Perspectives on leadership development in post-Soviet Eurasia

Abstract

Young people throughout Eurasia are looking for leadership that is different from what preceding generations experienced in the Soviet era and many people are still accustomed to, namely a less top-down authoritarian style by a solo leader reflecting the outdated ‘Great Man’ model of ‘strong’ leadership and for a more collaborative, participative style with more dispersed leadership. This implies the need for a significant cultural change. Leadership development programmes now need to refocus their philosophy, objectives and methods on ways of developing a culture of participation, trust, a sense of belonging, teamwork and accountability and the required know-how and skills in today’s and future leaders. We present two research projects and a case study that reveal these needs and how a new approach to ethical and effective leadership development that appropriately integrates Western and Eastern values can help to liberate and develop the culture and economies of the Eurasia region and thereby make Eurasia a new global powerhouse.

Introduction

When we talk about post-Soviet Eurasia, we are referring to the countries of the former Soviet Union (Gleason, 2010). ‘Eurasianism’ is a unique philosophical and political movement that has its origins in the early 1920s and is associated with post-revolutionary immigration (Raikan, 2013) ¹ . However, some Eurasian countries are more European in character; others are more Central Asian. The entire region is in transition economically, politically and socially. Economically, the transition is from socialist to more capitalistic. Politically, the transition generally, but not everywhere, is from communist and authoritarian to more democratic and participative. The older generation of leaders in Eurasia was trained and brought up in a political and social environment that was completely different from today’s environment. Socially, there was a set of clear values and a unified political system with its own way of life whereby people who were linked to the communist party were considered to be wise and powerful. In the past, nothing in science, public life, art and sport would happen without agreement and control from individual powerful political figures or the party. In short, the Soviet system was a distinct culture that was going to change, but not without growing pains.

The challenges facing leadership development in post-Soviet Eurasia are influenced strongly by the development of democracy, for example, consensus building through effective conflict management and civil society participation, according to a report by New Generation Democracy (Brusis, 2017). Moldova, Mongolia and Georgia have made significant strides in this area, while Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia have not done so, and Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine have openly debated such reforms but have been limited by their lack of strategic capacity. The report also says that Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, as closed autocracies, ‘clearly lack the political will to carry out policies aimed at establishing market-based democracy, and have made no effort to seek consensus with societal actors about such policies’.

Integration of countries in the Eurasia region has been progressing with the formation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in 2015. Kirkham (2016) points out that this was felt by some to be a Russian hegemonic project in the region and that former Soviet ways of doing business that remain and delays in the development of democratic institutions are a threat to progress in areas such as cultural development in the form of new common cultural and educational projects, such as having the same TV and theatre programmes. ‘The major flaw of the existing capitalist societies in the EAEU states’, Kirkham says, ‘is the low efficiency of the democratic power structures through which the formation of cultural leadership can take place’. For example, democratization in Russia since the end of the Soviet era has been regarded as unsuccessful, with a semi-authoritarian regime taking over power (Evans, 2011). This issue characterizes the threats and opportunities that exist in the Eurasia region for leadership development generally and the need for efficient and effective principles and practices that would underpin a new leadership model that is both effective and ethical, taking into account the fact that description and assessment of leadership in a foreign culture will always be influenced by the culture of the observer (Ambrozheichik, 2011), in our case the authors. For example, with respect to the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, ‘whether Gorbachev’s leadership is judged to have been foolish, treasonous, enlightened or visionary… ultimately depends on the values of the observer’ (Brown, 2020).

‘A common feature of authoritarian regimes throughout history’, Graeme Gill said in 1980, ‘has been the creation of an elaborate mystique around the leader’ (Gill, 1980), which remains the case today. This is an extension of the ‘Great Man’ theory of leadership, with hero-worship of a God-like figure whose egotism is pandered to by enthralled followers (or much less so, by employees). Russia, for example, has a tradition of strong, larger-than-life mavericks such as Peter the Great, Josef Stalin and World War II hero general Georgy Zhukov. Russians have a need for powerful charismatic leaders and tend to create them often irrespective of the leaders’ intentions. From our research in Eurasia, we see that the focus of leadership is still very much on the sole leader. People do regard some particular kinds of individuals as leading others throughout the organizational hierarchy.

The GLOBE studies of 62 societies (cultures) identified six globally recognized leadership dimensions: charismatic, team-oriented, participative, humane-oriented, autonomous and self-protective (House et al., 2004). Two more dimensions were added in a new study started in 2020: ² ethical and participative. Overall leadership was defined as ‘the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members’, and culture as ‘the shared motives, values, beliefs, identities, and interpretations or meanings of significant events that result from common experiences of members of collectives that are transmitted across generations’ (House et al., 2004: 15). Nine dimensions of culture were identified: performance orientation, assertiveness, future orientation, humane orientation, institutional collectivism, in-group collectivism, gender egalitarianism, power distance and uncertainty avoidance (House et al., 2004: 11). A further dimension, religiosity, was added in the 2020 study.

Most of the data on Russia in the original GLOBE studies were collected in the mid-1990s, so the studies may be somewhat out-of-date now: much cultural change has occurred since then. However, for Russian leaders, charismatic, team-oriented, participative and autonomous leadership were rated as contributing to outstanding leadership; humane leadership was rated as neither contributing to nor inhibiting outstanding leadership and self-protective leadership was rated as slightly inhibiting outstanding leadership (Ambrozheichik, 2011). Ambrozheichik (2011) studied the Russian data from the GLOBE studies in conjunction with a range of other studies including more recent INSEAD research by Kets De Vries et al. (2008). He concluded that Russian leadership displays moderate team orientation, low but valued participative leadership, a preference for charismatic behaviour (both visioning and performance), administrative competence that is highly valued but subordinates seen as unimportant contributors to decision making, moderate to high authoritarianism and paternalism as an expression of collectivism. He also points out that rapid integration of Russian organizations in global business has put pressure on them to conform to Western management and leadership ideas and practices. Russians’ expectations of foreigners in leadership positions, however, are more complex. The formal title of chief executive officer (CEO) does not guarantee its holder the same level of compliance from Russian subordinates when a Russian does not hold that position. Respect and conformity will come only if the foreign leader demonstrates superior competence and delivers tangible results.

