Page 24 - Finnish_leadership

Sweden as an advocate for the Nordic leadership style
The understanding of the distinctiveness and superiority of the Nordic leadership style has at times been practically fed from within the Nordic countries. The Swedes have been most active in this, often referring to the ”Swedish leadership style” instead of a Nordic one. As the biggest Nordic country and a former great power, Sweden has had an economic and political interest in profiling itself and acting as an advocate for the Nordic values around the world. The Swedes have also firmly believed that the Swedish leadership style has historically been a source of an important competitive advantage for the country and its companies.
Over the years, Sweden can be presumed to have been the most important country, along with the US, that Finland has looked up to for new lessons in leadership.
As the culturally-bound leadership style has been considered a significant source of a competitive advantage in Sweden – unlike in Finland, for instance
– there has also been a lot of discussion in Sweden on the sustainability of this advantage in the increasingly international economy. In the 2000s, this discussion has produced numerous analyses of the Swedish leadership style, its strengths and its weaknesses, to which the above observations of the Finnish leadership can also be compared.
Finland vs. Sweden
At the general level and based on a quick overview, the strengths of the Finnish and Swedish leadership styles appear to be largely similar. However, the emphases of the styles differ in the ways that the various strengths are constructed.
In Finland, low hierarchies are based on the fact that there is a desire to construct organisations that act like clockwork according to the agreed processes. Once
the processes have been described and determined, everyone should know how to act. There is no need for an army of supervisors to breathe down people’s neck as those in charge of different tasks know what they must do and have the required skills. Finland has relatively more lean organisations compared to many other countries, including Sweden.
In Sweden, low hierarchies are not as strongly based on an engineer-like way of thinking. Indeed, it is important to note that although Sweden has traditionally had strong competence in engineering, there is hardly
any mention of an engineer-like approach in any descriptions concerning the features that characterise the Swedish leadership style. In Sweden, low hierarchies and advanced autonomy of employees are more likely to be based on a deep-rooted idea of social equality and democracy. This understanding also cuts through the approaches used by a working organisation.
All Nordic countries are societies where trust is a top priority. In Finland, so-called micro-level trust between individuals is particularly strong based on international comparisons. As a rule, Finns trust other Finns. Finnish leadership also makes use of this cultural feature. Trust between a supervisor and a subordinate is built in a combined effect of a presumably shared value basis and carefully determined processes.
More time is spent on building trust in Sweden. Dialogue in the working community is a key tool for this. The Swedish leadership style does not involve making a presumption of a primarily shared value basis to the extent as the Finnish style does. Sweden’s culture is considerably less uniform compared to Finland. At best, dialogue produces a sense of shared community spirit at the workplace, a concept known in Swedish as medarbetarskap. It is difficult to translate this concept into English in a natural and unambiguous way.
The increasingly international and knowledge intensive economy sets challenges to leadership as presented above. Although distinct features originating from national cultures may continue to function as strengths in management, similar principles more or less apply
to all organisations acting in the international market regardless of their country of origin. Finnish leadership could learn from its Swedish counterpart at least in the areas of dialogue, dealing with multiculturalism
and thinking big. Based on previous studies, at least one of the clear challenges of Swedish leadership
is related to an ability to
act quickly and flexibly in the way that has been considered one of the strengths of the Finnish leadership style above.
24 The State and Future of Finnish Leadership