Capitalist versus Modern Communist Leadership Styles

The ‘clash’ of economic styles has been fierce and publically covered in the national press over the last decade. China’s ‘adaptation’ of communism, also known as ‘State Capitalism’ has been trading heavily with traditional free-market economics and has produced an astonishing trade surplus. This surplus has recently attracted much negative attention from lagging western import or consumption-based countries such at the UK and the USA.

What has also emerged is the typical leadership styles profile of a Chinese business/government leader, which can be said to contain a couple of unique characteristics as follows:

‘Bigger Picture’ Motivation

Growing up in an economy with a modest history, the typical Chinese leader has a very public and sincere motivation for growing their business in the interest of China as a whole. Nationalism is promoted in schools, and continues to be prominent in Chinese business leaders, who often view their role as a leader of positive change in Chin, regardless of what industry they belong to.

This contrasts with US and UK business leaders who do business in a wealthy and affluent society. Motivations tend to be more product/problem based or internalised as a drive to make a success of themselves.

Intolerance of Scrutiny

Chinese leaders have shown an acute inability to handle criticism and scrutiny in a positive and constructive manner. Examples include the blackout on media coverage of sensitive topics that paint the Chinese government in a negative light. Quite recently, this characteristic presented itself when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited the UK. David Cameron gave the usual talk on China being “Crucial” and an “Opportunity” and he also brought up China’s poor record on human rights – an obligatory topic given the opposition to China’s human rights stance among UK citizens.

Jiabao’s response was to ‘hit back’ at Cameron for “finger pointing” and alluded to the fact that China did not lecture the UK/US on their recent human rights violations such as the recent water-boarding scandals. In this article I don’t wish to appear to ‘agree’ or ‘finger point’ at either country with regard to human rights. Instead I’ve used the above example to show that the UK scrutinises others and receives scrutiny in return, whereas China keeps its thoughts and criticisms to itself and would prefer if others did the same.

It interests me to see what effect this leadership characteristic will have on business practise. Intense scrutiny is essential to effective regulation, and dissent is widely recognised as an important element of the decision-making process.