space. It is rare, for instance, for Swedes to socialize with their work colleagues in their spare time—workmates belong to the public sphere.

In a seven-country²⁷ comparison, Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars (1993) assert that “more than any other culture examined in this book [Swedes] begin with the individual, his or her integrity, uniqueness, freedom, needs, and values, yet insist that the fulfillment and destiny of the individual lies in developing and sustaining others by the gift of his or her own work and energy” (p. 239). This energy is translated almost exclusively into engagement in organized activities. We have also found that Sweden is a humane society, first and foremost in terms of institutional arrangements rather than interpersonal (in-group) relationships. We therefore believe that Swedes are fundamentally individualists, with a great concern for fairness and the well-being of others that is expressed in organized activities and institutional arrangements. This delicate balance between, and optimization of, individual and collective interests is captured in the common little word lagom²⁸ or “just right.” We have encapsulated it in the notion of the socially concerned individualist.

It is also necessary to note the striking difference between the “As Is” and “Should Be” scores for the middle managers when it comes to the two Collectivism dimensions. Judging from the results, our respondents have a strong preference for replacing socially concerned individualism by stronger social ties within the family or organization, and are much less inclined toward collectivistic solutions on the society level. Should this pattern apply to the population at large, it would mean that Sweden was undergoing a major transformation of the basic foundations of the Folkhemmet, affecting all areas of social life and particularly that of working life.

Coping with an Uncertain Future—Rationality and Pragmatism. A second result that stands out distinctly from the quantitative data is the extreme position on the Uncertainty Avoidance dimension²⁹ (Rank 2) and the high position on Future Orientation (Rank 9). Because uncertainty is by definition connected with the genuinely uncertain future, avoiding uncertainty seems to suggest avoiding the future. In this sense, the results appear contradictory. How are we to understand a culture with a strong Future Orientation that at the same time ranks high on Uncertainty Avoidance? More interestingly, how does such a culture resolve this apparent paradox?

In the ethnographic literature on Sweden a recurrent theme is the pronounced emphasis on reason, objectivity, matter-of-factness, and order. Everything lying beyond reason is awkward, and possibly even immoral (Daun, 1989). Only rational-pragmatic arguments that are straight to the point are legitimate in discussion: “Irrelevant” emotive associations are out-of-bounds. Not surprisingly, the pragmatic Swedes are often regarded as earnest and boring in the eyes of foreigners (Philips-Martinsson, 1991). We thus conclude that the typical Swede is very rational, even though “rationality” can be defined to mean different things. According to Daun (1989) Swedish rationality means putting the emphasis on practical solutions, on action appropriate to the goal pursued, on aiming at one objective at a time. Swedes adopt a practical orientation that some other authors encapsulate in the term pragmatism (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1993). We believe that these rational and pragmatic attitudes are an expression of the culture of high Uncertainty Avoidance observed in our study. Rationalism and pragmatism are “solutions” to the problem of coping with uncertainty. Moreover, they offer a perspective that resolves the apparent paradox. Viewed through a rational and pragmatic lens, the focus on the future is narrowed down to the manageable aspects and paying less attention to the unknown. Thus, the future does not appear uncertain; rather, it seems predictable and manageable, and something toward which one can quite easily orient oneself.

On the other hand, rationalism and pragmatism are perhaps going to be less important, judging from the big difference between the middle managers’ Uncertainty Avoidance “As Is” score (very high) and their “Should Be” score (very low), at least in terms of the “social engineering” culture that prevailed for many decades while the Swedish welfare state was being created.

Consensus—Egalitarianism, Equality, and Timidity. The Swedish population is unusually homogenous, compared to other countries. Sweden is a low-context culture, a culture in which the situation (context) is not acknowledged as having any significance with regard to the way people act and react. Swedes share the same history, the same language, and the same religion, and the differences between various groups in the country are comparatively small (Daun, 1989). This facilitates communication between different societal groups and opens up the possibility of wide agreement and collective action (Berglund & Löwstedt, 1996).

A third distinct theme to emerge from our findings concerns attitudes to power and influence. Sweden was found to be a relatively equal and egalitarian society (low on Power Distance and high on Gender Egalitarianism). This result is in line with the findings in Hofstede (1980), where Sweden was classified as a low–Power Distance culture (Ranking 43/50) according to the author's Power Distance Index, PDI. One feature of those countries where Power Distance is modest is that everyone is regarded as being “just like everyone else” and status differences are not desired.

From this powerful equality norm, there has emerged a special set of Swedish cultural practices (and rituals) that are often referred to in the relevant literature (Daun, 1989; Jönsson, 1995a; Phillips-Martinsson, 1991). One manifestation is that everyone's opinions, ideas and experiences are respected and listened to, because people are all potential contributors to the accomplishment of the task at hand or to finding a solution to the current problem. Mutual understanding, collective consideration, and compromise solutions are favored. Consensus, albeit regarded primarily as a condition for dialogue (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1993), is also seen as one of its desirable outcomes. Such an attitude enables a search for creative solutions before the decisions are made, and wide support once they have been taken.

There is a link here with the earlier discussion about assertiveness and conflict avoidance. Rather than seeing conflict avoidance as an end in itself, we believe it is intimately connected with the idea of consensus. Conflict is obviously a threat to the strong norms regarding good conditions for dialogue, so people are consequently expected to be kind to each other and not to quarrel. A kind, polite and neutral attitude is preferred, whereas strong and spontaneous expressions of emotion are regarded as ridiculous and childish (Daun, 1989). As we have noted previously, Assertiveness rates extremely low in Sweden in an international comparison. It seems to us that the egalitarian, equality-oriented, and timid qualities all converge in the consensus concept.

2. IMAGES OF LEADERSHIP IN SWEDEN

In this section, we will explore images of leadership in Sweden using multiple sources of data. A central theoretical construct in the GLOBE project consists of implicit leadership theories. A basic premise from a social-constructivist perspective (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, 1991; Burr, 1995; Gergen, 1999) is that the understandings of leadership, as reflected in implicit theories, are the result not only of individual experiences, but also, and more important, of the interaction between individuals and social networks in the joint construction of the leadership phenomenon. In line with this approach, we see it as important in this chapter to use different sets of data together with a number of comparative results from multiple sources and various types of actors, and to adopt a number of methodological approaches in order to obtain triangulation of data (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 1994).

We start by presenting the data collected from the GLOBE survey of middle managers at the national level. To check for consistency, we also conduct an industry-level analysis. The Swedish data are then analyzed and compared with the global data in a between-country analysis. Together these three analyses enable us to offer a preliminary image of outstanding leadership, to point out variations between different industries, and finally to distinguish such traits as are typical of Sweden from those that are universally endorsed and therefore express globally preferred leadership ideals. The quantitative analyses are then contrasted with an analysis of focus groups and ethnographic interviews with organizational leaders active in widely varying contexts. Finally, we present an analysis of leadership images as constructed by the media, which play an important role in shaping people's views of leadership.

The Implicit Leadership Model Prevailing Among Middle Managers in Sweden

One objective of the GLOBE study was to collect data on attitudes and values relevant to “outstanding leadership,” and the country profiles of the leadership scale scores represent the respondents’ aggregated implicit leadership model (cf. Lord & Maher, 1991). The Swedish results thus provide a preliminary answer to the question: What is the dominating ideal image of leadership in Sweden?

Swedish Conceptions of Leadership From Within. In the leadership section of the questionnaire, 112 leadership traits and behavior attributes were presented to the respondents. Using several multinational samples from these items, 21 first-order leadership dimensions were extracted that represent the different aspects of leadership (cf. Dorfman, Hanges, & Brodbeck, 2004; House et al., 2004).

The leader dimensions that were rated very high or high³⁰ by the Swedish middle managers (i.e., factors contributing to outstanding leadership), starting with the highest were: (1) Inspirational, (2) Integrity, (3) Visionary, (4) Team Integrator, (5) Performance Orientation, (6) Decisive, and (7) Collaborative Team Orientation (see Table 3.2).

At the other end of the spectrum we find the dimensions that are rated low or very low³¹ (i.e., factors inhibiting outstanding leadership): (18) Autocratic, (19) Face-Saver, (20) Self-Centered, and (21) Malevolent (see Table 3.2).

