Exploring Leadership Issues in Papua New Guinea Leadership Issues in… · 1 Exploring Leadership...

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Exploring Leadership Issues in

Papua New Guinea

Murray PrideauxA.B.M. Rabiul Alam Beg

ABSTRACT

The practice of leadership in less developed countries, and PapuaNew Guinea (PNG) in particular, has not attracted the attention ofleadership researchers with the same level of enthusiasm asleadership issues in developed countries. This paper is anexploratory study of the unique leadership issues in the Papua NewGuinean (PNG) context. PNG is a diverse Nation of tribal societieslargely organised on the basis of kinship and traditional culturalpractices. The unique context and challenges of leadership in PNGare not adequately explained by the extant literature. However, ‘thebulk of leadership literature is based on a self-limiting set ofassumptions, mostly reflecting Western industrialised culture. Almostall the prevailing theories of leadership and almost all of theempirical evidence are rather distinctly American in character’(Littrell, 2002 p:10). Leadership theories based on ‘Western’ cultureare not directly transferable to PNG, whilst significant contextualbarriers act to inhibit leadership processes. Leadership issues(Prideaux, 2006) were tested. Respondents reported that theheterogeneous nature of the country, colonial history, diversity,multiple governing systems, vast vicissitude of mutually unintelligiblelanguages, and societies based on patrilineal or matrilineal systemsare significant leadership barriers. Results uncover the necessityfor an integrative leadership approach contextualised to PNG’sunique diversity and complexity, if the country is to fully participatein an increasingly globalised world. Limitations and further researchare considered.

Key Words: Leadership, Context, Issues, Papua New Guinea

Gading Business and Management Journal Vol. 12 No. 1, 1-21, 2008

ISSN 0128-5599

© 2008 Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia

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Gading Business and Management Journal

Introduction

This paper is an exploratory study of leadership issues in the Papua

New Guinean (PNG) context. The paper (1) briefly examines context

of and barriers to leadership in PNG, (2) identifies significant issues

influencing effective leadership, (3) investigates the association between

key leadership issues and gender, age, employment and leadership style,

and (4) discusses if traditional leadership practices should change. This

moves some way towards satisfying Littrell’s (2002) call for emic research

identifying emic manifestations of generic leader behaviours in all cultures

to which leadership theories might be applied. The context (Avery, 2006;

Osland, 2000), and issues influencing the exercise of leadership in

developing countries, and PNG in particular, have received scant attention

by researchers, resulting in considerable deficiencies in our understanding

(Baker, 1997; Hay & Hodgkinson, 2005; Rost, 1991). Existing theory is

developed largely within a western industrialised context (Littrell, 2002).The majority of leadership studies originate from a North American and

Western Europe contexts (Saffu, 2003; Shahin & Wright, 2004 p 499),

and may not be directly transferable to ‘vastly differing contexts such as

developing countries (Thomas, 2000), and PNG in particular. Leadership

lacks a common definition or understanding, has a wide connotation

(Mastrangelo, Eddy, & Lorenzet, 2004; Nicholls, 1990, 1994), the majority

of definitions are inadequate failing to take account of the particular

[context] of leadership task (Oliver, 2001), has been studied from a

variety of perspectives (Mastrangelo et al., 2004), ambiguity surrounds

our understanding (Hay et al., 2005), is ‘deeply attached to culture’

(Shahin et al., 2004 p:499), the culture of national or regional societies

impacts on leadership (Murphy, 2006; Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner,

1997), while Osland and Bird (2000) call for research into specific cultural

contexts.

PNG is an independent developing country of over 600 islands and

several thousand tribal societies (Tivinarlik & Wanat, 2006), which

occupies the eastern portion of the Island of New Guinea. Societies are

fragmented by language, customs, and tradition. (McLaughlin, 1997 p:

4), which have frequently resulted in on-going low scale tribal warfare

with neighbouring communities (Herdt, 2003). Zimmer-Tamakoshi (1997

p:107) note the diversification of leadership roles in PNG formed from a

confusion of, and intrusion by, capitalism, western education,

missionization, and new forms of national and local government, into

traditional leadership ways.