A smaller GLOBE study, of CEO leadership behaviour and effectiveness in 24 societies or cultures, was published in 2014 (House et al., 2014). This study reinforced the importance of CEOs to organizational effectiveness, the significant influence of culture on leadership expectations across cultures and societies, and the importance of the match between CEO behaviours and leadership expectations within each society. This study identified the similarities and differences in how CEO leadership was visualized. In general, charismatic and team-oriented leadership were perceived to contribute positively to outstanding leadership in Russia, Georgia and Kazakhstan to the same extent as in other countries. All three Eurasian countries showed participative leadership as less contributory to outstanding leadership than in other countries. Humane-oriented leadership was seen as contributing to considerably lower extent in Russia and Kazakhstan in contributing to outstanding leadership but in Georgia to a significantly higher extent. The contribution of self-protective leadership was about the same in all three Eurasian countries as well as in other countries and autonomous leadership in all three countries was similar and greater than in other countries.

By and large, it is only the most highly educated, the most powerful or those who occupy a formal leadership position for whatever reason, to whom prestige is attributed, who are regarded as the legitimate leaders. And a small-scale survey in Kyrgyzstan explored what qualities people wished to see in their political leaders and found that, in order of frequency of mention, these were patriotism, a good education (graduate level), honesty, political professionalism, charisma, intelligence, responsibility, strength of character, service to the people and bravery (Murzaeva and Akçali, 2013). Anthropologists have observed that leadership status is often affected by the attribution of prestige to those in leadership positions by non-leaders; even in a strictly hierarchical cultural context, informal prestige networks play a functional role in the efficacy of leadership and group dynamics (Offord et al., 2019).

So while in the West, the emphasis on the Great Man theory of leadership has largely waned, in Eurasia, it is still very much alive. Russian leaders, for example, remain largely wedded to the ‘old habits’ associated with ‘strong’, authoritarian leadership (De Vries, et al., 2008; Fey, 2008; Grachev, 2009; McCarthy et al., 2010; Puffer and McCarthy, 2011). In Russia, ‘strong’ leadership, Fey says, ‘is a tradition and empowerment is normally low… [many companies] simply use employees to carry out designated tasks set by top management rather than to think creatively about those tasks. As one employee in our study told me, ‘You don’t understand. Workers work and managers make decisions’’ (Fey, 2008).

In their study of informal processes of the working of organizations in the Soviet period of the late 1970s and 1980s and contemporary Russian capitalism, Altman and Morrison (2015) identified an embracing of informal relations with workers’ ‘negative control’, bargaining power and flexibility during the Soviet era. However, they found that bargaining power of employees was greatly diminished afterwards under Russian capitalism. This, they say, ‘facilitates exploitation, particularly of the most vulnerable workers, with dire consequences for the work process’. This is an issue of empowerment, a core practice in effective leadership (Gill, 2011: 231–254). Fey and Shekshnia (2011) interviewed senior managers in 36 subsidiaries of foreign companies operating in Russia and based in the Moscow and St Petersburg areas. They found that creating an organization in which people were empowered in carrying out their jobs, historically lacking in Russian companies, was the greatest leadership challenge. Russian employees were reluctant to take decisions or show initiative for fear of harsh punishment for mistakes. Many people throughout Eurasia still maintain that mindset. Yet a company-specific culture with visible ‘foreign’ elements such as trust in one another, management openness and employee initiative was clearly associated with high performance. As Archie Brown, the Oxford political scientist, says in his highly acclaimed book, The Myth of the Strong Leader, ‘the idea that one person is entitled to take the big decisions is dangerous, and the advantages of a collegial style of leadership are too often overlooked’ (Brown, 2014, book cover). Most leadership development programmes still include case studies and the biographies of the great people, mostly men and mostly ‘strong’, from the past. The term ‘strong leadership’ used by some is conveniently ambiguous in its duplicity, and its veneration is based not on reality, or on science, but on myth.

Today, however, we see a new generation in Eurasia that is looking for a different style of leadership: not top-down and singular, but more lateral, shared and dispersed. They are looking for teamwork and a voice in leadership rather than solo leaders and diktat. The younger generation is not looking for so-called experts who ‘know everything’ but for those who welcome their opinions and are open to collaboration. For example, based on findings from research in three Russian companies – in insurance, financial leasing and high-net-worth banking services – Levene and Higgs (2018) found that a more relational, democratic style of leadership by their CEOs rather than an autocratic style was more effective and more likely to be accepted by the (younger) senior managers who reported to them. Fey and Shekshnia (2011) say that CEO Robert Sheppard’s practice of authoritative rather than authoritarian leadership – when a strong and highly involved executive leads from authority gained by virtue of competence possessed rather than just through the power of the position – changed the culture of Russia’s bankrupt Sidanko, with a successful business model, large profits and happy, involved employees. Happy, involved employees are an example of engaged employees, and employee engagement is also a core element of effective leadership (Gill, 2011: 255–286).

Our article explores evidence from both academic research and scholarship and practical experience of efforts in applying culturally Western thinking and practice concerning leadership in Eurasia, with conclusions and implications for cross-cultural management scholarship and practice. In developing our research methods, we have adopted the GLOBE definition of culture as ‘the shared motives, values, beliefs, identities, and interpretations or meanings of significant events that result from common experiences of members of collectives that are transmitted across generations’ (House et al., 2004: 15). In first, exploring how people in Eurasia, including young people, perceive leadership, and both actual and desirable, we present two research projects that we carried out. The first one concerns leadership development in Protestant Christian churches in the Eurasia region carried out between 2015 and 2017 in partnership with a university in Russia and other collaborators in Eurasia. The second concerns leadership development in not-for-profit substance-abuse rehabilitation centres throughout Eurasia. And thirdly, we present a case study of leadership development in a small business (100 employees) comprising a group of three subsidiary companies in Russia supplying steel products for major gas and oil pipelines. We then describe the lessons we learned for ethical and effective leadership development as an example of what can be achieved in the Eurasia region as a contribution to its ongoing process of cultural transformation.