The survey result suggests that, according to the middle managers, an outstanding leader should inspire and engage the organization members to do their best to achieve a visionary future, and she or he should be honest and trustworthy. Such a leader should work, not for his or her own self-interest, but for the common good, and should also be highly capable at creating a team spirit within the organization. Although these notions clearly portray an influential and willful person, the preferred working mode is team working with collaboration and consultation. This implicit model of leadership is the interpretation that emerges directly from the definitions of the dimensions, the total sample means, and the relative rankings. Thus, according to a large majority of the Swedish middle managers, an outstanding leader possesses qualities that are associated with a charismatic and team-oriented leadership style.

TABLE 3.2
Swedish Results on Attitudes to Leadership Traits and Behavior

Dimension	Example Item Key Words	Score
Inspirational	Enthusiastic, Positive, Encouraging, Motivational, and Morale booster	6.31
Integrity	Honest, Sincere, Just, and Trustworthy	6.29
Visionary	Future-oriented, Anticipatory, Inspirational, Visionary, and Intellectually stimulating	6.05
Collaborative Team Orientation	Group-oriented, Collaborative, Loyal, Consultative, Mediator, and Fraternal	5.98
Performance Orientation	Improvement-, Excellence-,and Performance-oriented	5.96
Decisive	Willful, Decisive, and Intuitive	5.59
Team Integrator	Communicative, Team builder, Integrator, and Coordinator	5.50
Administratively Competent	Orderly, Administratively skilled, Organized, and Good administrator	5.44
Diplomatic	Diplomatic, Win/win problem solver, and Effective bargainer	5.27
Humane	Generous, and Compassionate	4.96
Self-Sacrificial	Risk taker, Self-sacrificial, and Convincing	4.81
Modesty	Modest, Self-effacing, Calm, and Patient	4.59
Autonomous	Individualistic, Independent, Autonomous, and Unique	3.97
Conflict Inducer	Normative, Secretive, and an Intragroup competitor	3.33
Status-Consciousness	Status-conscious, and Class-conscious	3.30
Procedural	Ritualistic, Formal, Habitual, Cautious, and Procedural	3.19
Nonparticipative	Nondelegater, Micromanager, Nonegalitarian, and Individually oriented	2.51
Autocratic	Autocratic, Dictatorial, Elitist, Ruler, and Domineering	2.41
Face Saver	Indirect, Avoiding negatives, and Evasive	2.39
Self-Centered	Self-interested, Nonparticipative, Loner, and Asocial	1.79
Malevolent	Hostile, Vindictive, Cynical, Noncooperative, and Egotistical	1.52

Industry Differences in the Swedish Sample. By sampling three qualitatively different industries and collecting a larger data sample from each one, more than that which was required for the purposes of the GLOBE between-country analyses, we were able to analyze the homogeneity of the results presented previously in greater detail in the Swedish sample. Data were collected from all three industries studied in the GLOBE project: finance, telecommunications, and food processing. In other words, we were able to investigate whether the image of (outstanding) leadership in Sweden as it emerged from the sample on a national level was consistent with that at the industry level.

Spender (1989) proposes the existence of industry recipes for leadership. He argues that in any given industry there is a recipe, or a prevailing professional “common sense,” that guides leaders in their assessments, choices, and so on. Spender shows that leaders in a particular industry share similar cognitive images of that industry and of its particular dynamics and logic, and that this affects leader behavior (cf. Hellgren & Melin, 1992: “industrial wisdom”; Porac, Thomas, & Baden-Fuller, 1989: “cognitive communities”). Thus, industry variations within the Swedish sample would be a plausible finding.

In order to perform the industry level of analysis, we had to obtain scales with sufficient reliability for our purposes. The original GLOBE scales were constructed for maximizing reliable and valid scales for between-country analyses. We therefore had to redesign the collection of scales somewhat to serve our particular ends (within-country analyses). The final result includes 12 of the original 21 GLOBE leader scales, and 3 additional scales that are modifications of original GLOBE scales: friendly (modification of humane), independent (modification of autonomous), and close supervisor (modification of nonparticipative). The redesign of the scales, based on reliability analyses, is described in further detail in the Appendix.

Table 3.3 further explores the implicit leadership model obtained among Swedish middle managers. An evaluation of the total means naturally re-creates the original model: A leader who is being inspirational, visionary, and performance oriented contributes to outstanding leadership. Strong personal integrity is another important contributing feature, as is the ability to integrate teams. Characteristics inhibiting outstanding leadership are an autocratic attitude, malevolence, and self-centeredness. Furthermore, the exercise of close supervision is a factor that is strongly rejected. However, by analyzing the industry results and by making statistical comparisons, we are able to identify an industry-specific emphasis on various factors that extends and modifies the original model.

The telecommunications industry is conspicuous for rating collaborative team orientation significantly higher, and administratively competent, procedural, autocratic, and self-centered significantly lower, in relation to the other two industries. The finance industry, on the other hand, is conspicuous for rating performance oriented, independent, and visionary significantly higher than the two other industries. Finally, the food-processing industry has a significantly lower rating for the inspirational dimension than the other two, and a higher rating for close supervisor. In brief, the clearest differences between the industries are associated with (a) the degree of formalization, order and systemization, (b) the relation to performance, and (c) with motivation and encouragement.

The profiles, based on the results by industry, produce rather interesting variations of the original implicit leadership model. For instance, middle managers in the telecommunications industry emphasize such things as teamwork, cooperation, personal freedom (no close supervision), and flexibility (nonprocedural, less administration). A metaphor for outstanding leadership in this industry could be the team leader or team coach. This certainly makes sense in an industry that is characterized by the rapid rate of change in its business environment,³² such as the deregulation of the telecom markets and the opening up of new business opportunities, and the increasing rate of its technological development. A common way of coping with the turbulent environment in this industry is through the adoption of project organization, and certainly our results suggest that team leadership is of key importance.

TABLE 3.3
Modified Leadership Scale Means per Industry (Finance, Food, Telecom) Compared

Note. z value (1) Mann–Whitney U test between Finance and Food sectors; z value (2) between Finance and Telecommunication sectors; z value (3) between Food and Telecommunication sectors. ^* p < .05. ^** p < .01.

In contrast to the telecommunications industry, there is an emphasis on performance and independence in the finance industry, combined with high preference for a visionary and inspirational leadership style. In the middle of the 1990s, when this survey was carried out, the industry had recently undergone a crisis and was just starting to recover.³³ The preferred traits and behavior attributes go hand in hand with this situation, with a focus on performance to achieve recovery in the present, and on the visionary in order to determine the future direction. A metaphor for outstanding leadership in this industry is the leader as a high-scoring professional.

Finally, the image of outstanding leadership in the food-processing industry emphasizes direct control more than vision. Given the nature of the industry,³⁴ with its heavy production-process investment and economies of scale, a focus on efficiency and attending primarily to existing operations certainly makes sense. Perhaps the metaphor of a careful gardener best captures the essence of leadership in the food-processing business: creating the space for some variation at the team level, while always bearing in mind the viability of the whole.

From the industry-level analysis, we can thus conclude that the basic components of the Swedish middle managers’ implicit leadership model holds across industries, although we also find support for some variants in the model depending on the industry-specific characteristics.

Swedish Conceptions of Leadership in a Global Perspective. We now turn to a comparison between the Swedish and the total GLOBE data. Such a comparison enables us to understand the Swedish data from a global perspective, and to identify dimensions that are typical and culture-specific for Sweden. From Table 3.4 we note that all high-end dimensions in the Swedish middle managers’ implicit model of leadership (within country) as found in the preceding section, are included in the high-end clusters in the between country analysis: inspirational, integrity, visionary, performance-oriented, decisive, and collaborative team oriented. However, all these dimensions belong to the universally endorsed dimensions contributing to outstanding leadership (House et al., 1999). Though clearly being important traits and attributes also in the Swedish context, those dimensions do not distinguish any characteristics typical for the implicit leadership model in Sweden.

What instead typifies Swedish outstanding leadership in an international comparison is found in the extreme high-end clusters: autonomous, humane, and team integrator³⁵—a humane orientation and the capability for creating and sustaining teams, and also a relatively high degree of autonomy in the sense of being individualistic and independent. Taken together, this result appears contradictory at first sight but as we show later, they give an important cue to the particular meaning of teamwork in the Swedish context—and more specifically to the relationship between the individual and the collective (team).