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Exploring Leadership Issues in Papua New Guinea

Leadership Context And Barriers

Further developing Trompenaars et al.,(1997) argument that the culture

of national or regional societies impacts on leadership practices, Prideaux

(2006; 2007) describes the particular context of leadership in PNG, and

identified 14 key leadership barriers constraining a unified approach to

leadership in PNG, Table 1. A brief description follows in the next section.

Context

Customs, norms and traditions in PNG are complex, diverse, and in many

instances unique, which sways leadership practices at all community,

regional, organisational, and governmental levels. Societies commonly

practice either the patrilineal system where descent is through the father,

or the matrilineal system with descent passing through the mother.

Approximately three quarters of the country practices the patrilineal

society, while the matrilineal system is largely confined to coastal

provinces. Leadership is largely culturally orientated, embracing traditional

beliefs, norms and values, and a preoccupation with kamap (Tok Pisin:

become developed) (McKeown, 2001). Thus, leadership style is

significantly influenced by the leader’s immediate and extended family,

clan, and tribe. However, there is no single or even widespread culture,

embracing a common set of beliefs, values, and traditional practices.

The practice of traditions varies from province to province, while diversity

is customary within provincial areas.

Table 1. Leadership Context and Barriers in PNG

Leadership Context Leadership Barriers Importance %

1. Heterogeneous nature 1. Lack of road and logistic 86.4

of the country Infrastructure

2. Colonial history 2. Lack of people skills 85.9

3. Diversity 3. Lack of communication 84.2

� tribal traditions technologies

� values 4. Lack of Vision 84.2

� culture 5. Limited access to high 78.3

4. Multiple governing school education

systems 6. Lack of ‘Western 64.7

� Chieftain Leadership’ training

� Hierarchical 7. Lack of common language 50.6

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� Inheritance 8. Working to PNG time 45.9

� Westminster 9. Practicing traditional 45.7

5. Vast vicissitude of 10. Practicing traditional 40.5

mutually unintelligible governing systems

languages 11. Practicing ‘Payback’ 37.5

6. Societies based on 12. Leadership wealth – right to lead 37.0

patrilineal or 13. School education conducted 36.3

matrilineal systems in Mother tongue

14. Practicing Sorcery 25.2

Source: adapted from (Prideaux, 2006, p.15)

Continued practice of Chieftain, Inheritance, Bigman,

Wontok leadership

The structure of leadership varies greatly between communities (Tivinarlik

et al., 2006). Chieftain, Inheritance, Hierarchal, Wontok, and

contemporary governing systems are widely practiced throughout PNG.

Under the Chieftain system the chief controls the activities of the society,

its traditional legal system, and makes all decisions which are then

communicated to clan leaders. The chief attains high social status through

wealth accumulation by way of ownership of pigs, wives, money, or as a

wise warrior. Ethnic and cultural values restrict information and knowledge

sharing with much information restricted to men only. For the common

good, society members comply with decisions made by the Chief. The

second leadership style, Inheritance, is the most commonly practiced

governing system. Inheritance allows leadership responsibilities to be

passed through generations by father to son. Elders also pass leadership

skills and knowledge to younger generations. The third leadership style

is the hierarchical governing system, which is a uniquely organized system

of democratic leadership lead by a Chief of Council (Prideaux, 2006).

In the few communities practicing the hierarchical system it commands

great respect due to its fairness. Deeply entrenched in PNG culture is

the wantok system, meaning friend, relative, ‘who you know’, or someone

who speaks the same language (one talk). Swatridge (1985 p: 4) elucidates

wontok as a ‘friendly society, welfare system, and life-assurance all in

one’. MacDonald (1984 p, 4) describes wantok as a ‘bond of people

with a basic, kinship community, speaking the same tongue, living in the

same place, and sharing values’. Wantok is often responsible for abuse

of patronage in organisations and government, misallocation of resources,

and for allegiances formed during disputes (Prideaux, 2006).

