Elizabeth Weldon is a professor oforganization behavior at IMDInternational (the InternationalInstitute for ManagementDevelopment) in Lausanne,Switzerland. At IMD, Weldon designsand teaches in executive programsfocused on leadership, corporaterenewal, strategic human-resourcemanagement, and managing change.She works with corporate clients toassess their leadership developmentneeds; designs custom programs tomeet those needs; leads a team com-prising faculty, program administra-tors, and support staff to deliver theprograms; and conducts originalresearch to support the programs.

For the past decade Weldon hasbeen highly involved in leadershipdevelopment in China, teaching exec-utive MBA programs and othercourses at Beijing University, theChina-Europe International BusinessSchool in Shanghai, and other insti-tutions.

Weldon, who holds a Ph.D. degreein industrial and organizational psy-chology from The Ohio StateUniversity, has received a number ofawards for her research. Theseinclude the best-paper award in 1984from the Organization BehaviorDivision of the Academy ofManagement and a research designaward in 1993 from the Society forIndustrial and OrganizationalPsychology. She has also received anumber of teaching awards, includ-ing teaching excellence awards in

the MBA program at IndianaUniversity in 1992 and 1996 andcitations for teaching excellence inthe MBA program at Hong KongUniversity of Science and Technologyin 1998 and 2000.

Weldon is the author or coauthorof numerous journal articles and iscoeditor of Management andOrganizations in China (Macmillan,2000). Her book StrategicImprovisation: How to Become aNimble Manager is to be publishedthis year (by FT Prentice Hall).

In addition to her current researchinto leadership development inChinese companies, Weldon is study-ing the development needs of high-potential managers and the design offast, agile organizations.

Weldon, who has been selected asCCL’s H. Smith Richardson Jr.

Visiting Fellow for 2004, wasrecently at CCL to conduct a collo-quium on developing Chinese busi-ness leaders. Leadership in Actionmanaging editor Stephen Rush spokewith her about this topic. Here areexcerpts from that conversation.

SR: Tell me about the work you’vedone in China. You’ve been atHong Kong University of Scienceand Technology, NankaiUniversity, and the China-EuropeInternational Business School inShanghai, among others. Whattypes of settings do you teach in,who are the people you’re teach-ing, and how receptive have theybeen?EW: I started out doing cross-cultural research in China, studyingU.S.-Chinese joint ventures and try-ing to understand why theAmericans and the Chinese couldn’tget along. At the time the only wayan American could do business inChina was through a joint venture.Because the Americans and theChinese often went into these jointventures with very different goals, itwas not surprising that they hadconflict. What was interesting to mewas that this conflict got so out ofhand. It just escalated—they couldnot manage the conflict. So I beganby doing research in China, tryingto understand how Americans andChinese think about conflict andhow it should be handled. Then I gotinvolved with executive develop-

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16

Face to Face

Leading in China:A Conversation

with Elizabeth Weldon

ment at the China-Europe Inter-national Business School. After Iwent to Switzerland [to be a profes-sor at IMD International] and beganto work primarily in executivedevelopment, I kept my links withChina and was invited back to teachin the executive MBA program atBeijing University. Those in theprogram are top-level people fromstate-owned enterprises, governmentministries, private firms, andforeign-invested enterprises. So it’squite a mix, but what’s differentabout it is that it is the very top peo-ple, whereas executive MBA pro-grams in Europe and the UnitedStates tend to get more people at themiddle levels.

SR: And the students have beenreceptive to your ideas?EW: Oh yes. They’re eager to learn.Most of them have had no manage-ment training, no undergraduatedegree in management. WithChina’s accession to the WorldTrade Organization and the coun-try’s rising aspirations in the busi-ness world, they’re particularlyeager to learn management. I enjoyteaching there.

SR: In your research and yourexperiences in the classroom,you’ve found some pronouncedsimilarities and differencesbetween Chinese and NorthAmerican managers. One differ-ence is in their ideas about whetherpunishment is an appropriatemeans of motivating people andwhat constitutes punishment. Howdo their notions of punishment dif-fer, and what are some of the possi-ble reasons behind this difference?EW: In the executive MBA programI taught a session called “UsingRewards Strategically.” I talkedabout designing a reward system tosupport the business strategy.Afterward one of the participantsasked me why I didn’t talk about

punishment, about using punishmentto motivate people. Of course, in theUnited States we would say that wedon’t use punishment to motivatepeople. But if you look aroundAmerican companies, you see thatpunishment is used—but it’s implic-it, not explicit. Punishment is notexplicitly made a part of the motiva-tional performance management sys-tem, whereas the Chinese don’tseem to think that’s unreasonable.One of the leading Chinese firmsmakes it pretty clear how punish-

ment is going to be a part of the per-formance management system.

