Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.4. Patronage, local culture and financial capacity as moderating variables
2.4.2. Culture and effective leader’s behaviors
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not have feeling over the outcome of the task and over the group process. Or second, leaders have knowledge about the environment structure and predictability and they take advantage of it by controlling the outcome of the task and over the group process for their own benefits or group benefits. Being elected as local government leader for two periods, we assume that the four leaders observed in this study have adequate knowledge about their environment structure and predictability. However, regarding the patronage practice existence, first of all we need to examine this.
2.4.2. Culture and effective leader’s behaviors
The term culture has had multiple meanings in different disciplines and different contexts. One of these is referred by Clifford Gertz as the entire way of life of a society: its values, practices, symbols, institutions, and human relationships (Huntington 2000). Culture has become one of the important aspects in public administration study that in leading the organization of public administration, it is necessary not to perceive only the variable and indicators of the strategic leadership, but also how to implement this according to the characteristic of territory ruled that is the socio-economy condition, ethnicity or religious tradition, the leader‟s background and their past experiences (Kaloh 1996, Kaho 2005). In the governmental affairs the cultural issues were often underestimated and overlooked. As consequence, the policies being implemented will tend to be ineffective because of the leader‟s ignorance to understand the cultural aspect of the world view of the local people (Perkasa 2009).
This study concerns the capability of leaders knowing the characteristics of their people. Similar to the discussion of patronage previously, lack of knowledge about the structure and predictability of the environment causes leader‟s anxiety and
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37 stress. By having knowledge of their local values, leaders can control the environment to be conducive for implementing the policy and also to get support from the people.
According to Triandis (1993), the image of the ideal leader is likely to be different in collectivist and individualist culture. The ideal collectivist leader is paternalistic, taking good care of the ingroup. Such a leader would support, solve personal problems, and generally show maintenance and consideration behaviors towards their follower. Meanwhile, the ideal leader for individualist is the one who allows them to do their own thing, but is supportive when they need help. It is one who will respect and admire their distinctiveness, who accepts their search for pleasure and achievement, and helps them with interpersonal competition.
In Indonesia, to be effective leaders should perform the ideal leader characteristics of collectivist culture. That is, not only leader be a manager, but they also a protector, a mentor, a father and must be responsible for their follower and their extended family (Widyahartono 2007, Gani 2004). Certainly, by displaying the characteristics of ideal leader in collectivist culture, followers are willing to obey.
Thus, at this level, leaders finally get their control on the structure and lead them to achieve the objectives. The question is, does the performance gained by leaders in this study caused by their corresponding behaviors of ideal leader characteristics in collectivist society? We assume the four leaders in this current study have displayed the ideal characteristics of collectivists. Due to this performance, people would obey the leaders and support the leaders action in achieving the goal of poverty alleviation policy.
Based on the cultural value, people may perceive their leader differently. For example in the Javanese society, bureaucracy is formed as the institution of the king‟s servant (Setiyono 2012). The basic idea of this paradigm is that bureaucrats are
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responsible only to the king not the people. This attitude was influenced by the traditional value that the king‟s command is considered as God‟s command. Hence, in the Javanese society a leader is highly respected by the follower and it is not allowed for ordinary people to argue with the leader. In addition, to maintain the harmony of the society people should not be self-assertive and it is not allowed to compete. It is a typical of collectivist society. To achieve the effectiveness of local government policy, the paradigm should be changed. However, to change the people‟s mindset is not easy and it does need a good will from the leader to do this. The first thing leader can do is by perform dialogues and listen to what people‟s needs3.
Another example is from Minangkabau society that although formally leaders have higher position than the citizen, they cannot act as if they are the king, sultan or caesar (Zuhro, et.al., 2009). Minang is the ethnic group in West Sumatra province in which its culture hold matrilineal principle. Property and land passing down from mother to daughter, while religious and political affairs are the responsibility of men (although some women also play important roles in these areas). Not only were they strongly Islamic, and like every other Sumatran, they are culturally and naturally proud people, they also have traditional belief of egalitarianism of “standing as tall, sitting as low” (that nobody stand or sit on an increased stage), they speak a language closely related to Bahasa Indonesia, which was considerably freer of hierarchical connotations than Javanese (Chatra, 1999; Osborne, et.al., 2011). Aceh society also holds egalitarianism principle to describe the relationship between the leader and the follower. Differ from the Javanese tradition, in Aceh and Minangkabau society, it is allowed to argue the leader as long as it is for the goodness. Leader in this matter is merely a symbol while the musyawarah (consensus) is the main goal.
3 As it is described by Herry Zudianto about the need for leader to perform a servant leadership
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39 Based on preceding discussion, we find an opposite condition of how leader is viewed by their people. In Javanese society, people see their leader as someone who must be obeyed. On the other hand, in Minang and Aceh society, it is allowed for ordinary people to argue their leaders for good purpose. It is likely that leaders in Minang and Aceh society might receive more tension than the Javanese leaders in agreeing something with their follower. Accordingly, it shows that leaders in Minang and Aceh society have dynamic process of democratic practice with their people more than the Javanese leaders have. Hence, we believe that the effectiveness of local government performance in the four regions in this study will depend on how well leaders understand the view of their followers. Effective leaders then must know what people think about them and how to get the people‟s attention.