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Contemporary leadership has been shaped by a number of key

influences; colonisation, introduction of Christianity, and adoption of

the Westminster system of government (Zimmer-Tamakoshi, 1997).

Colonisation introduced a paradigm of stability, control, competition,

and uniformity particularly in the government sector. Contemporary

management is more formal and individually focused than traditional

leadership practices. Formal modern organisational arrangements,

appointed leaders and managers, and duty statements introduced an

extreme form of the bureaucratic system. As a result, almost all

government decisions are made by senior managers without consultation

with employees; knowledge sharing is restricted; and the value of

individual employees is often not recognised. As a consequence, a

leadership crisis has resulted in bankruptcy, political instability, poor

service delivery, bribery, and mal-practice, such as misappropriation of

public funds and wontokism, in both the public and private sectors.

These elements are now firmly woven into the structure of PNG politics

and government departments (Prideaux, 2006).

Leadership Barriers

The key leadership barrier (Prideaux, 2006) is a lack of road and logistic

infrastructure. This is an interesting and possibly unusual barrier not

usually associated with leadership. Lack of people skills, lack of vision,

lack of communication technologies, limited access to high school

education, and lack of ‘Western’ leadership training ranked as most

import leadership barriers after lack of road infrustructure. Lack of

people skills indicates the continued practice of traditional governing

systems and carrying traditional values, customs, culture and thinking

into the workplace which closely reflects the Classical leadership

paradigm (Avery, 2006) where people are commanded and controlled.

Organisational and particularly government leaders at all levels expect

employees to relate to the leader on the leaders’ terms if they want to

work with their leader. Followers are expected to to accept and respect

the leader regardless of the situation. With an increasingly educated

population, such traditional leadership practices are likely to be rejected.

Of particular note is the barrier of vision. Extant literature deals

comprehensively with the fundamental idea that leaders envision the

future and influence followers to bring about the desired future. The

research indicates that the concept of vision and influence (people

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skills) may be applicable across cultural contexts and not relevant only

in Western industrialised cultures.

Method

This study extends fieldwork conducted between 2001 and 2006 in PNG

consisting of (1) individual semi-structured interviews, (2) focus groups,

(3) semi-structured interviews with PNG citizens living in Australia, and

(4) a personal journal kept by the author throughout the fieldwork.

Respondents were asked to consider leadership practices in the

organisation in which they were working as well as the province in which

the organisation was located, and to describe (1) the context of leadership,

(2) leadership barriers, (3) key leadership issues, and (4) leadership

differences in other provinces and organisations that they were familiar

with. Data analysis employed a categorising strategy (Rossman & Rallis,

2003). Data collection for this study employed a two page survey

instrument utilizing a Likert five scale developed from the fieldwork.

The questionnaire consisted of 25 questions grouped into three sections;

background information including demographic data, employment data,

and the respondent’s views about leadership in PNG. The questionnaire

was pre-tested with PNG residents living in North Queensland and

changes in the questionnaire adopted as a result of pilot testing. A

significant pre-test finding was a requirement to scale the questions with

rating one being very important or strongly agree, and five being the

least important and so on. This reflects the cultural context that ‘number

one is the best’. Survey questions were simply constructed so that

respondents would have little or no difficulty answering them. In this

regard, response bias is minimized. The questionnaire was distributed to

22 Masters students studying leadership at Vudal University in 2006.

Students were required to administer the survey to at least 20 employees

working in PNG organisations. Questionnaires were administered within

a stratified sample of government employees, a profit organisation, an

education institution, older people (elders), young people, and females,

reflecting stratum identified during fieldwork. All students were required

to randomly select respondents within the stratified sample and collect a

minimum of three surveys from each stratum. Respondents were asked

to rate each question on a scale ranging from very important (1) to not

important (5), significant (1) to not significant (5), and strongly agree (1)

to strongly disagree (5).