Our methodology employed individual interviews, focus groups and survey questionnaires. Interviews and focus groups are based on the ontological and epistemological positions that people’s knowledge, values and experiences are meaningful and worthwhile of exploration (Byrne 2004). Interviews and focus groups are useful for establishing facts and building knowledge (Holstein and Gubrium, 2011; Silverman, 2011: 165–166, 181–183). Together with focus groups, qualitative interviews can be helpful in pre-pilot work in providing contextual and conceptual data for survey design (Bloor et al., 2001), especially when researchers need an operational definition for something before they can measure it (Hair et al., 2007: 201), which is a well-known issue in the case of both ‘leadership’ and ‘leadership development’. This approach enabled us to better understand how people in Eurasia themselves understand ‘leadership’ and ‘leadership development’. Both individual interviews are helpful in exploring important nuances in organizations, but they do not substitute for quantitative research that helps to discern and explain macro issues. On the other hand, the focus group is more effective than the one-to-one interview in identifying or testing new ideas as well as identifying patterns in the organization. Focus groups, however, are inappropriate for gaining personal perspectives or for discussing or addressing sensitive issues in the organization, especially where a group comprises both supervisors and their subordinates. We used the findings from the individual interviews and focus groups to develop online survey questionnaires. The qualitative approaches of interviews and focus groups together with the quantitative method of the survey are known when used together in a research project as a mixed-method approach. As Johnson et al. (2007) say:

Mixed methods research is the type of research in which a researcher or team of researchers combines elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches (e.g., use of qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection, analysis, inference techniques) for the purposes of breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration.

Using both individual interviews and focus group raises some ethical concerns, such as privacy, confidentiality and potential stress associated with the intensity of the interactions. In our research projects, we explained the purpose of our research and considered the vulnerability of participants, and we guaranteed confidentiality and their protection from over-disclosure of personal information, as suggested by Morgan (1993: 238–239).

Our conclusions and the implications that we draw from them, from our research and cases result from our approach of paying attention to several sectors with the same approach: we looked how people, including managers, view organizational leadership and how they approach leadership development. We focused on the organizations that are managed by a new, and largely young, generation of leaders and managers in Eurasia. Some of them tend to keep hold of old culture and others are open to change and ready to accept new ways of leading subordinates and followers.

We recognize that our examples are drawn from very different sectors and therefor appear to be disconnected. However, what we are doing is to try to connect what is often seen to be disconnected: we connect people’s perspectives on leadership and leadership development in the wider, heterogeneous culture and society as distinct from a collection of culturally homogeneous (and often very well inter-connected) organizations. Our examples therefore present some insights on how we can help both international and local managers in their work of talent development and leadership development in Eurasia.

Project 1: Leadership development in Protestant Christian churches in the Eurasia region

Religiosity throughout the Eurasia region increased rapidly from the end of the Soviet era, with Orthodox Christianity the dominant religion in Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine; Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity in the Baltic States (but with a growing secularity in some) and Islam in Central Asian states (Naumkin, 1992). Between 2015 and 2017, one of the authors conducted a study of leadership among young Protestant Christians throughout Eurasia. Using a mixed-methods approach, our aim was to find out how believers in the European region and in the countries of Central Asia understood leadership and its formation.

Our research was conducted in Protestant churches in eight countries in Eurasia: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. The Protestant churches comprised two groups, approximately equally represented: (1) Evangelical Christians, represented by churches of the Union of Evangelical Christians and the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, as well as some autonomous congregations and (2) Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, as well as autonomous congregations in these traditions). During the first phase of research (from January 2015 to February 2016), we interviewed the representatives of Evangelical churches and organizations, including administrators, pastors, youth leaders, students and young people. Initially, we focused only on the individual interviews and conducted 245 such interviews. About one-third of these individual interviews were conducted face-to-face, while the rest were carried out by Zoom. All interviews were audio-recorded. We divided our respondents into three categories: (1) high-ranking leaders (of church unions, large congregations, mission organizations, seminaries and various Christian organizations); (2) youth leaders (youth pastors and youth workers) and (3) Evangelical young people themselves. Open-ended questions helped participants to generate and express their views without undue limitations (see Appendix).

A random selection of first respondents was used first followed by a snowball sampling strategy to identify further potential subjects (Patton, 2015; Tracy, 2019). Participants were asked to encourage others to come forward for interview. When new individuals were named, we used a ‘cold-calling’ technique, contacting them directly. All individual interviews during the first phase were conducted in the Russian language. The following phase of our research consisted of face-to-face focus groups. In March 2016, an additional 155 Christians from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan participated in our research (14 individual interviews and 141 in focus groups). In several cases, participants in focus groups in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan spoke in their native language and other participants helped with translation into Russian.

After analysing the transcripts of individual and group interviews, we developed an online questionnaire (a web-based survey) to dive deeper and collect information from a younger generation of Evangelicals. About 2500 young Christians, aged 13–29 years, completed the questionnaire. Men and women were represented equally. About 90% of all respondents lived in cities and towns and 10% in small villages. 80% of these young people were from Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and Moldova, and 20% were from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. For various reasons – such as age and country of residence – 180 completed surveys were disqualified. For the final analysis 2320 questionnaires were used.

While the majority of our respondents were able to converse in Russian language, the survey was also translated into other languages: Ukrainian (166), Romanian language for Moldovans (31) and Tadjik (15). Our survey was not available in Uzbek, Kyrgyz or Kazakh languages, so some young people in those countries were unable to participate. Online survey participants were recruited through social media advertising on Facebook and via VKontakte and various social media bloggers and Christian social media groups. In the final stage of our research project, a three-day consultation with experienced youth workers was organized. This consultation was a crucial stage in our research project. In Eurasia (in general and particularly in the Protestant circles), leadership training is rarely carried out on the basis of social research that is contextually rooted in Eurasia. Many leadership training materials are translated from Western sources. This consultation had two goals: (1) to introduce the youth workers to our research methodology and findings and, by doing so, we have tried to earn their trust in our research and (2) while we presented the results of our research, it was also our goal to develop practical recommendations for action with other practitioners.

