Ideal leader profiles in the Icelandic business sector: Evidence of uniformity of followers’ attitudes

• Main Author: Snæbjörnsson, Inga Minelgaité
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Research in applied business and economics 2016
• Subjects: Iceland; follower; diversity of followers; ideal leader profile; societal culture; M1
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/efnahagsmal/article/view/a.2016.13.2.5

Research on the ideal leader profile in a cultural context maintains its popularity as it is related to leadership effectiveness, performance of organizations and organizational outcomes. The literature suggests that the sociodememographic characteristics of the followers might affect the preferences towards ideal leader behavior and hence, are important to investigate. This article presents the results of empirical research that was conducted in Iceland on ideal leader preferences. The literature indicates that gender, education level and the age of a follower are the characteristics that might affect attitudes the most. However, the results of the empirical research presented here indicate that followers in Iceland have uniform views towards ideal leader behavior – no difference due to the follower’s gender, education level or age was indicated when describing the ideal leader. The managerial implications of the findings are discussed in the article.