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A total of 440 questionnaires were expected. However, 420 were

received of which 15 were incomplete and discarded. A total of 405

completed questionnaires were entered into SPSS for analysis, resulting

in a response rate of 92 percent. The joint responses of bivariate

multinominal categorical variables are tested for significance using chi

square test. Observed chi square values and associated p-values are

reported in Table 8.

Results

In this section we evaluate the survey responses to issues identified as

key leadership issues in the fieldwork phase. These are reported in

Table 2. Responses in percentages (ordered) are reported in Table 3,

while Tables 4-7 present percentages (based on survey results classified

by gender, highest qualification level, employment, and leadership style

respectively. Table 8 analyses associations between the variable ‘should

leadership practices change over time?’ and gender, highest qualification

level, employment, and other important variables.

Table 2. Issues to Leadership in PNG

Influence of traditional leadership practices in the workplace

Effect of foreign culture

Attitudes to employees by leaders

Overseas travel

Global economic conditions

Employees able to make major work related decisions

Working in teams

Open communication within the workplace

Leaders acting for all people, not just benefiting themselves

‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’ the needs of the people

Table 3 produces some important results. ‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’

as a leadership issue scored the highest percentage followed by ‘Leaders

acting for all people, not just benefiting themselves’ and so on. This

reflects the view that traditional leadership practices, and leaders,

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inadequately take account of the needs of the ‘people’, and encourage,

if not condone leaders to act out of self-interest. The highest (94.3)

percentage response to the ‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’ issue compared to

the second lowest (38.8) percentage response to the issue ‘Influence of

traditional leadership practices in the workplace’ appears to support the

view that traditional leaders insufficiently consider the needs of followers

and further indicating that the ‘people’ may be influenced by traditional

leaders and leadership practices. The influence of traditional leadership

practices in the workplace results in 38.8 percent (important), 24.4 percent

(undecided) and 36.8 percent (not important).

Table 3. Importance of Leadership Issues

Ordered in percentage (according to survey response)

Issue Important Undecided Not

% % Important %

‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’ the needs of the people 94.3 2.0 3.7

Leaders acting for all people, not just 88.1 3.2 8.6

benefiting themselves

Open communication within the workplace 87.4 6.2 6.4

Working in teams 86.7 5.9 7.4

Employees able to make major work related 77.3 12.3 10.4

decisions

Attitudes to employees by leaders 77.3 10.6 12.1

Global economic conditions 74.3 13.6 12.1

Effect of foreign culture 54.3 23.5 22.2

Influence of traditional leadership 38.8 24.4 36.8

practices in the workplace

Overseas travel 37.8 25.9 36.3

Implications of these percentages are that ‘important’ and ‘not

important’ are equally reported by respondents while a substantial number

were undecided about this issue. Overall, on this issue, respondents

almost equally responded to the ‘important’ and ‘not important’ for the

issue. This reflects a strong control of ‘traditional leadership’ implying

that leaders are not paying full attention to the ‘people’.

In percentage terms open communication is the third issue of

importantance. This possibly reflects the Melanesian culture of largely

open communication within community and tribal groups; however, open

communication is less evident in contemporary organisations. Working

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in teams (86.7 percent) was identified as the next most important issue,

again reflecting traditional Melanesian cultural values. However,

modern PNG organisations largely foster individual effort, rather than

more traditional teamwork. ‘Employees able to make major work

related decisions’ (77.3 percent) scored as the next issue of

importantance. Traditional matriarchal societies in particular, practice

shared decision making; however, many current organisations focus

decision making power on the leader rather than encouraging shared

decision-making [empowerment]. Attitudes to employees by leaders

(77.3 percent) is the sixth most important leadership issue, possibly

reflecting concerns that traditional leadership practices encourage self-

indulgence by leaders, often to the detriment of followers. The issue

of global economic conditions (74.3 percent) was the next key issue.