Table 3.4 shows further that Sweden is relatively low or very low in the eight following dimensions: autocratic, face saver, administratively competent, procedural, conflict inducer, self-centered, status conscious, and malevolent. Four of these dimensions are universally viewed as inhibiting outstanding leadership: autocratic, face saver, self-centered, and malevolent (House et al., 1999). This result suggests that the negative perceptions of these four dimensions are indisputable among Swedish middle managers and among their counterparts in most other countries. The four remaining dimensions (administratively competent, procedural, conflict inducer, and status-conscious) are culturally contingent dimensions and are therefore more pertinent when it comes to distinguishing the typical character of outstanding leadership in Sweden. The results show that these dimensions are rated higher in most other countries. Hence, in a comparative perspective, outstanding leaders in Sweden are not associated with different expressions of formality and order such as administration, organization, routines, and procedures.³⁶ Nor should they provoke conflict by being secretive or bringing about competition within the team. In addition, the results show that outstanding leaders should not be status- or class-conscious, but should rather play down or even transcend existing differences within the group, the organization, or the community.

TABLE 3.4
Swedish Results on Attitudes to Leadership Traits and Behavior Compared With All GLOBE Data

Leadership Scale (GLOBE)	Band Membershipa (between countries)	Ranking (between countries)	Rankingb (within country)
Autonomous	Ac, Very high	24	Medium high
Humane	Ad,Very high	26	Medium high
Team II: Team Integrator	Ad, Very high	32	High
Diplomatic	Ab,Very high	47	Medium high
Integrity	Be, High	17	Very high
Charismatic II: Inspirational	Be,High	18	Very high
Team I: Coll. Team Oriented	Bd, High	32	High
Charismatic I: Visionary	Be,High	38	Very high
Nonparticipative	Bc, High	37	Low
Performance Oriented	Bd, High	41	High
Charismatic III: Self-Sacrificial	Bd, High	45	Medium high
Decisive	Bd,High	50	Medium high
Modesty	Bc, Medium	50	Medium high
Autocratic	Cd,Low	43	Low
Face Saver	Cd, Very low	52	Low
Administratively Competent	Cc, Very low	51	Medium high
Procedural	Cd, Very low	55	Medium high
Conflict Inducer	Cc, Very low	56	Medium high
Self-Centered	Cd, Very low	58	Very low
Status-Conscious	Cd, Very low	59	Medium high
Malevolent	De, Very low	56	Very low

^aBands A > B > C > D > E are determined by calculating the grand mean and standard deviations across all scales. These means and standard deviations are used to calculate high, medium, and low bands of countries (Test Banding, cf. Hanges, Dickson, & Sipe, 2004). ^bRank order of the GLOBE variables in the Swedish sample (cf. Table 3.2).^c Three group bands identified ranging from A to C (high–low) ^d Four group bands identified ranging from A to D (high–low). ^eFive group bands identified ranging from A to E (high–low).

Leadership Images in Focus Groups and Ethnographic Interviews

As part of the GLOBE study in Sweden, we also worked with focus groups and interviews collecting data on the conceptions and various expressions of leadership (see Interviews and Focus Groups within the Appendix for further details of these studies). One way to capture the essence of an interviewee's conception of leadership is to let them describe what they mean by it in relation to other concepts. The two concepts of management (chefskap) and leadership (ledarskap) are often used interchangeably in the literature, but for practitioners there seems to be distinct differences. Consider the following selected quotations from the ethnographic interviews, describing the perceived differences between managers and leaders:

For me, leadership is about having this rather more overall view … and to lead the company or in this case the theater in a certain direction with a well worked-out idea or philosophy about how it may be developed as a unit. … I am of course a manager in the sense that people come to me and say “Paul, what do we do in this situation” … But, what really interests me is the leadership thing, that is, to lead one great company as a whole—and much more in fact than these managerial functions—and that is why to a large extent I go for what's called delegated responsibility … I fiddle about with details very little. … (theater director)

I think that leadership for me is something more than management. Management, that means making certain decisions. It's about being superior to others, [dealing with] systems of rules. Leadership is something more. It contains many, many elements. It's a question of a kind of holistic picture. It is to have an experience to offer. It is a question of having an interest in looking a bit further ahead. (bishop)

It's having a vision about how to develop your company, your workplace or your organization, to lift your eyes, kind of seeing what it takes for us to get there. To look at the paths of change you have to follow. … (secretary of political youth organization)

Someone who is formally a manager does not necessarily become a leader. As a manager you may not have that natural authority for leadership or you are not able to build your role as a leader. … to be a leader is a way of being as a person, while a manager is something you are formally. (general manager)

This is really compressed as you can see [referring to a policy document]. Leadership is the will and ability to build enthusiasm and to cooperate. To share your knowledge. To be focused on goals and results. Develop and change. (regional director)

The quotations show that the Swedish conception of management is described almost exclusively in fairly technical terms: It is little more than functional responsibilities, an administrative task. A manager is a person who is formally responsible for a work group or a unit. The conception of the competent manager is of someone who has good professional skills and administrative competence. Being a competent manager also includes social competence. When describing desirable interpersonal traits, the interviewees used words like professionally competent, empathetic, fair, informative, trustworthy, friendly, enthusiastic, good at listening, showing respect for others—traits that, taken together, describe a supportive management style. Competent managers are expected to give feedback—both positive and negative—to their employees, and to support them socially and technically in their work. When people need advice, a competent manager should always be available.

When it comes to describing outstanding leadership, it is clear that this is something that goes well beyond the call of duty and the formal organization (role, goals, methods, etc.). The interviewees mentioned several of the traits and behaviors of competent managers, such as trustworthiness, enthusiasm, respect, and professional competence, but outstanding leaders are also expected to be holistic, visionary, good communicators, team builders, and change agents. This image is clearly consistent with the basic components of the implicit leadership model outlined earlier.

Different Beings: Managers are the Present, Leaders the Future. An important clue to an enhanced understanding of the different construction of the two related concepts, managers and leaders, was the subtle difference in meaning regarding the notion of the “role model.” In the interviews, a competent manager was referred to as a föredöme, that is, someone who affects their coworkers’ attitudes and behaviors within the present paradigm by their own way of acting.³⁷ An outstanding leader, on the other hand, was referred to as a förebild, that is, someone who demonstrates an attractive, alternative future by their personal way of being and who can thus perhaps shape other people's identity, values, and sense of direction. Outstanding leaders are visionaries in that they challenge the existing paradigm in terms of beliefs, common goals, structures, institutions, and so on. In creating something new, it is necessary to cross borders and break the rules. “Well … I think that an important part of leadership is also to be adequately go-ahead or unafraid when it comes to rule systems and money” (director-general).

In short, narratives about management are situated to a large extent in the present, whereas leadership is situated in a desired future. In this sense, leaders “come from” the future and give attractive direction in the present. Even if the descriptions of the two related concepts partly overlap, they are apparently expressing two fundamentally different ideas. In the construction of outstanding leaders, for instance, building a team means building a strong commitment to a specific future rather than building a strong and loyal group (management). Likewise, high integrity for leaders means being loyal to the vision rather than, for managers, being loyal to the team (or organization).

However, it is important to note that according to the interviewees the notion of visionary leadership has a variety of possible expressions in practice. We were presented with several different ideas about the exercise of visionary leadership, and about the origin of the vision: It could be a case of visions created by the leader, visions created by the leader in dialogue with a vital few, visions expressed as a mission or an assignment (indicating a strong influence of external stakeholders), and visions created collectively.

To summarize, the analyses of the focus groups and the ethnographic data revealed a similar pattern with regard to the basic components of the implicit leadership model in Sweden, and thus gives support to the quantitative findings. In addition to this validation, the data enrich the previous analyses by suggesting that the construction of outstanding leadership is situated in the future, as well as indicating nontrivial variations in the actual enactment of the implicit leadership model.

