Cross-Cultural Blog

When I hear the word "Leadership", some images of different famous and would-known people emerge in my mind: they are V.I.Lenin, V.V.Putin, Bill Geits . Mainly, these are our presidents, rulers or organizers of large mighty business companies. But in reality, every person can become a leader.

Leadership is not a gift, but a talent, a skill, which needs to be developed and improved. All these people I call leaders just have managed to develop and perfect it.

When I think of the idea of "Leadership", I also recall one very famous and brilliant American psycholo-gist - Dale Carnegie, who wrote a book - his bestseller "How to win friends and influence people". This handbook, in my understanding, is useful for everybody, who wants to learn about the ways to coope-rate successfully and relate to people in order to become a leader.

A leader, in his understanding, often has to convince people to behave in a concrete way, and to change their own attitude and opinions.

In my understanding, leadership involves not only convincing people and assisting in solving difficult problems. It is more about developing people as personalities, constantly striving to perfection.. A real leader should help people to reveal their talents and capacities as full as possible during their advance-ment to the highest and best.

I believe that one of the main tasks of a real leader is to be tolerant to other people and to approve their initiative as well as encourage them to the realization of their limitless opportunities in the process of their work.

In Russia, leadership is often taken in particular way. We distinguish "Formal" and "Informal" leader-ship. "Formal" variant is when leaders are appointed from above and they become official leaders. People should follow them not because of their talents and features of character but because they must obey them, according to the status of power. "Informal” leadership means subjective readiness of people to listen to the leader and follow him.

In Russia, I would distinguish three levels of leadership: corporate, political and governmental. We can see corporate leadership" in the companies and different organizations, when individual quality of personality is far more important than his/her social position. This is often "Informal" variant of leader-ship.

"Political leadership" is a way of organizing and implementing power in the condition of democratic development of society. "Formal" aspect is leading here. So, a bigger part of the "Political leadership" in modern Russia is possessed by political administrative elite.

"Governmental leadership" is a strategy of development of the government.

There are two particularities of Leadership in Russia, as I see it:

1. In Russia, leaders very often combine the function of the owner of the means of production and the function of the organizer of political life. Political and cultural orientation of such politicians is characterized as egocentric and it reveals satisfaction of their personal needs as their priority.

2. Many Russian politicians manipulate people by popular values, which are very important for the society. It is one of the leadership principles, that is very common for Russia. The politicians promise people understandable and accessible remedy to all their urgent problems.

In Europe, in my understanding, the majority of political leaders are professional politicians, but in America political leaders very often combine the role of the owner and role of the politician as in Russia.

Questions:

1. Have you read the bestseller “How...” by Dale Carnegie?
2. What particularities of the leadership are in your country?
3. What do you think of leadership? Can everybody become a leader?

Gleb: A sport today is not only a healthy and interesting way of spending free time. An international sport is also a great sphere of intercultural competition and cooperation. Sport is like a universal lan-guage, understandable and accepted in every country, and the language which any country is willing to use in communication. And it is also the way of getting prestige and respect on the international level, providing that you are successful in this competition

Thousands of athletes defend the honor of their country regularly on the world’s and continental championships, and on The Olympic Games, which is always a really extraordinary and long-awaited event. And in this sphere any country strives for getting the leadership, because it is valued as much as the leadership in economy or in policy. The winner is claimed to be the best: the strongest, the fastest and the most skilled. That’s why today we can see how rapidly the world’s sports develop: the competition in the sports of highest achievements is getting stronger; the number of spectators and sport fans grows, and as a result the number of people who is going in for sports all over the world increases.

