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Transformational Leadership in the Saudi Arabian Cultural Context: Prospects and Challenges

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Culture and Gender in Leadership

Abstract

Leadership has become the key issue in managing organizations, societies, and entire nations. The emerging business and economic environments have forced organizations to be flexible, adaptive, entrepreneurial, and innovative in order to effectively meet the changing demands of the present-day business environment (Orchard, 1998; Parker & Bradley, 2000;Sarros, Cooper, & Santora, 2008;Valle, 1999). Adopting and sharpening these virtues is not possible without a transformational leader who can fix the jigsaw puzzle and influence others to achieve greater goals. A plethora of literature has investigated leadership issues in recent times, and the importance of leadership has achieved a distinct reference in terms of managing organizations and sustaining the pace of change. Leaders provide vision to achieve goals, and followers feel contentment because they have a vision of a better tomorrow with the help of their leader. Despite so much being written about transformational leadership, there is a dearth of country- and region-specific research, especially in the Middle Eastern and Arab regions. The national leadership dimension is being redefined, and the new meaning of leadership is being developed. Against this background, this chapter is an attempt to understand the dynamics of transformational leadership and its relevance for Saudi managers.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Resource Management, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

    Sami A. Khan (Associate professor, Faculty of Economics & Administration)

  2. Human Resources Management Department, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia

    Deepanjana Varshney (Assistant professor, Faculty of Economics & Administration)

Authors
  1. Sami A. Khan
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  2. Deepanjana Varshney
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sultan Qaboos University, Sultanate of Oman

    James Rajasekar

  2. University of Malaya, Malaysia

    Loo-See Beh

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© 2013 Sami A. Khan and Deepanjana Varshney

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Khan, S.A., Varshney, D. (2013). Transformational Leadership in the Saudi Arabian Cultural Context: Prospects and Challenges. In: Rajasekar, J., Beh, LS. (eds) Culture and Gender in Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137311573_11

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