SR: Is that something that is deeplyrooted in Chinese culture?EW: I really have no idea why pun-ishment is accepted there and not inthe United States. Maybe it was[child-rearing expert BenjaminSpock] saying that in America youshould never punish children. Sud-denly it became uncool to punishkids. Maybe the move away frompunishment is a recent developmentamong Americans.

SR: What kind of effect does pun-ishment have in the Chinese work-place?EW: It works as a motivator. They usethe carrot and the stick instead of justthe carrot.

SR: Do the Chinese believe inreward systems, and if so are the

reward systems different fromthose found in the West?EW: They are using reward systemsmore now than they did five yearsago, especially in the foreign-investedenterprises and the private firms. Thestate-owned enterprises are still hav-ing a bit of trouble with the idea ofclearly defining a performance man-agement system, but they are begin-ning to see the value of that.

SR: Another area where you havefound some striking differences isin the way that Chinese and NorthAmerican managers manage con-flict. Can you talk a little aboutthose differences and about theChinese concept of shaming?EW: Several colleagues and I uncov-ered these differences in managingconflict through some inductiveresearch we were doing. We askedChinese and American managers toread a story about a conflict andthen tell us what they would do. Inthe stories the person causing theconflict was either from the sameculture—a Chinese with a Chineseor an American with an American—or from a different culture—aChinese with an American or viceversa. Then we used an analysis thathelped us group the differentresponses and make inferencesabout what those responses weredesigned to do.

When we looked at the answersof the Americans, they did things inresponse to the conflict that made alot of sense to us as Americans. Theysaid they would go talk to the personabout the conflict or try to collabo-rate better with the person. But whenwe looked at the Chinese responses,as Americans we couldn’t make senseout of what they said. We had aChinese colleague, however, who hadgrown up in Beijing and had been inthe United States long enough tohave a good understanding of bothcultures. When he looked at theChinese results, he said the managers

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The Chinese use the

carrot and the stick

instead of just the

carrot.

were shaming the people with whomthey were in conflict. The Chinesemanagers said things like, “I wouldraise this person’s misdeeds or errorsin a formal meeting so everyonewould know what he had done,” or,“I would tell his friends and col-leagues so that he would be sure notto do it again.”

As an American, when I lookedat that, it sounded like revenge, orbeing a tattletale. But for theChinese, shaming was a reasonableway of dealing with a conflict withanother Chinese. Their view is thatyou have to make the other personsee that what he’s done is inappropri-ate and that he needs to become abetter person. This research wasinteresting because it made it veryclear to me that you can’t send anAmerican in to make sense out ofwhat the Chinese are doing. Withoutthe Chinese colleague, we wouldhave drawn conclusions that made nosense. If you ask Americans aboutshaming, it’s a concept that doesn’treally ring true with them, certainlynot in the context of a businessorganization. From an Americanpoint of view, the idea of shamingpeople is completely inappropriate.

SR: Does shaming seem to work forthe Chinese? Does it make thingsrun smoother?EW: Yes. And there is a real sense, atradition, that one should be a moralperson. Moral rectitude and fixingthe character make sense to theChinese, whereas in America, espe-cially in the business context, we talkabout the need to change one’sbehavior as opposed to one’s moralcharacter. For the Chinese, the wayto become better people, and betterorganizational people, is by improv-ing character.

SR: What have you found to bemost effective and least effectiveabout Chinese business leadershippractices?

EW: That’s an interesting question,but the tradition of leadership andmarket-oriented firms is just not longenough for me to be able to answerit. We won’t really know the answerto that until we have seen moremarket-oriented enterprises.

SR: You have found that althoughdeveloping leaders is one of the keyobjectives of organizations operat-ing in China, Chinese managers

generally are not held accountablefor developing the people they lead.Why is that, and what implicationsdoes it have for internationalorganizations thinking of expand-ing into China?EW: Holding managers accountablefor developing the people they leadis not typical in U.S. organizationseither, although you might findmore such accountability in theUnited States compared with China.Some 360-degree-feedback instru-ments, for instance, include ques-tions such as, “Are you being devel-oped by your leader?” I think thetradition has always been that devel-oping people is HR’s job, it’s HR’sproblem. And as much as people inthe leadership development fieldrealize how important it is for anorganization to have a culture ofdevelopment, they know that inmost organizations that’s simply not

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the case. So for the Chinese it’s notthat different. But it is a new ideafor them. When I talk about thiswith Chinese leaders I can see ontheir faces that they’re thinking,“Wow, that’s a new idea! It neveroccurred to me that I should havemy managers developing their peo-ple and that they should be heldaccountable for it.”

