The importance of context, beliefs and values in leadership development

摘要

Leadership is a highly contextualized process of reality construction that takes place within a specific context. This paper focuses on the process of developing servant-leaders in the social and cultural contexts of Synovus Financial, a US-based, multi-financial services company, with central offices in Columbus, GA. This study is part of a larger qualitative study of the cultural enactment of servant-leadership in Synovus Financial. In this case, a clash of contexts exposed potential differences in beliefs and values among leaders in different cultures when a taken-for-granted reality in the United States came to the forefront of attention in the United Kingdom.