How did young Christians depict leadership?

Some participants, especially those in conservative congregations, were cautious and suspicious about the use of the terms ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’. They considered these words to be ‘foreign’, strange, unclear and alien to their Christian faith: they felt that, as Christians, people are called to serve one another rather than lead others, which for them connoted ruling, commanding, being first and standing above others. Those respondents who demonstrated a negative attitude toward the words ‘leadership’ or ‘leader’ also tended to associate these words with greed, envy, unrestrained ambition, favouritism, financial dishonesty, the search for power and the pursuit of selfish aims. This is nothing new: St Paul, some 2000 years ago, discovered this to be the case among citizens of Corinth even after the then recent introduction of Christianity (The Bible, one Corinthians). In the interviews, unsurprisingly, respondents often reduced the concept of leadership to the figure of a particular leader whom others follow. They saw the role and views of followers (team members) as usually discounted or even ignored. The majority of people throughout Eurasia appeared to be unlikely to view leadership as involving collaboration or as team work entailing interaction between leader(s) and followers in which the role of followers was as important as that of leaders, as Fey (2008) has also reported.

Local culture impacts on the nature and understanding of leadership. As one respondent from Kyrgyzstan said, the Kyrgyz language does not use the [English] word ‘leader’. He said:

If you command as a boss, people will behave as they would for a boss. If you ask them as a friend, they behave as they would for a friend.

Leadership was often seen merely as inspiring people, motivating them, or calling them to action, disregarding other important aspects such as providing an appealing vision and mission or purpose, setting an example in their ethical behaviour, or formulating or ensuring there is a clear and intelligent strategy for pursuing the vision, mission or purpose (Gill, 2011).

Young people often experienced the imposition of ‘the cult of the leader’ and the expectation that ‘one should always become a leader’. A predominant view among our respondents was that transformation, change and overcoming crises depended on a particular few individuals who run organizations, parties, movements, churches, companies and even countries. Thus, attention tended to be given to developing particular individual leaders rather than developing leadership and cascading and mobilizing leadership throughout the organization. At the same time, they felt that the importance of followers or team members was not emphasized and that it was not understood that effective and ethical leadership depends on both leaders and followers. They also felt that it was not appreciated that taking or performing non-leader roles or positions did not necessarily imply irresponsibility, blind obedience or ineffective passivity.

How did views about good and bad leadership differ?

Most Protestant Christians throughout Eurasia characterized ‘bad leadership’ as striving for control, promotion of selfish interests, pride, dictatorship, lies and greed. They acknowledged that, along with good leadership, ‘negative’ leadership also took place in their midst. They agreed that such toxic leadership must be identified and overcome. Meanwhile, some believers pointed to a systematic lack of interest among top Christian leaders in proper feedback and regular evaluation of leaders’ behaviour. Often good leadership was judged only by its spirituality and morality rather than by its effectiveness as well.

How did views about leadership differ between the younger and older generations?

In Eurasia, probably as everywhere, one can observe discrepancies between the values of the older generation and the ideals of the younger generation. However, the rapid social, economic and political changes in Eurasia over the last 20–30 years has led to a generation gap that is much more obvious and deeper than in the past. Many older people assume that, like them, young people also perceive leadership as ‘celebrity’ or ‘popularity’ (Belov and Negrov, 2016; Riker and Doretskaya, 2017; Zhamaletdinova, 2017). However, less than 1% of young respondents in our study expressed this view. This is a vivid example of the generation gap in Eurasia. One respected church leader made the comment:

Instead of dialoguing with young people, the older generation pressures them. Young people are always considered wicked and wrong. There are few attempts to establish continuity, dialogue and common language.

The older generation also tended, however, to have an optimistic view of the leadership potential of young people. Yet, young people themselves tended not to estimate their own potential as high. One student from Moldova said:

My peers have potential. But it seems to me that they don’t realize how great it [their potential] is. They need a push in order to see what direction to go. I need it too. The problem is that you are not even 80% sure of your true direction in life.

Many young people that we interviewed indicated that they had no concrete goals for the upcoming years. It appears that they needed the help of parents and mentors to identify life goals. They emphasized that such help would be most effective when it is provided within a relationship of trust and friendship rather than from ‘directives’ and ‘orders’. In our conversations with established church leaders, we found that they tended to focus on how to use or involve young people in church activities rather than on how to serve them or help them grow. As one respondent said:

We are not forming them; we use them… and this is a tragedy.

What are the steps that can be taken to change this for the better? In our consultations and workshops in churches, we asked questions about how leadership formation should be carried out in the future. Several ideas were proposed by experienced youth workers:

1. Regular and systematic interaction is required, focusing on spiritual and character formation as well as development of knowledge and skills.

2. Young people need to be oriented toward the formation and achievement of a common, shared vision and goals. The older generation must involve young adults in the process of developing goals, rather than imposing their goals on them and pretending that they are shared or developed together.

3. Reflection and critical self-evaluation are important in the process of leadership formation. It is important to analyse both the process and the results of teamwork.

4. Instead of just stating what needs to be done, it is also important to explain why it needs to be done.

5. Mentoring is one of the most important processes in leadership formation among young Protestant Christians. In the context of churches in Eurasia, mentoring was often reduced to or substituted with ‘instruction’. Often long speeches (sermons) to groups of young people were considered to be mentoring. But the younger generation is looking for mentoring that is not reduced to prohibitions, restrictions, or diktats from ‘top people’, but rather provides direction by means of good example, a relationship of trust, and teamwork.

Our approach in recent workshops with churches therefore included communicating several principles:

1. It is important to help young people identify their potential both as leaders and as followers, both in and outside the church, and then to help them pursue their potential in practice.