However, in spite of the fact that the essence of sports is competition, sport is something that unites people instead of dividing them. There are dozens of international sports federations; in fact every kind of sport has its international federation (sometimes several ones, e.g. boxing) which was formed by 150-200 or even more countries. These federations are responsible for establishing the rules, organizing championships and cups, for giving prizes and punishments, for resolving the conflicts connected with its sport and some other questions. It is a form of international cooperation, the way to reach the agreement and to make the sport better for everyone. The head of the international sports federation is the president, who is elected by its members; its budget is formed from the fees from every country-member and from different sponsors. In most of the cases the members of international sports federations are the federations, which are formed inside the country (e.g. Russian Soccer Union is a member of FIFA). The most well-known are the federations of soccer (FIFA), basketball (FIBA), ice hockey (IIHF), tennis (ITF), volleyball (FIVB), boxing (IBF, WBA, WBO and WBC) and others. There are not only the federations of professionals, but also amateur unions.

Leadership is an inseparable part of any sport. Captain is a leader inside the team and every player strives for being such a leader. A coach is the “external” leader of the team, the main ruler; a general manager is the leader of the sport club. Several teams are the leaders of the championship or even of the continent if it is an international league. The highest level in sport is some country’s leadership in a particular kind of sport. This is the final goal of any country and the highest sport achievement.

Sometimes people use dishonest methods of competition in order to reach this goal – taking pro-hibited drugs, for example to get faster, stronger or more enduring that they really are. But international federations fight with this problem successfully, and the athletes exposed to it are punished. Sport values only true leaders, who have got the leadership in pure competition.

Sport is a really fascinating thing, which can completely grab the attention of millions of people and make them united and understanding each other perfectly regardless of what language, culture or mentality they have. Doing sports is a good way to develop leadership skills.

Questions:

What kind of sports are the most popular in your region?
What sports are you going in for? What sports do you like to watch?
What can you say about sports infrastructure in your region? Is it easy and affordable to go in for any sports you like?

Natalya: Though the term "fashion" is associated with lots of money - and it is rather expensive to be fashionable - many designers have pointed out that Russians are very stylish. And not only rich people look smart and fashionable nowadays: many Russians choose good clothes, appropriate to their personal style. This promises a radiant future for this sphere of Russia's social life

In fact, fashion in Russia, as well as many other things, lags behind that of the West. The lag is about 10-15 years. This is true not of global fashion trends (since that would be impossible), but about fashion culture in general. Today's Russia is living through the same period that, for example, Spain passed through 10 years ago. Then it was popular to wear clothes with massive labels stamped on the chest, which declared the wearers allegiance to a big fashion name. Fortunately, this period has largely played out in Russia, and now wearing small, inconspicuous labels is preferable.

The most striking thing for many foreigners is that Russians are always dazzling. Each dress seems to be well-prepared and targeted for going out. Of course, there are lots of "fashion mistakes," but that is natural - presently, Russia is developing its own fashion culture; it's too young to be irreproachable. Mistakes dig even some of the most developed and accomplished, as is normal for human beings. But the fact is that Russians are likely to regard casual style not as a modest and comfortable way of wearing clothes, but as a way to show their personality, which implies putting on bright, unusual clothes.

"I can't understand how Russian women can wear high-heeled shoes every day," is a comment heard frequently from foreigners. This does seem strange to many people from abroad. Personally, I find high-heels comfortable. And never before did I imagine this to be a particularly Russian feature, but it is true: women in other countries normally wear flat-soled or medium-heeled shoes. This eccentric Russian style seems to shine in each element - cheap or expensive, usual or odd - but always matching the overall appearance.

It is still common to meet a woman in a beauty shop demanding a foreign star's color of hair, or in a boutique pointing to a photo of a foreign star and her celebrated bag. However, Russia's fashion digni-taries notice that trend-setting in Russia does exist, but it mostly consists of fashion magazines' editors and those who select it for Russian stores. It is explained by the youth of the Russian fashion industry and once it reaches those of the West it will probably surpass it - we will advertise our own shining do-mestic competition.

Questions:

1. Do you follow fashion tendency?
2. What do you think about fashion trends? Does it differ?
3. Is it important to be in fashion in your country?
4. How celebrities help to introduce new style in fashion?