Leadership Images in the Swedish Media

In the introduction to this section, we stated that images of leadership are the result of an interaction between individuals and social networks in the joint construction of the leadership phenomenon. As many social scientists have pointed out, the media is clearly an important actor³⁸ in the shaping of people's views on various social phenomena³⁹ such as leadership (e.g., McLuhan & Fiore, 1967). This does not necessarily mean, however, that everyone's contributions to such construction processes carry equal weight. Rather, an adaptation of the Orwellian approach to equality gives us a better representation of the implications of a constructivist approach: “All accounts are equal, but some are more equal than others” (Grint, 1997). Perceptions of social phenomena like leadership and organizing as reflected in the implicit theories are thus likely to be determined by interactions with the social agents who affect the availability, salience, and value of the information received (Chen & Meindl, 1991; Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). The various media are consequently important actors in molding our views of ourselves and of the world we live in. According to Chen and Meindl, the implicit leadership theories produced by the media are an expression of the national culture as a whole. It was thus strongly motivated to undertake a media study as a complement to the studies already pursued as part of the GLOBE project.

In a third study, the images of outstanding leadership as expressed in the Swedish print media were therefore analyzed, using an ethnographic-semantic approach.⁴⁰ More than 8,000 articles relevant to the understanding or perception of leadership were collected from five different newspapers and business magazines over two separate periods (for methodological details, see Analysis of Swedish Media within the Appendix). In brief, images of outstanding leadership were distilled from a process of categorization of the data via the selection of key phrases and key words (examples of collected key phrases and key words are exhibited in Table A.2 in the Appendix). Two analyses were performed, the explicit model of outstanding leadership in the Swedish media, and the implicit model of outstanding leadership.

The first analysis generated 853 key words relevant to leadership extracted from key phrases in the many articles in Swedish newspapers and magazines. The key words were classified into 60 “typification categories” (see summary in Table A.4 in the Appendix). The 10 typification categories with the highest rating among the 60 represent 301 of the 853 key words (35%). These categories obviously describe important aspects of leadership as expressed in the Swedish media, in terms of the way “outstanding” leaders should be, or the way they should act. The top 10 typification categories are “action-oriented,” “cooperative,” “works for equality,” “communicates and has verbal ability,” “enthusiastic and inspiring,” “accountable,” “delegates,” “trustworthy,” “control,” and “humane.” These 10 typification categories constitute what could be regarded as the dominant explicit model of outstanding leadership in the Swedish media.

In order to explore the data further and to distinguish the possible implicit model(s) of leadership in the media, we decided to search for underlying themes in the material or for any patterns in the data related to different contexts. We conducted an iterative process of framing, testing, and reframing the semantic links between the 60 typification categories (cf. the explicit model) produced at the level of the articles and the key phrases, and finally arrived at several clusters, each of which were bound together by an underlying theme relevant to the understanding of leadership (Table 3.5).

According to these themes, an outstanding leader should be performance and action oriented, charismatic and visible inside and outside the organization, honest, modest, pragmatic, procedural, a good team builder, and entrepreneurial, and should work for egalitarianism and consensus. These qualities could be regarded as a preliminary dominant model of leadership (re)produced in the Swedish media—a culturally grounded image of leadership that defines leadership in the Swedish context, and that constrains, moderates, or facilitates the exercise and evaluation of leadership.

TABLE 3.5
Underlying Themes Relevant to the Understanding of Leadership

Leadership Theme	Brief Explanation
Performance Orientation	Found in articles describing leaders as goal oriented, hard-working, ambitious, and acting with self-confidence
Action Orientation	Found in articles describing leaders as decisive, demanding, and action oriented
Charisma	Found in articles describing leaders as visionary, inspiring, charismatic, enthusiastic, and having unusual verbal ability
Visibility	Found in articles describing leaders as accessible, visible, figureheads, and role models
Team Building	Found in articles describing leaders as cooperative, relational, loyalty inducing, personnel oriented, and network builders
Egalitarianism	Found in articles describing leaders who give fair and equal treatment to others, work for equality, delegate, and are nonauthoritarian
Consensus	Found in articles describing leaders as willing to compromise and seek consensus, and as being empathetic, humane, and good listeners
Pragmatism	Found in articles describing leaders as rational, reasonable, pragmatic, patient, and tolerant
Honesty	Found in articles describing leaders as honest, trustworthy, ethical, and moral

Comparing the Media Image With the Implicit Leadership Model. How does this image of outstanding leadership as expressed in the Swedish media compare with the previously presented quantitative results, that is, the Swedish middle managers’ implicit leadership theories? To enable such a comparison we first needed to calibrate the concepts from the two studies for equivalence in meaning. Because the studies used different methodological approaches—a deductive approach (the questionnaire) and an inductive approach (the media analysis)—this calibration could only be done post hoc by comparing the underlying basic units (items and key words, respectively) that constituted the concepts used in the two studies. Table 3.6 summarizes our analysis of equivalence between the themes generated by the media analysis and the leadership dimensions used in the questionnaire. Of the 12 leadership themes generated by the media analysis and listed in Table 3.5, 6 were immediately found to have equivalent leadership dimensions. Three themes were found to have equivalent meaning to pairs of leadership dimensions (charisma, team building, and consensus). Finally, three themes had no equivalent leadership dimension, and thus qualify as concepts that say something important about leadership—at least in a Swedish context—and that were not covered in the leadership questionnaire (egalitarianism, pragmatism, and visibility).

TABLE 3.6
Comparing Meanings Between Leadership Themes (Media Analysis) and Leadership Dimensions (Questionnaire)

Leadership Themes From Media Analysis	Leadership Dimensions From GLOBE Questionnaire Data
Charisma	Visionary + Inspirational
Honesty	Integrity
Team Building	Collaborative Team Oriented + Team Integrator
Performance Orientation	Performance Oriented
Action Orientation	Decisive
Procedural	Administratively Competent
Consensus	Humane + Diplomatic
Modesty	Modesty
Entrepreneurial	Self-Sacrificial
Egalitarianism	No equivalent dimension
Pragmatism	No equivalent dimension
Visibility	No equivalent dimension

In conclusion, we find that the results from the two separate studies are mutually supportive, insofar as they are comparable. The media analysis also enabled us to identify three additional themes that are essential to an understanding of leadership in Sweden.

Context-Bound Variations. The greater majority of the selected articles contained information on leadership in two specific and different settings, namely the political and the business domains. By employing this context-based distinction in the analysis, the common assumption of one dominant model of leadership was called into question (see Holmberg & Åkerblom, 2001). The analysis clearly showed the existence of multiple coexisting models. For instance, in the political context the emphasis on action and the maintenance of a common purpose rather than results (performance) and team building is very striking. The expression “a man of action” frequently occurs in articles that discuss outstanding political leadership, and lack of action is equally often proposed as an explanation for an observed failure in political leadership (see Table A.3 in the Appendix).

In summary, the images of political and business leadership clearly differ in a number of nontrivial aspects. And yet they evidently share a core of leadership attributes that are revealed repeatedly across our studies.

Conclusions

We have reported on results and analyses from three studies, all concerned with images of leadership in Sweden. Overall, we found mutual support for the results across the studies, but some interesting variations were also noted. We now summarize the findings so far.

From the within-country analysis, we concluded that the contributory traits and behavior attributes to outstanding leadership in Sweden are the following dimensions: inspirational, integrity, visionary, team integrator, performance orientation, decisive, and collaborative team orientation. At the other end of the spectrum, the dimensions inhibiting outstanding leadership were found to be autocratic, face saver, self-centered, and malevolent.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that this image of outstanding leadership is not restricted to Swedish managers only. All these dimensions belong to the (almost) universally endorsed implicit model of outstanding leadership reported by GLOBE (Dorfman et al., 2004; House et al., 1998). Nevertheless, it gives essential input to the conception of outstanding leadership in Sweden. Indeed, the importance of our findings was verified in our subsequent study of leadership images in the Swedish media.

Subsequent analyses, putting the Swedish data in contrast with the international comparative data, shed light on dimensions that capture something typical or culture-specific about leadership in Sweden, because “typicality” can best be distinguished in relation to other instances. Team integrator, autonomous, and humane were concluded to be contributing factors and administratively competent, procedural, conflict inducer, and status-conscious were the inhibiting factors. In addition, the media study supplemented this result by introducing egalitarian, pragmatic, and visible as important concepts to be included in the culturally specific version of outstanding leadership.