2. It is more important to introduce all young believers to the principles of team leadership than to develop a few ‘great’ leaders among them.

3. Leadership can be better understood and learned within the context of group work than in isolation. Collaborative work can help turn abstract conversation about leadership into effective and ethical practical application.

4. Praise and appreciation are very important. Young people – just as any others – value approval, gratitude and sincere acknowledgement of their efforts and achievements.

A more recent development shows great potential for large-scale collective action. Recognizing how a generation of Christians has re-entered public life throughout Eurasia following the fall of the Soviet regime, a conference, ‘Missions in profession’ – equipping leaders in Eurasia, was held in Minsk, Belarus, in October 2018 with the aim of equipping young leaders to be more influential in the workplace (Baptist Times, 2018). Subsequent forums have taken place in Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan with more than 30,000 participants as part of the Next Generation Professional Leaders Initiative, with the objective of helping them to form a holistic worldview and leadership qualities and skills as well as putting their Christian faith and values into practice in the workplace.

Project 2: Leadership development in not-for-profit substance-abuse rehabilitation centres in Eurasia

Many studies show that both early mortality and suicide mortality in post-Soviet Eurasia are largely attributable to alcohol and drug addiction (Fairbairn et al., 2016; Govorin and Sakharov, 2012; Stickley and Razvodovsky, 2009; Zaridze et al., 2014). State officials (especially in Russia) say that addiction – whether drug or alcohol dependency – is threatening the country’s future. In response to this problem, from the mid-1990s, the number of state-sponsored rehabilitation (rehab) programmes dramatically increased. Some 2000 private commercial and church-based rehab centres have been founded in the past 30 years.

However, practitioners in state-sponsored rehab centres have received negative feedback from their clients, who characterize the treatment methods as ‘Soviet’, ‘totalitarian’, ‘paternalistic’ or ‘manipulative’. At the same time, the great majority of young people who were looking for help went to church-based alcohol and/or drug rehabilitation centres. One of the authors has met with hundreds of them. They believed that nonprofit rehab centres that were linked to churches operated on tiny budgets; were in primitive, isolated facilities and were led and staffed predominantly by recovered alcoholics themselves who insisted on spiritual transformation rather than professional medical intervention as the key to recovery. They reported success rates higher than those in state or commercial programmes. The striking characteristic was that these Protestant Christian rehab centres in Russia were more ‘Western’ and ‘democratic’ in their leadership style. Their approach fostered clients' individuality and self-reliance.

To verify and explore this, in 2017–2018, one of the authors conducted a study of leadership practices and leadership formation in faith-based substance-abuse rehab centres in Eurasia. Sixty administrators and social workers in these centres and other Christians and pastors actively associated with them were interviewed in the first stage of the research between April and June 2017. An online questionnaire was then developed between September and December 2017 based on analysis of the interview findings with the aim of comparing the opinions of practising social workers and administrators of rehab centres with the notions of those who had been in rehab in the past and exploring leadership that was being formed in rehab centres at that time. The questionnaire was completed by more than 500 people who had been clients of rehabilitation centres (mainly in Russia and Ukraine.). We focused on typical residential drug and alcohol rehab programmes, during which people (clients) remained in a structured environment where no drugs or alcohol were available and many of which had strong aftercare. Twenty-five percent of the questionnaire respondents were female and 10% were Christians under 30 years of age. We also reviewed documents at several churches dedicated to the practice of social ministry and rehabilitation.

At the heart of this church-based rehabilitation was the conviction that only God can change addicted people and that Bible study, prayer, worship and Christian community were the practical spiritual channels for rehabilitation. Naturally, in all Christian rehab centres, the clients received guidance on how to make better decisions, express personal needs and develop a healthy lifestyle. In all rehab centres, the emphasis was on developing life skills such as coping with difficult emotions, dealing with stress, managing anger and paying attention to physical health. Some rehab centres provided their clients with opportunities to learn academic and/or vocational skills. Some offered training in time management and money management.

How did leaders in rehab centres view leadership?

Most respondents defined leadership as a process whereby one person (the leader) leads others who follow him or her – a rather circular definition. Owing to the specific nature of social interaction within rehab centres, the formal power (authority) of administrators was very strong. In some rehab centres, we learned that there was an abuse of such power. This is universally a frequently occurring feature of authoritarian leadership and culture (Brown, 2014).

The second most-often expressed understanding of leadership in successful rehab centres was that leadership in that context is all about serving others. One administrator of a rehab centre said: ‘If you are the leader, then first of all you are a servant… it is important for a leader to be mature… a leader needs to be accountable’. There was also a widespread opinion that effective leaders have a clear mission and vision and that all leaders need support from their team.

Leadership practices and leadership development in rehab centres

During the interviews and in the online questionnaire, participants were asked how they understood the major tasks of administrators of rehab centres. No noticeable diversity of opinions was evident in this area. Developing new leaders was the least frequent response. It was very interesting that in our interviews we discovered that only in a few rehab centres was attention paid to the basic conceptual and practical aspects of leadership. Many administrators of rehab centres thought that being a leader is an innate quality and that their clients were already ‘professional’ leaders because they were already good at manipulating people and getting what they wanted. One of the top-level managers at a rehab centre in Russia indicated that ‘we do not need to help our clients to become leaders; we need to help them to be submissive’. This is an alarming statement, and it was expressed openly in the rehab centre.

It is well known that good leaders lead by example. When leaders say one thing but do another or do the opposite, they erode trust – a critical element of effective leadership. Administrators and many so-called graduates of rehab centres were asked what they considered to be unacceptable and damaging in the management of the centres. There was a diversity of opinions on this matter. The top five were dictatorship, double standards (contradictions between words and actions), indiscipline, lack of accountability, lying and cheating.

At the conclusion of interviews and in the online questionnaire, respondents were asked to propose their recommendations to other rehab leaders in respect of leadership formation. These were as follows:

1. Love God and love people. Christian rehab ministry is impossible without love for God and people. Love is an influence for good in leadership, as St Paul explained in his so-called ‘Love Chapter’ (1 Corinthians 13), and this is increasingly recognized and addressed in contemporary theories of leadership (Gill and Negrov, forthcoming).

