The role of high and low context culture on the leadership style preferences of employees: Turkey and Iraq comparison

Leadership and leadership preferences are among the commonly studied topics. The role of culture in leadership studies and cross-cultural comparative studies have a critical role in understanding leadership. Studies based on social and cultural dimensions are predominant in culture and leadership studies. This situation constrains examining cultural characteristics that express more specific cultural differences in the context of cultural differences. One of the cultural features that are relatively more minor subject to leadership research in the literature is the high context and low context culture distinctions. These distinctions contribute to the understanding and interpreting of the dynamics of how individuals in society communicate with each other. In this respect, it should be the subject of leadership and organizational psychology studies more frequently. In this study, the role of employees' high-context and low-context culture levels in leadership preferences was examined within the scope of the Turkey and Iraq comparisons. The quantitative research method was used in the research. A previously developed scale was used to measure high context and low context variables. Participants from Turkey (n = 163) and Iraq (n = 310) were included in the study. Participants are people who continue to work actively. According to the research findings, it has been determined that the participants' high context and low context levels do not have a role in their leadership preferences. Turkish and Iraqi respondents were neither high- context nor low-context cultures. It has been determined that Turkish participants have a higher high context level than Iraqi participants. No statistically significant differences were detected in the high context and low context levels, depending on the characteristics of the participants, such as gender, marital status, education, industry, and managerial experience. Leadership expectations of Turkish and Iraqi employees were similar in four different leadership types that varied between autocratic and democratic leader preferences.