This reflects respondent’s awareness to opportunities open to PNG

through the exploitation of the countries significant natural resources

stocks on global markets. Political and organisational leadership is

necessary to develop a growth trajectory linked to globalised economic

conditions. The next issue of importance is the effect of foreign culture

(54.3 percent), reflecting concerns of fragmentation of traditional

culture, values, language, and customs with the opening of the country

to globalised forces. The leadership challenge is to balance economic

growth with preservation of traditional practices where appropriate

(Coulmas, 1992; Hale. K., 1992; Nettle, 2000). Influence of traditional

leadership practices in the workplace (38.8 percent) and overseas travel

(37.9 percent) are the least preferred issues compared to the other

issues in Table 3.

Table 4 presents the importance of leadership issues by gender.

Females scored ‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’, ‘teams’, ‘open

communication’, ‘leaders acting for all’, ‘work related decisions’, and

‘global economic conditions’ as the six most important leadership issues.

This varies from males who scored ‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’, ‘leaders

acting for all’, ‘open communication’, ‘teams’, ‘attitudes to employees’

and ‘work related decisions’ as the six most important leadership issues.

Overseas travel was scored as the least important leadership issue for

both females and males. However, the percentages are significant

suggesting that overseas travel is regarded as an important issue. This

reflects the view that some leaders misappropriate overseas travel

using it to satisfy self-interests and is a form of corruption (Prideaux,

2006).

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Table 4. Importance of Leadership Issues by Gender(in percentage)


% % Important %

F M F M F M

‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’ the needs of 34.3 60.0 0.5 1.5 1.2 2.5

the people

Leaders acting for all people, not just 31.4 56.8 1.2 2.0 3.5 5.2


Open communication within the workplace 31.9 55.6 2.7 3.5 1.5 4.9

Working in teams 32.3 54.3 1.5 4.4 2.2 5.2

Employees able to make major work 29.6 47.7 3.7 8.6 2.7 7.7

related decisions

Attitudes to employees by leaders 26.7 50.6 4.9 5.7 4.4 7.7

Global economic conditions 27.4 46.9 4.4 9.1 4.2 7.9

Effect of foreign culture 19.3 35.1 7.2 16.3 9.6 12.6

Influence of traditional leadership 15.6 23.2 6.7 17.8 13.8 23.0


Overseas travel 14.8 23.0 6.7 19.3 14.6 21.7

F = Female (36% in each of the issues) M = Male (64% in each of the issues)

Table 5 reports the importance of leadership issues by highest

education qualification. Each highest education qualification level scored

‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’ as the most important leadership issue; however,

scoring for the next five most important issues varied between each

qualification level. School only education scored ‘leaders acting for all’,

‘teams’, ‘open communication’, ‘work related decisions’, ‘global economic

conditions’ as the next most important leadership issues. Undergraduate

qualification scored ‘leaders acting for all’, ‘teams’, ‘open

communication’, ‘work related decisions’ and ‘attitudes to employees’

as the most important issues. Undergraduate qualified respondents did

not score global economic conditions in the six highest scored issues.

This is an interesting and perhaps unusual result counter to normal

expectations. Postgraduate qualification scored ‘open communication’,

‘leaders acting for all’, ‘teams’, ‘attitudes to employees, and ‘global

economic conditions’ as the next most important leadership issues. This

scoring draws similarity to contemporary ‘Western’ leadership theory,

suggesting the questioning of traditional leadership thinking and practice

as educational qualifications rise. ‘The influence of traditional leadership

practices in the work place’ scored the lowest for both school (10.1

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Table 5, Importance of Leadership Issues by Highest

Qualification (in percentage)