2. Promote mentorship and accountability.

3. Build cooperation. Show examples of establishing partnership with others.

4. Pay attention to your own and your team members' educational and personal development.

5. Keep in mind that there is nothing as important as personal example. Always evaluate and reflect on the example you demonstrate to others.

In the words of one respondent:

If you hold a leadership position at a rehab centre, stay focused on the formation of the next generation of leaders. Help others to become common citizens, to build or restore their relations with other people or family members, and to become good workers at their workplace. With God’s help, they can become leaders within their families, their social life, and at their workplace.

Case study: Formation of shared leadership in the business environment

Shared leadership and distributed leadership are uncommon in Russian business organizations. A small company in Russia supplying steel products for major gas and oil pipelines provides an example of the forming of shared leadership and how Western leadership perspectives may influence the business sector in Russia for the better.

The focal person (AB), 32 years old, had worked for a private company that had failed about 7 years previously. Only his division, where he was a middle-level manager, performed well. His bosses told him that he should start his own company because they felt that he had high potential for success in business. They asked him what the secret of his success was, why his team was performing better than others. They reported his answer: ‘On a daily basis I am asking two questions. How I can help my people to succeed? What I am doing to develop strong leadership in my team?’ (‘Strong leadership’ for him had a particular meaning.)

So AB started his first company supplying steel products for major gas and oil pipelines, developing its own production of pipeline fittings. Soon there were three companies in the group. The total number of employees was about 100 people. The company opened branches in six large Russian cities. AB and his executive team had read many business books, written mostly by American authors. He said that he appreciated those books that focused on productivity and profit, people and social responsibility. There are many definitions of leadership, which, they felt, results in confusion. One was adopted that aims to embrace and integrate these various views: ‘Leadership is about showing the way and helping or inducing others to follow it’ (Gill, 2011: 9). The AB Group considered its managers to be the heart of its companies, driving its success. Managers had to translate the strategic vision, goals and priorities of the CEO and the senior leadership team into strategies and operational plans for their teams. They needed to empower and engage their teams to generate results. And they needed to develop the company’s future leadership to ensure its long-term success.

The system of leadership formation in creating effective managers at the AB Group followed four steps:

1. Listening: the CEO paid attention to people’s needs, challenges and goals.

2. Planning development programmes: The CEO encouraged managers to undergo training and organized corporate events for developing his staff. He also personally attended all the workshops offered in his companies. It is well known that doing this encourages significantly greater commitment to such programmes by participants; not doing so undermines them.

3. Execution: The CEO paid attention to how people applied their newly acquired knowledge and skills in their areas of responsibility. Again, not doing this almost certainly results in less benefit from training – and often in none at all and consequently in its perceived failure.

4. The CEO and the executive team evaluated programme progress, made adjustments and helped to maximize the impact.

Together with his executive team, AB created a model of leadership that can be described as shared leadership. Shared leadership is an example of distributed leadership (Döös, 2015). Döös says that shared leadership between managers has three perspectives: organizational structure, managers’ experiences, and tasks and responsibilities. In addition, shared leadership is built on a bedrock of trust, non-prestige, shared experience, and values.

Shared leadership at the AB Group was not about a division of work tasks or responsibilities. It was characterized by ongoing communication and exchange of ideas. Trust was stressed as a necessary condition for sharing in organizational success, reflecting what Newell and Swan (2000) identify as three different forms of trust: companionship, competence and commitment. The CEO and the senior leadership team were friends and companions. They all took seriously their professional skills and talents. They complemented one another in their competencies. And they were demonstrably committed to their corporate mission and vision, to one another, and to their people.

In their culture of shared leadership, the CEO and the executive team focused on six core themes and practices of leadership that support and elaborate the concept of leadership proposed by Gill: vision, mission or purpose, values, strategy, empowerment and engagement (Gill, 2011: 100–106).

1. Effective leaders define and communicate a valid and appealing vision of the future.

2. Effective leaders define and communicate a valid and appealing mission or purpose.

3. Effective leaders identify, display, promote and reinforce shared values that inform and support the vision, purpose and strategies.

4. Effective leaders develop, communicate and implement rational strategies that are informed by shared values and enable people to pursue the vision and the purpose.

5. Effective leaders empower people to be able to do what needs to be done.

6. Effective leaders engage people to want to do what needs to be done by using their personal power to influence, motivate and inspire them.

Leadership development at the AB Group took place on several levels. The CEO and the executive team had mentors and organized corporate training that they actively participated in. Beyond corporate training, there were many informal ways whereby leadership development took place. An individualized approach, evaluations and feedback were taken seriously.

Key principles that governed leadership development in the AB Group were as follows:

1. Determining and clarifying the purpose and meaning of the company’s existence and bringing this understanding to all employees.

2. Aligning personal aims and organizational purpose. As part of the company’s vision, every employee could and should explore how his or her personal purpose and goals aligned with the organization’s purpose.

3. Maintaining a balance between making a profit and caring for people – leadership entails a concern for employees and mutual accountability.

4. Showing respect – effective leadership is characterized by respect for people and a genuine desire to serve them.

5. Encouraging ethical and virtuous competition – real professionals value manifestations of people’s talents and the achievement of desired results rather than victories over one another.

6. Being contented and showing social responsibility.

7. Maintaining a balance between professional development and success and care for one’s personal and family well-being.

8. Showing both humility and perseverance – without humility, a person would not be inclined to seek advice and would not listen to criticism, and without perseverance one would not achieve the most.

9. Overcoming social barriers – there is no one single ‘correct’ approach to people; good results are achieved by those managers and employees who are able to recognie the individual characteristics of others, find a common language, and unite different people in pursuit of a common goal.

