Valentin Munteanu

A New Ideal Leadership Profile for Romania

The GLOBE project—Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviours Effectiveness — (House et al., 2004), is based at Wharton Business School in the United States. The project comprised 170 researchers in 62 soci-eties, and ran over an 11-year period. The project’s objective was to determine the extent to which the practices and values of business leadership are universal, and the extent to which they are specific to just a few societies. In this chapter, GLOBE project data is used to examine the relationship between ethical issues and the characteristics of the ideal leader as identified by Romanian middle managers. The study aims to elucidate the cross-cultural management issues that may arise for foreign companies doing business in Romania or with Romanian businesses, particularly as regards ethical behaviours. First, we discuss Romania’s ideal leadership profile in practice (as it is), then at value level (as it should be). Secondly, we analyse the GLOBE results in relation to the desired profile of the ideal leader. Finally, we discuss our findings, and formulate some conclusions and recommendations for international managers working in Romania.