Issue Important % Undecided % Not Important %

1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’ 27.2 33.8 33.3 1.0 0.2 0.7 1.7 1.2 0.7

the needs of the people

Leaders acting for all 25.4 31.1 31.6 1.0 1.5 0.7 3.5 2.7 2.5

people, not just benefiting

themselves

Open communication 24.7 30.6 32.1 2.2 2.2 1.7 3.0 2.5 1.0

within the workplace

Working in teams 24.9 30.9 30.9 1.7 1.7 2.5 3.2 2.7 1.5

Employees able to make 21.5 28.1 27.7 4.0 3.7 4.7 4.4 3.5 2.5

major work related

decisions

Attitudes to employees 20.5 27.9 28.9 4.0 3.2 3.5 5.4 4.2 2.5

by leaders

Global economic 20.7 27.2 26.4 4.0 3.7 5.9 5.2 4.4 2.5

conditions

Effect of foreign culture 16.5 17.8 20.0 5.2 9.1 9.1 8.1 8.4 5.7

Influence of traditional 10.1 12.8 15.8 7.4 8.9 8.1 12.3 13.6 10.9

leadership practices in

the workplace

Overseas travel 11.1 13.8 12.8 7.2 9.1 9.6 11.6 12.3 12.3

1 = School only (29.9% in each of the issues) 2 = Undergraduate qualification (55.1%) 3

= Postgraduate qualification (15.1%) in each of the issues.

percent) and undergraduate (12.8 percent) qualification, suggesting

‘traditional leadership’ thinking and practices still assert some control

over employees.

Table 6 presents the importance of leadership issues by employment

sector. Government and private sector employees scored ‘Listening’

and ‘hearing’ as the most important leadership issue, followed by ‘leaders

acting for all’, ‘open communication’, ‘teams’, ‘work related decisions’,

‘attitudes to employees’, ‘global economic conditions’, and ‘foreign

culture’. Government sector respondents scored ‘influence of traditional

leadership’ (17.5 percent) as the least important leadership issue. Non

government sector respondents scored ‘overseas travel’ (19.3 percent)

as the least important issue. This is a insignificant result indicating that

traditional leadership thinking and practices hold influence over both

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government and non-government leadership practices, and by extension

employee work outcomes, attitudes and values. Government employees

report a consistent five percent lower scoring of importance for each

leadership issue except ‘overseas travel’ to non-government employees.

Government employees accounted for 47.4 percent of the sample

suggesting government is a dominant sector in the countries economy.

Table 6. Importance of Leadership Issue by Employment (in percentage)


% % Important %

1 2 1 2 1 2

‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’ the needs 44.7 49.6 1.2 0.7 1.5 2.2

of the people




Working in teams 40.5 46.2 3.2 2.7 3.7 3.7


related decisions






Overseas travel 18.5 19.3 9.6 16.3 19.3 17.0

1 = Government (47.4% in each of the issues) 2 = Non-Government (52.6% in each of the

issues)

Table 7 reports the importance of leadership issues by leadership

style in the workplace as described by respondents. The traditional

leadership category combines Chieftain, Inheritance, Bigman, and Wontok

leadership styles. The non-traditional category amalgamates other

leadership styles reported in the survey responses. ‘Listening’ and

‘hearing’ scored the highest score by both traditional (32.8 percent) and

non-traditional (61.5 percent) leadership styles. Respondents reporting

traditional leadership styles in the workplace scored ‘leaders acting for

all’, ‘open communication’, ‘teams’, ‘work related decisions’, ‘attitudes

to employees’, ‘global economic conditions’ as the next most important

leadership issues. Non-traditional leadership style respondents scored

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‘leaders acting for all’, ‘open communication’, ‘teams’ equally as the

next most important leadership style, followed by ‘attitudes to employees’,

and ‘work related decisions’. Although the traditional and non-traditional

styles consider these as important leadership issues, the number of

respondents in the non-traditional style of leadership is approximately

twice as large as the leadership traditional style. This implies that these

are genuine leadership issues supported by employees working in

organisations where either leadership style is practiced. Traditional

leadership styles accounted for 36 percent of all workplaces in the sample.

This is a significant number suggesting substantial leadership barriers

are likely to be encountered to further adoption of contemporary leadership

practices as the country moves to develop its economic capacity and

integrate into the globalised economy.