Discussion, conclusions and lessons learned

Our research and the resulting case studies contribute to filling gaps in the literature on leadership in Eurasia, in particular on how people perceive leadership and in suggesting that there is an over-emphasis on ‘strong’ leaders that could beneficially be corrected through a different approach to leadership development. The reason for this is that this emphasis does, and will continue to, hinder the overall development of a mature, healthy, successful and happy group, organization, culture and society. A further need, to provide context for this change, is for clarity and consensus on what is meant and understood by the term ‘leadership’: leadership is about showing the way and helping or inducing others to follow it. It is not only about influencing people to pursue an objective: it is characterized by the six core themes and practices of vision, mission or purpose, shared values, strategy, empowerment and engagement.

‘Leadership is a critical factor for organizational growth and effective change’ is a universal sentiment (Atkočiūnienė and Siudikienė, 2019). The idea in 1998 that contemporary challenges require organizations to develop both leadership and leaders themselves in terms of their mindset and behaviour (Gill et al., 1998) is still the case more than 20 years later: the old order still prevails. As Archie Brown points out in respect of the Soviet Union, ‘A system which provided a hierarchy of rewards for loyalty and a range of sanctions and punishments for political deviation lasted for seven decades’ (Brown, 2020). Known as transactional leadership and entrenched in the culture of the Soviet Union and its satellite states and indeed what preceded it, it is characterized by an authoritarian leader, entailing command and control, hierarchical structures, emphasis on rules and regulations, active management-by-exception and contingent reward as distinct from more progressive transformational leadership characterized by individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and idealized influence (Bass, 2008: 618–648).

Stanislav Shekshnia et al. (2019) describe how four distinguished leaders in Russia – Alexander Dyukov (Gazprom Neft), German Gref (Sberbank), Eugene Kaspersky (Kaspersky Lab) and Vitaly Saveliev (Aeroflot) – succeeded despite apparently bucking the contemporary trend from autocratic to more democratic leadership and in displaying transactional leadership rather than transformational leadership. They did not lead ‘by the book’: they scored low on emotional intelligence, they did not praise their subordinates and they rarely provided constructive feedback and celebrated small wins. Yet they transformed their companies. Each of these leaders has created formidable enterprises that deliver sustainable growth in profits and shareholder value, set new standards for the industry, leave a positive impact on their employees and on the country and the regions they operate in, and – most remarkably – continue to reinvent themselves. Having studied the work of these leaders for a decade, Shekshnia and colleagues’ model of ‘athletic leadership’ summarizes the unique characteristics of these leaders and their leadership.

They describe how these leaders have succeeded in their specific, perhaps unique, context of rapid obsolescence, great turbulence, considerable government interference, modest human resource development and high levels of management control that is culturally embedded. They call them ‘athletic leaders’ because of their similarity to top sportspeople in respect of their attitudes and behaviour, in particular mental toughness and adaptability that have developed as a result of the formative experiencing of hardship and competition early in life. Mental toughness is, they say, shown in their passion, focus and relentless pursuit of ambitious goals; adaptability in their ability to keep up-to-date on new knowledge, concepts and models and using them in practice.

Shekshnia and Zagieva (2021a) carried out a cross-country study of the work of board chairs throughout Europe, focusing on what board leaders actually do rather than what they should do, proposing a conceptual contingency framework for understanding chairs’ work in Europe. Eighteen experts from 14 European countries – Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the UK – interviewed more than 300 chairs, CEOs, directors and shareholders to identify and compare specific practices and instruments that chairs use to deal with a range of challenges.

Shekshnia and Zagieva (2021b) draw on the existing literature as well as the findings of their research project, which offers a more general assessment of leadership at board level. They offer a conceptual model of the environment in which board chairs operate, combining three macro factors – business context, the legal system and ‘soft’ laws, and societal norms – and three micro factors – the company, the board and the chair. The unique combination of these factors defines what board chairs do (their roles) and how they go about it (their practices). There are strong similarities in the way that chairs from various countries define the job itself and the way they go about carrying out the job. Board leaders play three specific roles: engaging, enabling and encouraging, which Shekshnia and Zagieva call ‘the 3 Es of effective board leadership’. While these roles are intertwined and reinforce one another, they identify and classify specific practices that board chairs use to perform them individually. They also present typologies of chair-CEO and chair-shareholder relationships and supporting behaviours. One key insight they reveal is the importance of both a high EQ (emotional intelligence) and a high IQ (cognitive intelligence) generally across Europe, including Russia and Ukraine, for effective performance and good governance.

In Russia, relationships are more important than institutions, say Ryasentseva and Zagieva (2021). They see board leaders in general as pragmatists who work within both formal institutional and informal contexts in carrying out their job. Board chairs balance authoritative and facilitating ways of operating, ranging from ‘traditional’ conversations behind closed doors to ‘modernist’ coaching sessions with board directors. They consider their ultimate masters to be shareholders, and they work proactively with significant ones. They engage with CEOs in various ways, from directive mentoring to non-directive advising, which depends on the social status of those involved and their relationship to the owners of the business. A study of Russian participants in management development programmes, found that those whose immediate managers practised ‘active’ environmental leadership – namely a combination of transformational leadership and positive elements of transactional leadership (contingent reward and active management-by-exception) – displayed greater pro-environmental behaviour (Graves et al., 2019).

The role of the board chair is new and unique in Ukraine (Timonkina, 2021). Kateryna Timonkina found that informal governance practices often clash with regulations that are mostly borrowed from European countries. This less regulated culture means that the effectiveness of Board chairs is largely dependent on their personal characteristics, such as resilience to external pressure, skill in building trust and relationships, emphasis on innovation and lifelong learning, the ability to integrate diverse opinions and the ability to perform as a dedicated educator and reformer.