Drawing from several data analyses and results from different methodologies, we have captured both the important and, in an international perspective, distinguishing characteristics of the implicit model of outstanding leadership in Sweden. The findings are summarized in Table 3.7.

Our findings can be compared with those reported in Tollgerdt-Andersson (1989), which among previous studies is the one most closely related to ours. The author investigated naive (or spontaneous) leadership theories, a concept very close to the notion of implicit theories used in GLOBE. She surveyed the spontaneous leadership theories of approximately 100 top managers, in terms of “important” leader characteristics and behaviors. Generally speaking, the qualities that these managers considered important for a good leader were an ability to be enthusiastic, decisive, cooperative, honest, and able to delegate. This result is very much in line with the general implicit leadership model proposed here (cf. Table 3.2), suggesting that Swedish top and middle managers are in agreement on the most important characteristics that make an outstanding leader.

Further comparisons with previous studies are quite encouraging. Distinguishing characteristics of Swedish leadership as reported in previous results, include an ability to create commitment to a communicated vision (Jönsson, 1995a; Källström, 1995), a strong focus on performance and a preference for teamwork and cooperation (Zander, 1997), the acceptance of challenges and risk taking (Edström, Norbäck, & Rendahl, 1989), and consensus as a condition for and a preferred outcome of direct dialogue with organization members (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1993; Edström & Jönsson, 1998).

Altogether, we find that the implicit model of outstanding leadership is an informative and useful analytical construct for which there is wide support not only across methodologies and managerial groups, but also across research projects and studies. Nontrivial variations depending on contexts such as industries or the political and business domains respectively have also been shown previously. We would argue that the images (notions) of outstanding leadership are always defined from and within the specific context.

3.  “PRIMUS INTER PARES”: THE IMPLICIT LEADERSHIP MODEL IN RELATION TO SWEDISH CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS

The next issue addressed is the relation between the cultural characteristics (see the section Sweden in the GLOBE study) and the dominant implicit model of leadership in Sweden (see the section Images of Leadership in Sweden). Before embarking on a more detailed discussion of this relationship, we need to clarify the view of culture that we have adopted in our study. It is not possible to separate the implicit leadership theories from societal culture. Rather, we have regarded these theories as cultural expressions. Our analysis thus has to focus on the linkages between typical expressions of the cultural characteristics and the implicit leadership model found in this study, that is, the enactment of leadership in organizational settings.

TABLE 3.7
Summary of the Implicit Model of Outstanding Leadership in Sweden From Both a Within-Country and Between-Country Perspective

Important Dimensions		Distinguishing Dimensions
Contributing Attributes	Someone Who Is …	Contributing Attributes	Someone Who Is …
Inspirational	Enthusiastic, Positive, Encouraging, Motivational, and Morale booster	Autonomous	Individualistic, Independent, Autonomous, and Unique
Integrity	Honest, Sincere, Just, and Trustworthy	Humane	Generous, and Compassionate
Visionary	Future oriented, Anticipatory, Inspirational, Visionary, and Intellectually stimulating	Team Integratora	Communicative, Team builder, Integrator, and Coordinator Treating others fairly
Team Integrator	Communicative, Team builder, Integrator, and Coordinator	Egalitarianism	and equally, Works for equality, Delegates and is Nonauthoritarian
Performance Orientation	Improvement, Excellence, and Performance oriented	Visibility	Accessible, Visible, a Figurehead, and Role model
Decisive	Willful, Decisive, and Intuitive	Pragmatism	Rational, Reasonable, Pragmatic, Patient, and Tolerant
Inhibiting Attributes	Someone Who Is …	Inhibiting Attributes	Someone Who Is …
Autocratic	Autocratic, Dictatorial, Elitist, Ruler, and Domineering	Administrative Competencyb	Orderly, Administratively skilled, Organized, and Good administrator
Face Saver	Indirect, Avoiding negatives, and Evasive	Status Consciousness	Status-conscious, and Class-conscious
Self-Centered	Self-interested, Nonparticipative, Loner, and Asocial	Procedural	Ritualistic, Formal, Habitual, Cautious, and Procedural
Malevolent	Hostile, Vindictive, Cynical, Noncooperative, and Egotistical	Conflict Inducer	Normative, Secretive, and an Intragroup competitor

^aTeam Integrator is found to be both important and typical and is therefore included on both lists. ^bThough Administrative Competence is not rejected as inhibiting in absolute terms, our findings show that this variable is rated lower in Sweden than in most other countries and should therefore typically be less pronounced.

We distinguished three important cultural themes in the second section: socially concerned individualism as a summary notion for the relationship between the individual and social groups (collectivities), rationality and pragmatism as means for managing the future and coping with uncertainty, and consensus as an expression of egalitarianism, equality, and timidity. The first two cultural themes in particular were found to be in the process of revision, reformulation, and possible transformation, which we elaborate on in the concluding section.

In order to discuss how the implicit leadership model is enacted in organizational settings, we use the arena of project teams as an illustration. A reason for this choice is that throughout our studies and analyses the concept of “team” has shown importance for Swedish managers and also a remarked typicalness in an international comparison.

In a project team, and in the preferred leadership that goes with it, several aspects of the cultural theme of socially concerned individualism are expressed. There is a strong statement of belief in the power of teams and the indispensability of team leadership. Leaders should be able to build, integrate, and coordinate teams, and to create an empowering team spirit (cf. team integrator and collaborative team orientation). At the same time there is a relatively high preference for autonomy that complements—and seemingly complicates—this picture. Leaders must allow for individuality and independence even in a team setting (cf. autonomous). However, this seemingly paradoxical picture with a combination of autonomy and team integration can be understood as a mirror of the Swedish combination of individualism and independence on the one hand, and collectivism and cooperation on the other.

A distinctive feature of teams in Sweden, allowing for the paradox to dissolve, is that the social ties within a work team stem from a common commitment to some particular cause or goal, rather than from strong interpersonal ties between the team members. The unifying component in the team is a common desired future. We have found that leadership necessitates an exceptional ability to communicate the vision (cf. visionary and inspirational), or alternatively to manage its collective creation. This is a way for a leader to promote the sense of unity, and yet not to stand out as a commanding person (i.e., being assertive).

A challenge for any leader in Sweden is to balance the desire for bold vision, direction, and inspiration with the deeply rooted end values of egalitarianism and equality. These last are intertwined with the established tradition of consensus, our second cultural theme, and with the norm of low power distance. The notion of consensus as a condition for dialogue as well as its desired outcome is directly relevant to the understanding of team leadership in Sweden. The commitment and consent of all the members of a Swedish organization are valued equally. Thus, according to Swedish managers and to others commenting on their leadership style, decision making in Sweden is naturally participative (cf. egalitarian and status-conscious; neg.). The ideal of participative leadership is expressed as a readiness to listen to others, and willingness to compromise when necessary. It is rare that decisions are enforced on a basis of formal authority. Instead, there is a marked preference for informal, consensual decision making without “unnecessary” tensions or conflicts (cf. conflict inducer; neg.).

One way for leaders to handle potential conflicts is to separate the factual from the personal, thus paying heed to both pragmatism and timidity. Leaders are expected to be able to translate emotional issues or arguments into matters of fact. The depersonalization of an issue makes it much easier to handle, and the sense of consensus is preserved. Reasoning based on facts and logic, and the ability to enact practical solutions are celebrated leader qualities (cf. pragmatic). This obviously links up with the third cultural theme, rationality and pragmatism, but there is also an interesting departure from the cultural framework when it comes to the procedural aspects.

We have learned that Swedish society ranks high on Uncertainty Avoidance, with an inclination to create rules and routines for almost any issue of social importance. One might therefore assume that the leader role would automatically include accommodating and managing uncertainty by administrative means. But not at all: According to our findings outstanding leaders are regarded particularly informal (cf. procedural; neg.), and order and structure being typically less pronounced in the Swedish context (cf. administrative competence). One possible interpretation, supported by the ethnographic interviews, is that Swedes perceive their lives to be somewhat restricted by laws, regulations, rules, and procedures. However justified these may be as symbolizing and re-creating important achievements from the past, the possibility in the present of building for the future is nonetheless limited. Hence, the implicit notion of the leader, who personifies the better future, is of someone with the willingness, the courage, and the ability to break with the existing rules and procedures, rather than reinforcing them. Leaders are expected to show determination and support the team to deliver results (cf. performance orientation and decisive), and should not let established procedures get in the way.