Table 7. Importance of Leadership Issue by Leadership

Style in the Workplace (in percentage)


% % Important %

1 2 1 2 1 2

‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’ the needs of the 32.8 61.5 0.7 1.2 2.5 1.2

people




Working in teams 29.6 57.0 3.2 2.7 3.2 4.2


related decisions






Overseas travel 17.0 20.7 7.2 18.8 11.9 24.4

1 = Traditional Leadership Styles (36% in each of the issues) 2 = Non-Traditional Leadership

Styles (64% in each of the issues)

Table 8 presents the association between two qualitative variables,

namely ‘should leadership practices change over time’ and gender, ‘should

leadership practices change over time’ and income etc. The test is

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conducted by chi square (χ2) and the p-values of the test are reported in

parenthesis. Overall, 94 percent of respondents answered yes to the

question ‘should leadership practices change over time?’ This is a

significant result pointing to a very strong desire of the people to change

existing leadership practices, and further suggesting the inappropriateness

of traditional leadership styles and practices in the PNG workplace.

The null hypothesis of no association between the variables cannot

be rejected in all cases. A strong relationship between employment

length and changing leadership practices is revealed (p-value .022), a

theory consistent result. This finding indicates that during periods of

professional employment, respondents realise that leadership practices

must change to reflect the dynamic globalised economic conditions

that PNG should engage if it is to prosper. This is an important finding

indicating how professional people in PNG become more conscious

about the issues of leadership and the need for change. People employed

less than ten years scored a 62 percent response to the question ‘should

leadership practices change over time’, compared to employees who

have worked longer than ten years with their current employer, 31.8

percent. This suggests that the willingness to support leadership change

diminishes as the length of employment increases, a theory consistent

result. Results for gender and age are theory consistent. However,

results for highest qualification and income indicate the possibility of

theory consistency.

Discussion

The research suggests that contemporary leadership frameworks only

partially explain leadership in PNG. The influence of traditional leadership

practices, traditions and culture is an important issue, 38.8 percent overall,

supporting Newman and Nollen’s (1996) findings that culture-specific

dimensions exist. Such influences are not adequately explained by extant

literature and frameworks. ‘Listening’ and ‘hearing’ the needs of the

people scored as the top leadership issue overall in this study. Notably,

each variable of gender, age, education qualification, employment sector,

length of service, an leadership style scored ‘listening’ and ‘hearing’ as

the most important leadership issue. This is consistent with the frustration

expressed in the fieldwork phase that leaders across all sectors and at

all levels seemingly adopt ‘traditional leadership practices’ and operate

out of self-interest. This finding is also consistent with the finding that

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Table 8. Should leadership practices change overtime?

(Test of association between the two variables is conducted by χ2

and p-value is shown in the parenthesis.)

Factor % Yes % No % Total

Gender χ2 = .763 (.683)

Male 60 4 64

Female 34 2 36

Total 94 6 100

Age χ2 = 68.614 (.955)

17-39 51 2 52

40-63 43 4 47

Total 94 6 100

Highest Qualification χ2 = .939 (.625)

Primary School 28 2 30

Undergraduate 33 2 35

Postgraduate 33 2 35

Total 94 6 100

Income χ2 = 12.796 (.543)

≤ 40 000Kina per annum 73.8 4.4 78.3

> 40 000 Kina per annum 20.0 1.7 21.7

Total 93.8 6.2 100

Employment length χ2 = 14.812 (.022)

10 years 62.0 2.7 64.7

> 10 years 31.8 3.5 35.3

Total 93.8 6.2 100

Employment χ2 = .789 (.374)

Government 44.0 3.5 47.4

Non-Government 49.8 2.7 52.6

Total 93.8 6.2 100

Leadership Style in the workplace χ2 = .749 (.378)

Traditional Leadership Practices

Other Leadership Practices 34.359.5 1.74.4 36.064.0

Total 93.9 6.1 100

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‘lack of people skills’ and a lack of understanding of human behaviour is

the second most important leadership barrier (Prideaux, 2006). Papua

New Guineans at all levels have a tendency to behave in ways consistent

with self-image, self-concept, self-interest, and traditional practices.