What is still needed is a more consistent and stronger transformation from the autocratic and bureaucratic to post-modern agility and fluidity (Gill et al., 1998) through a ‘common universal model of leadership’ that draws on pragmatism, rationalism, holism and humanism (Sydänmaanlakka, 2008). Such organizational transformation requires cultural change. Only broad generalizations can be made in comparing the cultures of ‘the West’ and Eurasia owing to their widely dispersed geography and associated heterogeneous cultural nature. Here, the concept of cultural distance is useful: ‘the degree to which the cultural norms in one country are different from those in another country’ (Morosini et al., 1998: 139). Cultural distance, Reus and Lamont (2009) say, ‘makes it more difficult for workforces to come together, interact, and share ideas, and, as a result, impedes communication’. Matzler et al. (2020), in a study of 939 employees in a Germany-based technology company operating throughout 35 countries including Russia, Poland and Hungary, found that transformational leadership and top management communication are positively related to affective and normative commitment to change and that cultural distance moderated direct managers’ transformational leadership and affective commitment relationship, reducing the influence of top management communication on normative commitment to change.

Mahmood et al. (2020) explored the influence of different leadership styles on organizational performance and the moderating role of corporate culture in a sample of 321 managers in both local and multinational corporations in Kazakhstan. They found that transformational, transactional and paternalistic leadership showed a stronger influence on performance than democratic/humane-oriented and authoritarian/autocratic leadership. And a ‘clan’/collaborative culture – ‘a safe and friendly work environment where employees feel they can express their ideas without the threat of being punished or ridiculed’ – was found to have a greater moderating effect on the relationship between transformational leadership and employee performance than did an ‘adhocracy’, control/hierarchical culture and competitive/market-orientated culture.

Leadership development programmes in Eurasia now need to focus not only on the elite of society but instead to include everybody – both leaders and followers. Indeed, in the West, followership, as the counterpart to leadership, has become a mainstream field of study in its own right. Leadership development programmes therefore need to focus not only on know-how and skills but also on the character and mindsets of people and transforming their currently constrained self-images and on their motivation and ability to effect change and aspire to achieve both for their own fulfilment and happiness and for the social and economic well-being of their community and society.

Our findings also endorse those of Levene and Higgs (2018), in particular that leadership development programmes in Russia should include how leaders and potential leaders can cultivate employees’ and followers’ behaviour to reflect and respond to more consultative and participative forms of leadership. More broadly, leadership in the Eurasia region would benefit from considering and applying the concept of ‘fusion leadership’, introduced by Daft and Lengel (1998) and developed by Vu and Gill (2019), whereby management and leadership practices across national cultures and within multicultural contexts emphasize partnerships, connections and joint responsibility and encourage conversations to reduce barriers in the leader–follower relationship. Vu and Gill (2019) suggest that fusion leadership integrates different cultural values and mindsets such as to effectively respond to the challenges and dilemmas of leadership and organizational issues in today’s world, such as globalization.

Our research aimed to show that leadership development needs in Eurasia concern finding ways to create an environment of participation, integrity, trust, belonging, appreciation and accountability. There needs to be an emphasis on team and shared leadership. It is important to create an environment where people understand and will pursue the vision and the purpose or mission of the organization and the need for teamwork, shared values and other important aspects of shared work. Leadership development programmes for emerging leaders in organizations therefore need to involve their participants in discussions of their own and their organizations’ values and the virtuous behaviour associated with them.

On the matter of values and business ethics, Fey and Shekshnia (2011) point out that in Russia, business ethics pose a challenge in terms of widespread practices that would be questionable or illegal in other countries. As we point out, values, and the ethical codes that reflect them, are a core element of leadership. Fey and Shekshnia suggest that it is not necessary for foreign firms to compromise their values and ethical principles to survive, preserve their integrity and prosper in Russia, and they give several examples of strategies that foreign firms have adopted. Journalist Edward Lucas points out that incoming elites in eastern Europe over the past 30 years have often been either ineffective or actively engaged in aiming to ‘inherit the privileges of the kleptocrats they displace’ (Lucas, 2020). Quoting Romanian-born Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, a leading expert in this field now living in Berlin, he says that the key to managing such problems is to focus on prevention rather than cure. Examples are removing administrative privileges and concessions in the economy, increasing transparency, for example, by showing who gets what in public tendering for contracts and “putting budgets for public services online so that everyone can see where the money is spent”. This has worked, he says, in Estonia, and to some extent in Georgia.

Leadership development approaches require responsible mentoring practices that can create an environment in which people understand that they are not merely controlled and obliged or expected to perform but that somebody is also investing time, effort and money in their lives and well-being at work – and beyond. Effective and ethical leadership promotes willing and effective cooperation among people. To achieve this, leadership development programmes in Eurasia need to adopt concepts, practices and techniques that are both sound and supported by evidence from effective application in the region.

Our article contributes to the field of cross-cultural management scholarship by presenting research studies and cases in a variety of cross-cultural contexts – geographical (Eurasia) and sectoral (religious, not-for-profit and business) – and discussing the management and leadership practices in the socio-political and economic setting of the countries of the former Soviet Union and its satellite members where cultural transformation is occurring and many local organizational leaders are having to deal with people who are motivated by old and new, western and eastern ideas and values that impact management and leadership decision making.

Western scholarly literature has tended to focus mainly on large business companies in Russia and Kazakhstan, rarely paying attention to management and leadership conceptualization and practices in organizations in other sectors. So in addition, we inform international (primarily western) managers about the leadership culture and trends that are occurring in the sectors that are often overlooked (non–profits, religion and small businesses). Our cases present an analysis of leadership ideas and practices that are in a dynamic, changing cultural environment. Western and Asian managers and those from other cultures who want to be involved in international projects with Eurasians, who want to start their own business operation in Eurasia would benefit from a deeper understanding of the dynamic change that is taking place in Eurasia.

Effective and ethical leadership ultimately is not the sole province or responsibility of only one person in any culture. Indeed, beware the myth of the ‘strong’ leader. Leadership can and should exist at all levels and in all functions in an organization – and indeed in a nation or any other community, and arguably in any economic or political culture, capitalist or communist. Showing the way and helping or inducing others to follow it, and doing this effectively and ethically based on values that are shared among the leaders and subordinates or followers concerned and are perceived as virtues, has the power to transform for the better the culture and economies of the countries in Eurasia: Eurasia could be the next global powerhouse.