By preference, new ideas are first approached in quite general and vague terms, in order to invite others to join the process. In other words, Swedes are generally very suspicious of ready-made ideas or solutions. It is also a question of the “ownership” of the idea. If Swedes have not been involved in the generation process, then no one should take it for granted that they will involve themselves in the implementation process either. It would be a sign of a lack of confidence to tell another person how they should perform a certain task, and leaders are certainly aware of this norm. When situations occur that require some sort of specific instruction, good leaders are expected to show great skill in providing the necessary information, but subtly and without being too specific. In light of these qualities—rationality and pragmatism, and consensus—vagueness (in the sense of a lack of ready-made ideas or solutions) is enacted as a way not only of inviting others to participate actively but also of rendering status differences invisible. Vagueness thus has a positive connotation in the Swedish language, because it creates a freedom to act and to take initiative by oneself (autonomous).

In Essence: First Among equals

The strong egalitarian values, preferences for pragmatic solutions, and socially concerned individualism thus suggest that the Swedish version of a team is a group of equal individuals, in which everyone expects to be consulted. The role of a leader is to skillfully balance between acting as a team member and simultaneously taking the lead by communicating visions, guiding sense-making processes, representing collective ambitions and interests, and framing the challenges ahead. This implies an idea of the leader as the primus inter pares, or first among equals.

Discussion—Swedish Leadership in Transition?

What are the likely future directions for leadership in Sweden, and what contemporary issues can provide us with further insights into this matter? We have already noted that the institutional context for leadership in Sweden is undergoing some rather dramatically changes (see the section Sweden in the GLOBE study). The social welfare system is still considered to be of great importance but it is apparently challenged by a more individualistic ideology, captured by the extreme positions and shifts for the cultural dimensions Institutional Collectivism and In-Group Collectivism. Another noticeable value change deals with the mind-set regarding the future, portrayed in the less pronunciation of arrangements to reduce uncertainty. The rational and pragmatic approach to uncertainty is still viable, but inspirational leader qualities are apparently offering a refreshing alternative. We conclude this chapter on culture and leadership with a more speculative discussion on changes in the Swedish value and belief systems, and possible implications for leadership.

In the late 1990s, people preaching the message of a new economic order invaded the public space. Much of the talk about “the new economy” was concerned with the new business logic due to rapid IT development and the breakthrough for Internet. By the end of the millennium, a new generation of business leaders emerged as figureheads. Despite their industry's relatively small share of the total economy, this new breed of leaders had a tremendous impact on the public discourse, as well as on the political agenda (Holmberg, Salzer-Mörling, & Strannegård, 2002).

The kind of leadership that these figureheads expressed and promoted was extraordinary in the Swedish context. They were young, energetic, and bold individualists with an entrepreneurial spirit recalling the heroes who transformed Sweden into an industrial nation over a century ago (an image that was actually used in their rhetoric in order to attract political interest and investor capital). Entrepreneurship became almost synonymous with outstanding leadership (Holmberg & Strannegård, 2002). One of the figureheads published a book⁴¹ in 1999, proclaiming this attitude in its very title: Nothing Can Stop Us Now! A New Generation Takes Command. The ideological tension between this new generation of entrepreneurs stressing individual talent and success, and the established business leaders representing corporate collective action, was obvious.

How can we understand the enormous attention that these leaders received in the media, and the admiration they generally received from the public? We believe that one explanation lies in the vision of a future for Sweden as an advanced and affluent information society. This was very attractive, given the harsh economic situation of the 1990s. As already mentioned, the young business leaders paid tribute to the historical heritage by rhetorically linking their visions to the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of the early 20th century. Though admittedly individualistic and egocentric when speaking of a visionary and compelling future for the IT industry in general and for their own companies in particular, they also included society as a whole in their vision. This new bread of leaders expressed an alternative way of running business, reformulating individualistic interests and yet preserving collectivistic ideals on the society level. Thus they timely articulated and embodied the values shifting toward a more individualistic ideology in organizational life.

By 2001, the IT hype was over, and many renowned dot-com companies suddenly went bankrupt. As we write these words Sweden, with its heavy dependence on the world economic situation, is under pressure from a new recession. The figureheads of the large corporations have regained the available space in the media, as the experimental and expansionary period is over. But leadership as a cultural expression was certainly not unaffected by this short yet intensive period. Although the momentum may have been interrupted, we believe that Swedish leadership is undergoing a process of transition in the directions outlined here.

The IT hype surfaced not only a transition in the leadership ideals, but also a new set of organizational ideals. A perspective emphasizing shareholder value challenged the stakeholder model that had prevailed for many decades. Remuneration policies were called into question and modified to meet the criteria of a new economic order, resulting in individual bonus systems with practically no limits. The rationales were often adjustments to international remuneration standards and acknowledgment of individual talent. In several infamous cases, these new ideals reached a limit in relationship to the Swedish norms of reasonableness and fairness however. Although there is a growing acceptance for individualistic values, perceptions of sheer greed are not well received in the public space. This example shows that working life ideals are still very much rooted in the Swedish social welfare system, and the process of cultural change in the balance between individual and collective interest that we have identified is slow and leads to obvious tensions.

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Appendix A

Notes on Methodology

THE GLOBE QUESTIONNAIRE

As part of the preparation for collecting our data, we translated the preliminary version of the English questionnaire into Swedish. We then translated our Swedish version back into English, a process that meant that problematic items could be identified and either modified or removed completely in the final version. Two independent professional translators did most of this work under our supervision. The translators and the Swedish GLOBE team also had the expert support of a social scientist with extensive experience of business surveys. English was his mother tongue, but he was also fluent in Swedish.⁴²

The data were collected during the first 5 months of 1996. A contact person at each participating organization handled the distribution of the questionnaires, in order to reduce distribution costs while also increasing the legitimacy of the questionnaire. The responses were returned directly to the research team by mail. Because we wanted to enable within-country analyses as well as international comparisons (between-country), the Swedish sample was considerably larger than that required for the GLOBE purposes (House, 1994).

The final version of the Swedish questionnaire was distributed to middle managers in 14 business organizations active in three different industries: finance (4 organizations, N = 373), food processing (6 organizations, N = 301) and telecommunications (4 organizations, N = 222). Altogether, almost 900 middle managers responded to the questionnaire. The overall response rate was 75% which was very satisfactory for a study of this type. All questionnaire responses were coded into a computer with the help of six research assistants during May and June 1996.

BASIC DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE SWEDISH SAMPLE

The most important demographic characteristics of the sample of middle managers can be summarized as follows:

• Gender: 82.3% of the respondents were male; 17.7% were female.
• Age: The respondents were aged between 25 and 64 years, with a median of 46.
• Cultural conditioning: 97.1% were born in Sweden and 85% had never lived abroad for more than a year.
• Working experience: The full-time working experience of the middle managers ranged from 4 to 49 years with a median of 25; 12 years was the median for holding a management position. Managers who had worked for a Swedish or foreign multinational corporation at some point accounted for 26.4%.
• Education: Around 23% had received the basic compulsory education only (9 years) and 37% had the equivalent of a college diploma (12–13 years of formal education), or less. The remaining 40% had gone on to earn a university degree. Around half the middle managers reported that, regardless of the educational level concerned, they had specialized in business and administration, and an additional 25% had studied engineering.
• Training: 90% of the managers reported that they had participated in formal management training of some kind.
• Staff: The median number of people directly reporting to the manager was six, and the average number of subordinates was 55.

REDESIGNING THE SCALES FOR INDUSTRY COMPARISON PURPOSES

In order to make the industry comparison (within-country) we had to obtain scales with sufficient reliability for our purposes. The original GLOBE scales were constructed for maximizing reliable and valid scales for between-country analyses. We therefore had to redesign the collection of scales somewhat to serve our own ends.

The following original scales were retained in the industry comparison: administratively competent, autocratic, charismatic I: visionary, charismatic II: inspirational, integrity, malevolent, performance oriented, procedural, self-centered, status conscious, team I: collaborative team oriented, and team II: team integrator. Reliability (Chrombach's alpha measure) for these scales varied between 0.56 and 0.80, with an average of 0.66.