Leaders expect that if employees want to work with their leader, they

need to know how to relate to the leader on the leaders’ terms. Leaders

expect followers to accept and respect the leader, because they are the

leader, and that is the ‘way of things’ regardless of the situation.

PNG like other South Pacific nations is a highly masculine society

with ‘rigidly defined masculine roles’ (Saffu, 2003, p 67) where leadership

is seen as a male preserve. Results of this study suggest that this long

accepted paradigm is under challenge. The majority of issues discussed

in this paper are ‘people’ oriented and scored highly in percentage terms

in importance, suggesting a possible universalism to the idea that aspects

of leadership are independent of cultural context. The strength of the

response (94 percent) to the question ‘should leadership practices change

over time’ points to the realisation that traditional leadership practices

are no longer appropriate as PNG enters the new global landscape.

However, this response is tempered by the strong influence of those

same practices that respondents recognise requiring change. As PNG

strives to integrate into the global community, leaders will increasingly

be called on to lead employees from different cultural groups from within

PNG and externally. Such leadership challenges will complicate the

leadership task as there is no shared meaning system within the country

(Schweder, 1984) or collective mental programming (Hofstede, 1980).

Where fragmentation of mindsets (Erez, 1993), language (Fishman, 1968;

Nettle, 2000; Pool, 1972), and practice occurs in the workplace, the

leaders task become more problematic as interpretation of events and

issues is likely to be different, resulting in an environment of conflict.

This situation is further complicated where external cross-cultural

influences begin to impact on leadership practices as a result of integrating

into the global economy. This suggests a need for a framework that

takes a multi-dimensional construction (Schermerhorn, 1997) that

integrates the complexity of the issues discussed in this paper and strength

of the leadership barriers (Prideaux, 2007).

This research establishes that there is no association between ‘Should

leadership practices change over time’ and gender, age, highest

qualification, employment status, type of occupation, employment sector

and income, possibly reflecting the society’s freedoms. An association

was identified between change to leadership practices and employment

17


length. This could be due to working people’s experience and long

association will colleagues’ and their influence. This could lead to a

dramatic change of traditional leadership policy issues in the long-term.

Conclusions

In this paper we have identified and briefly discussed the context of

significant leadership issues in PNG. The most important leadership

issues are “listening’ and ‘hearing’ the needs of people”, ‘leaders acting

for all people, not just benefiting themselves’, ‘open communication in

the workplace’, ‘working in teams’, ‘employees able to make major

work related decisions’, ‘attitudes to employees by leaders’, and ‘global

economic conditions’. The ‘effect of foreign culture’, ‘influence of

traditional leadership practices’ and ‘overseas travel’ scored as the least

important leadership issues. However, the results for each of these three

issues are found to be significant suggesting that traditional leadership

practices appreciably influence the exercise of leadership in PNG. We

established that 94 percent of the respondents believed that existing

leadership practices must change over time to embrace a more integrative

leadership framework, suited to the particular context of PNG. We

established the importance of traditional practices and the complexity of

dealing with the leadership issues identified in this paper as the country

attempts to engage with an increasingly globalised world. We also

established that an association exists between the length of employment,

and the question of changing leadership practices over time. Further

research based on a larger sample size will examine this association

employing a probit model fitted to investigate the marginal effect of some

of the important variables, for example, residence, employment length,

age, education, and leadership style.

The most important leadership issue is “listening’ and ‘hearing’ the

needs of people”. This issue is strongly supported by working people

from a variety of institutions and organizations in PNG, who come from

different ethnic and tribal groups and backgrounds often with dissimilar

languages and cultural traditions. It is therefore, understandable from

this research that whatever the ethnic back ground, language, or tribal

group of the people of PNG, over-all they support the ‘listening and

hearing’ issue of leadership. This collective support, irrespective of their

cultural, regional, and language barriers, indicates that PNG as a whole

can unite the people to speak of this issue. If this united support takes

18


part across the nation, it would globally contribute to closing the gap

between PNG and the rest of the world. This interaction will open up

PNG economy globally and foreign direct investment would take place

and economic growth would prevail.

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