A Cross-cultural Investigation of Leadership in the United States and Mexico

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to compare leadership practices of American and Mexican school administrators.

METHODOLOGY
Twenty-eight students preparing for the superintendent’s certificate and taking classes at a university in the Southwest (U.S.) participated along with a similar number of students from a Mexican university who were completing a certificate or Master’s program in educational administration. In addition to completing the LPI-Self, each participant gave five LPI-Observers to supervisors, coworkers or subordinates.

KEY FINDINGS
For each of the five leadership categories, the mean rank of the US group was significantly higher than the mean rank of the Mexican group. The authors conclude that “each practice is firmly embedded in the culture of the USA but not in the culture of Mexico” (p. 204) and “raises questions about the universality of Kouzes and Posner’s (1995) theory of the leadership challenge” (p. 207).