Three additional scales (included items in parentheses) were constructed, using reliability analyses as a basis for detecting items that had great influence on low alpha values, and factor analysis to investigate the within-country factor structure: friendly (generous, compassionate, sensitive, caring: 0.56), independent (independent, autonomous: 0.72), close supervisor (micromanager, nondelegater: 0.71).

INTERVIEWS AND FOCUS GROUPS

During the first phase of the project we operated with two focus groups, one made up of managers and one of students (February and March 1994). The manager group consisted of four men and two women. The group members represented different industries (mainly telecommunications, food, banking, and insurance) and held various managerial positions (one managing director, two general managers, one project manager, and two functional managers). The second focus group comprised of seven final-year students of business administration. All reported that they had at least 2 years of work-life experience.

The participants of both groups were asked to carry out a preparatory assignment, reflecting on their personal experiences of outstanding leaders and competent managers respectively.

The focus group interviews lasted about 2 hours each and concentrated on three themes defined in the GLOBE study: the definitions of (outstanding) leadership and (competent) management, the difference (if any) between the two concepts, and examples of outstanding leadership.

Four semistructured interviews were also conducted at the start of the project with individuals in managerial positions in different industries. They were asked about their perception and experience of outstanding leadership, and if there was any difference between outstanding leaders and competent managers. The average duration of the interviews was 1.5 hours. The guiding questions covered the same three themes as in the focus groups.

At a later stage in the project, we also conducted ethnographic interviews, in line with the GLOBE qualitative research manual (Agar, 1995). Six high-ranking officials from very different formal organizations were asked to develop their views on leadership and on what constitutes successful leadership, and to give their views on how their organizations work. The interviewees were chosen to represent a wide range of societal sectors, all of them outside or on the margins of the sphere of privately or publicly owned corporations. The interviewees were: a bishop in the Swedish Church, a director-general in a national authority, a secretary of a political party's youth organization together with one of her colleagues, a general manager of a nationwide lobbying organization, a regional director of another national authority, and a theater director. The duration of the interviews varied from 1.5 to 2.0 hours. Every interview consisted of the interviewee's own account of leadership and leadership behavior, combined with stories from their own experience of successful and unsuccessful leadership. The six interviews were tape-recorded and the interviewer subsequently typed full transcripts (Kallifatides, 1998).

The four semistructured interviews and the six ethnographic interviews were transcribed and structured into text segments covering different ideas/topics. All the interviews were first analyzed individually, before frame building was conducted at the group level. The data were analyzed in to different sets of categories: the person-specific characteristics (traits and behavior), leader–follower relations (values and norms regarding leader–follower interactions), and organizational issues (the leader's role within the organization, and organizational practices).

The interviews were checked for intrapersonal consistency between what the interviewee said about leadership in general and what they described in the stories about good and bad leadership.

ANALYSIS OF SWEDISH MEDIA

The research strategy and methodology for the analysis of the media were described in three internal GLOBE project documents, namely two research manuals (Agar, 1995, 1996a) and one document describing a pilot study which applied the methodology to the media in the United States (Thomas, 1996). The approach is referred to as “ethnographic semantics” (Agar, 1986, 1996b). Ethnographic semantics belongs to semantics because it deals with word meanings, and to ethnography because the aim is to create and resolve “rich points,” empirical observations that do not make sense from the researcher's point of view and that therefore suggest a surfaced gap between two worlds of knowledge. A rich point represents an opportunity to learn something about the view of the world that is held by the studied group of people (Agar, 1996). Central to this approach is the idea that an understanding of a particular culture emerges from an exploration of the system of concepts within that culture, and of the links that tie the concepts together. In language, concepts are expressed in linguistic labels, mainly words. Thus, words label concepts, and the system of concepts (relevant to leadership) is the primary focus for this type of study. In short, the aim of the procedure described is to help the researcher to extract the most important strings of words from a large volume of text. Concepts and relationships between them can then be further explored from this extracted data.

The Swedish newspapers and magazines that best fitted the criteria given in the research manual (Agar, 1996) were (a) Dagens Nyheter (Daily News), the largest and most respected national daily newspaper with an average daily circulation of 357,000, (b) Dagens Industri (Business Today), the only general business newspaper distributed nationally (100,000), (c) Expressen (The Express), at the time of data collection the largest daily national newspaper aimed at the general public (339,000) and with a reputation as one of the main newspapers prone to sensational journalism, (d) Veckans Affärer (Business Weekly), the largest weekly magazine aimed at the general business community (33,000), and (e) Månadens Affärer (Business Monthly), a glossy business magazine often containing specials on management issues, as well as leader profiles. Circulation is based primarily on the magazine's position as a monthly supplement to subscribers of Veckans Affärer.

Data for this study were collected over two periods (weeks): March 15–23, 1996, and July 12–18, 1996. The periods were determined in advance, and to our knowledge at the time of the selection these could be expected to be two very “normal” weeks with no major national events such as political elections, nor any important anniversaries that would take up a large proportion of the news space or the journalistic focus.

During the month of July Dagens Industri was published only on Fridays, due to the summer season (vacations). Thus only one issue of Dagens Industri was collected during the second collection period. Veckans Affärer was not published at all during July, so the latest issue from June was collected instead as a replacement. Table A.1 displays a frequency summary of the empirical material resulting from the chosen collection periods.

TABLE A.1
Summary of the Empirical Material That Was Analyzed for Images of Leadership

TABLE A.2
Examples of Key Phrases Collected and Key Words Subsequently Highlighted From the Five Swedish Newspapers and Journals

DI 960315, p.5	He was seen as a visionary and someone who initiated a number of projects. He aroused enthusiasm in his coworkers but, according to DI sources, was dependent on having competent people around him.
DI 960316, p. 40	Women are less prestige-minded than men. It is easier for them to delegate than it is for men, and they are often good organizers.
DI 960318, p. 3	[The Prime Minister] Göran Persson is a brilliant pedagogue. He has realized that he needs co-operation to succeed.
DN 960317, p. B4	There is a big editorial staff working at high tempo, and decisions are being taken by the minute. Not everyone can handle it. The personal confidence of the journalist in you as the manager is also needed, if things are to work.
DN 960317, p. B5	I want to give this plan for gender equality, with all its elegant words, a real meaning. The mission is to make sure the measures described in the plan are accomplished.
EXP 960317, p. 2	The problem troubling the new chairman is that he has been so convincing in his previous roles.
MA March, 1996, p. 78	[As a leader] you also have to know the business you are leading, and to care about the people at the workplace, and to have the ability to recruit good people who work well together. A good leader must be interested in people and must not be self-centered.
VA week 12, p. 6	Many people have great hopes, but if [Prime Minister] Persson is going to succeed it will chiefly be a matter of changing old attitudes.

Note. Text is originally in Swedish and was translated by the authors.

TABLE A.3
Two Emergent Implicit Models of Leadership, Depending on Context

Political Leadership	Business Leadership
Charisma	Charisma
Pragmatism	Pragmatism
Procedural	Procedural
Action orientation	Performance oriented
Egalitarianism	Team building
Consensus	Entrepreneurial
Modesty	Visibility
Honesty

TABLE A.4
Summary of the 60 Typification Categories Generated From the Media Analysis, Together Representing 853 Key Words

_______________

¹A minority of private alternatives coexists with the public services.

²Municipalities and county councils.

³The Swedish Institute (SI) is a public agency “entrusted with disseminating knowledge abroad about Sweden and organizing exchanges with other countries in the spheres of culture, education, research, and public life in general.” Sources for the historical notes can be found on their Web site at http://www.si.se.

⁴Alfred Nobel's will created the Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine/physiology, literature, and peace, to be given to those who had “conferred the greatest benefit on mankind” the preceding year. The Nobel Prizes were awarded for the first time in 1901.

⁵Dalén was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1912.

⁶For more comprehensive descriptions of the evolution of seven dominant Swedish companies, see Jönsson (1995a).

⁷The Social Democratic Party held power alone or in coalition during 1932–1976 and 1982–1991, whereas the nonsocialist parties formed coalition governments during 1976–1982 and 1991–1994. After the 1994, 1998, and 2002 elections, the Social Democratic Party has ruled the country with a minority government.