SR: Did you find differencesbetween the three types of compa-nies—state-owned enterprises, pri-vate firms, and foreign-investedenterprises—as far as how impor-tant they think leadership devel-opment is?EW: Especially in the private compa-nies, I got very strong responses onthis issue. The people leading thosecompanies feel very strongly thatdeveloping people is essential totheir success. Most of the foreign-invested enterprises—which in mywork are primarily Western-invested,either American or European—agreed that development is impor-tant, although not as strongly as theprivate firms. In the state-ownedenterprises there was less concernabout developing people.

SR: What are the dynamicsbetween recent Chinese policy,politics, and bureaucracy—devel-opments such as the increasingopenness to being part of theglobal economy and taking theadministrative reins in HongKong—and organizational leader-ship in China? How have thosethings affected the approach toleadership?EW: They certainly have affectedthe interest in leadership develop-ment. Chinese companies know thatgood managers are a limitedresource, so they are increasinglyinterested in developing managersin order to be more competitive.And now, with China finally joiningthe World Trade Organization,

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For the Chinese, sham-

ing was a reasonable

way of dealing with a

conflict with another

Chinese.

there’s real pressure to do that, areal sense of urgency. If you talk tomost high-level managers, they dothink that leadership development isimportant and see the need for it.But again the state-owned enterpris-es are lagging behind, and they’regoing to be in a tough spot becauseof it.

SR: You’ve also noted that inmany ways Chinese and NorthAmerican leaders, especially theyoung, high-potential managers,are not all that different. In whatways are they alike?EW: I did some research that showedthat young, high-potential Chinesemanagers have the same interestsand concerns about development thatyou would find in America. Theywant to take on new tasks andresponsibilities, to try new things.They want to use their own judg-ment to make decisions about theirwork and they want to be able tobuild a broad network of relation-ships. And they see all that as essen-tial to their development, whichmatches up with what other researchshows about Americans and WesternEuropeans. So in that sense they’rereally quite similar.

The Chinese high-potentials areambitious and they’re good, ener-getic kids. The potential for China’snext generation of leaders looks pret-ty good.

SR: Have you found that genera-tional differences in managers inthe West and in China are prettymuch the same?EW: It seems to me that they arequite the opposite. The Generation Xmanagers in the West are supposedto be a little bit more relaxed andlaid back; they’re concerned morewith work-life balance as opposed topure ambition to achieve in the busi-ness world. In China it’s the youngermanagers who are really driving toachieve in business. Many in the

older generation were uneducated,have worked for state-owned enter-prises all their lives, and follow thestatus quo. So it might actually bethe opposite.

SR: What is the general attitudetoward female leaders in China?EW: I have no data to back this up,but this is my impression: in theforeign-invested enterprises, I thinkwomen leaders are doing just fine. Iget women in my executive MBAclasses who have high-level posi-tions and are clearly happy in their

firms and feel as though they arehaving an effect within their organi-zations. I don’t know about thestate-owned enterprises.

SR: CCL’s model is that assess-ment, challenge, and support arethe elements that make for effectiveleadership development. Does thatmodel have any relevance in China,and if so, what does it look like? DoChinese leaders get assessmentdata, and if so, what forms of data?Do they seek or receive challengingexperiences? What kind of supportdo they get or want?EW: I think the model applies. WhenI talk to top-level Chinese managersabout developing their people, that isessentially the model I use. But thereis a lot of resistance to it, in part

because the shortage of good man-agers is such that the leaders areafraid to develop their managers outof fear they will leave for anotherorganization. And that’s interesting,because research in the United Statesand Europe shows that if you don’tdevelop your high-potential youngmanagers they will leave, but inChina it’s if you do develop yourhigh-potentials they will leave,because there are so many opportuni-ties for well-trained, smart, energeticyoung managers. So it is a real prob-lem for Chinese companies, andthey—particularly the state-ownedenterprises—are reluctant to developpeople because the young, brightpeople want out. Many would preferto move to a foreign-invested or aprivate firm. But if the state-ownedenterprises don’t develop people,they’ll be dead.

So there is a reluctance to devel-op people. And I think thereremains more of an authoritarianpicture of the leader. In the UnitedStates we’re trying to talk about themanager as coach, the manager asfacilitator. They don’t talk like thatin China. It may just be talk inAmerica; I’m not really sure. But atleast the talk is there. The idea thata manager is there to facilitate thedevelopment of the people he or shemanages is not a strong concept inChina. It doesn’t really enter theequation—except perhaps for theforeign-invested enterprises.

SR: If you had a single piece ofadvice to offer about leadership foran international firm that’s think-ing of operating in or investing inChina, what would it be?EW: Western managers in China needto hold firm on the goals to beachieved but be flexible on how theyare achieved, as long as it is not ille-gal or unethical. If you’re too rigidabout how to get to where you wantto be, you’ll have trouble, becausethe Chinese way is different.

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Most high-level Chinese

managers think that

leadership development

is important and see

the need for it.