⁸The future prime minister Per-Albin Hansson in a speech in the Swedish Parliament in 1928, appealing to the home-sweet-home sentiments of the general public (Hirdman, 1989, p. 89).

⁹Hansson was prime minister 1932–1946, Erlander 1946–1969, and Palme 1969–1976 and 1982–1986 (opposition leader 1976–1982).

¹⁰In foreign affairs Olof Palme embarked on new directions, such as disarmament, building global security in a Cold War world full of confrontations, and narrowing the gap between the rich and poor nations. For good or worse, Sweden developed the role of a kind of “world conscience” in international relations. The assassination of Prime Minister Palme in February 1986 has been dubbed by many as Sweden's loss of virginity.

¹¹Maktutredningen. Huvudrapport: “Demokrati och makt i Sverige” (SOU, 1990, p. 44).

¹²Cf. Jönsson (1995a, p. 125).

¹³Besides LO (which represents blue-collar and some clerical occupations) and SAF (representing private-sector employers), there are also several national confederations of white-collar employees and employers covering workplaces in both the private and public sectors.

¹⁴Most notably the Wallenberg sphere of interest.

¹⁵In 1996, unemployment averaged 8.0%. In addition, 4.5% of the labor force was engaged in employment training, public relief work, and other activities supported by the government.

¹⁶R&D investments in 2001 equaled close to 4.0% of GDP, with industrial R&D accounting for the lion's share of 3.3% (Swedish Institute, 2003a).

¹⁷The data set in the three industries is distributed as follows: finance (4 organizations, N = 373), food processing (6 organizations, N = 301), and telecommunication (4 organizations, N = 222).

¹⁸Sources are: Sweden: Statistics Sweden (SCB); UK and France: Visser (1996), Trends in Union Membership and Union Density in OECD Countries 1970–1994, Centre for Research on European Societies and Industrial Relations, February 1996; and Japan: Japan Institute of Labor. Reported in Kjellberg (1997).

¹⁹The right was originally designed to protect people traveling through the vast forests by granting them the right to gather what they needed for survival during their journey (e.g., nuts, berries, wood, or grass for their horses). This was regulated in the provincial laws.

²⁰Comparable figures for some other countries are Denmark 37%, Switzerland 25%, United States 15%, and Japan 7% (Inter-Parliamentary Union, IPU, 2005).

²¹In 1999, 78% of all women aged between 16 and 64 were in the labor force, although many worked part-time. In the same year, 84% of men in the same age group belonged to the labor force. Women accounted for approximately half of Sweden's total labor force (Swedish Institute, 2004a).

²²These principles are also incorporated in to the Swedish Constitution.

²³It is interesting to note that gender equality policy is fundamentally concerned with creating equal conditions for every individual, to achieve economic independence through gainful employment regardless of gender. The actual redistribution of power, for instance, does not seem to be an end in itself.

²⁴According to Björn Strömberg, manager at a publishing house that publishes the periodical The Conference World (Konferensvärlden).

²⁵In 2004, about 10,700 people passed through the institutions of the Prison and Probation Service, with and average of 4,500 people incarcerated on any given day (Kriminalvårdsstyrelsen, 2005).

²⁶Sweden ranked 10th among the 53 countries on the IDV scale in Hofstede's study (1980).

²⁷United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

²⁸The origins of lagom are to be found in Viking times, when a bowl of a beerlike drink was shared among these seated around the table. Doubts arose about how much to sip: not too much (which would upset the others by not leaving enough drink for them), not too little (as one also wanted to enjoy the drink). A lagom sip is “just right” for fulfilling the two conflicting interests.

²⁹A comparison of our results with those by Hofstede (1980, 1991) shows the two sets to be contradictory. Sweden was ranked 46/50 in Hofstede's Uncertainty Avoidance index (UAI), indicating low Uncertainty Avoidance.

³⁰The operationalization of very high ratings is a total mean > 6.0, and of high ratings is 6.0–5.5, on a 7-point Likert-type scale.

³¹The operationalization of very low ratings is a total mean < 2.0, and of low ratings 2.0–2.5, on a 7-point Likerttype scale.

³²In brief, this market was characterized by a complete restructuring in combination with rapid technological development, especially for the mobile phone business area. The state-owned operator Televerket enjoyed monopoly status until mid-1980, when deregulation came up on the political agenda. In 1993, Televerket was corporatized and the first Telecommunications Act established, as a stable regulatory framework for greater competition (Kaplan, 1997). As a consequence of the Act, the market became open to any applicant “obviously capable of pursuing operations on a permanent basis” and a stream of new operators entered the market (Kaplan, 1997). In 1998, there were 17 operators covering telephone services, as well as mobile and fixed telephone.

³³To add to this market situation, a new wave of mergers was also seen during this period. In 1997 alone, the Swedish bank Nordbanken merged with the Finnish Meritabank, whereas Sparbanken merged with Föreningsbanken, and S-E Banken with the insurance company Trygg Hansa. Furthermore, a number of small banks also started up. They are known as “niche banks,” because they concentrate on selected types of services. Internet banking, insurance companies, and start-up banks with a very lean structure are a few of several examples. Within their selected segments, these banks offered serious competition to the major banks (Swedish Bankers’ Association, 1995).

³⁴The Swedish food industry was subject to far-reaching regulation from the 1930s until the beginning of 1990, when a system of deregulation was proposed by the government and accepted by Parliament. The reform entailed the slow successive phasing out of the rules, with a view to adapting the farmers’ production to the internal demand for their products. The new policy implied that the state would abandon its traditional price-setting role. Of the four areas included in the Swedish GLOBE project—slaughterhouses, dairy products, bakeries, and breweries—the first two were still protected, whereas the second two were included in EFTA (European Free Trade Agreement) and EU free-trade agreements (Industriförbundet, 1992). Another characteristic of food industry is its high degree of concentration at the owner, the regional, and the distribution levels. Political restrictions on trade and agriculture have limited the opportunities for growth in this already mature market. Production companies consequently have become fewer but bigger and have been concentrated to the most densely populated regions (Industriförbundet, 1992).

³⁵The Diplomatic dimension is a fourth variable that belongs to a high-end cluster (A). The variable simple splits the international sample in two halves, however. It has been removed from this analysis because its cluster membership does not tell us anything typical or modal for Sweden. Rather, being diplomatic is reckoned to be a universally endorsed leader trait (House et al., 1999; 2004).

³⁶Administratively competent is a special case, because it is classified as a contributing factor. Though not rejecting administrative competence in absolute terms (M = 5.44), the results show that this variable is rated lower in Sweden than in most other countries, and this result therefore does indicate something typical about outstanding leadership in Sweden.

³⁷The subtle difference between the two Swedish concepts förebild and föredöme is difficult to translate into English. Literally, a förebild means “preimage,” which is not really communicated by the English translation “role model.” The concept föredöme is much closer to this translation, namely, someone who acts as a model for someone else in terms of a specific role (e.g., formal position). Föredöme is expressed as a more rationalistic view of role modeling, for instance:

We [i.e., managers/leaders] never do understand clearly enough that we become föredömen (role models) in our organizations, whether we like it or not, or whether we are aware of it or not. “The boss does it, therefore it's all right for me to do it.” It really is important to be aware of this, I believe. The way I am dressed … the time I come to work in the morning. If I come in at nine, it somehow becomes legitimate to come in at nine. (general manager; cf. Kallifatides, 1998)

³⁸Other important producers of explicit and implicit leadership models are business schools or leader-training institutions (Engwall, 1992; Trollestad, 1994), management gurus (Huczynski, 1993; Furusten, 1995), and management consultants and firms (Brulin, 1997; Czarniawska-Joerges and Joerges 1988; 1990).

³⁹For a comprehensive review, see Roberts and Maccoby (1985).

⁴⁰For a full report on this study, see Holmberg and Åkerblom (2001).

⁴¹von Holstein, J. S. (1999), Inget kan stoppa oss nu! En ny generation tar plats. Stockholm: Ekerlid.

⁴²Associate Professor Peter Docherty at the Stockholm School of Economics. We are very grateful for his generous contribution to the development of the Swedish GLOBE questionnaire.