Changes in perception of leadership in Russian context through generations

In general, the main difference between Transactional and Transformational leadership is determined by the effect on subordinate performance (Elenkov, 2002). Transactional leadership is mainly associated with performance outcomes. The transactional leaders clarify work goals and identify rewards or punishment in order to state the expected effort and success at achieving those goals. If it is based on Contingent Reward, the leader and subordinate are expected to find mutually rewarding exchange to further relationship. Follower needs to achieve the negotiated outcomes to get a reward that would correspond with satisfactory completion of the task. In contrast with Transactional leadership style, Transformational is concerned with organizational performance. Leaders who apply Transformational approach are presumed to pay more attention to the subordinates' individuality, treating their employees with respect; they expect their followers to respond on the given task expressing concerns or needs for further instructions or help. Such leadership style is mostly characterized by the motivational potential of a leader, leader-followers exchange and transactions. Transformation leadership implies such values as accountability, integrity, respect for the individual, team orientation, competitiveness, and openness to change, and continuous learning (Kets, 2000). Leaders perform the architectural role in structuring the organization in accordance with these values. Considering high Collectivistic behaviour in Russian society, it is expected that team members are likely to reinforce leader's transformational behaviors due to high satisfaction from interpersonal relationships. Organizations with Transformational leadership present the higher loyalty towards risk taking actions and innovation. (Elenkov, 2002) They can perform better general performance and better results in development of corporate culture, than those who stand for Transactional style. Above all, many scholars claim that Transformational leadership has bigger chances to be accepted in organizations that are open to innovation, risks and creative vision. Whereas, in organizations that proclaim as their values punitive actions, delegating, rigid rules and lack of interpersonal relations such leaders can be viewed as to insecure and inappropriate for continuity of existing structure and its stability.

Given the constantly developing business and market, it is almost impossible to avoid change so Russia is in demand for Transformational leaders who are able to manage that change and achieve higher level of organizational performance. Due to the fact that Russians are used to receive tasks from their executives it can be suggested that the implication of change should come from the senior managers. Step by step they can enforce and encourage their subordinates to frankly express themselves, showing them how to deal with unknown emerging issues and how to overcome concerns. Thus, it would benefit not only the organization but also its members increasing job interest and involvement. However, it is worth pointing out once again that Transformational and Transactional leadership styles can be performed by the same Russian manager responding to the situation and it needs combining previously mentioned style to the Situational leadership (Elenkov, 2002).

That corresponds with the research on entrepreneurs leadership preferences made by McCarthy et al in 2010 . Scholars presented three categories of leadership styles - balanced, open and controlling. Correspondingly with the previous studies on the topic researchers suggest that entrepreneur leaders can present both Transactional and Transformational leadership behaviours. The results showed that the major part of respondents choose Transformational leadership as a preferable style. Finding suggest that the Transformational leadership as the encouraging creativity, promoting freedom, inspiration, democracy, sometimes shared ownerships and a higher levl of employees self-security results at higher level of satisfaction for the followers and managers. Operating in the highly unstable environment can result in lack of organizational performance, especially when leaders tend to delegate the task, so the open style of leadership becomes prominent to overcome uncertainty and establish trust. Existing in Russia talent pool mostly consist of people divided to two different groups with notable generation gap between them. The adaptation process is stated to proceed easier for the younger generations than for the elder ones (Kets, 2002). Adaptation for new circumstances requires leaders and followers to be open to new opportunities, engaging them to learn new practices and reviewing existing behavioural patterns. As the elder generation is known to be quite conservative for them such task can be much harder. McCarthy's research has demonstrated that those 10%, who have chosen controlling management, mostly consist of people over 41 years old. That corresponds with the research made by Kets (2000) which stated that the older generations who have experienced Soviet mental and behavioural practices they derived their leadership skills from the Soviet era, focusing more on self-preservation, and control and manipulation over the employees. The Authoritative leadership transmits the idea that the subordinate is not allowed to ask for help or complain about not knowing something (McCarthy, 2010). Leadership of Transaction at this point mostly results in relationship of exchange. At the same time, balanced leadership or the Situational approach was marked as preferable by about a quarter of the respondents. Such style performs in acting both by encouraging and empowering and by control and punishment at the same time. Situational leader correspond to the moment acting sometimes in democratic manner, and sometimes at authoritarian. Such leaders are seen to be better in articulating the goals, providing insights, and guiding policies, and monitoring result. So McCarthy states that according to the research it becomes obvious that the younger generations more likely to operate by Transformational approach or due to the current situation's needs. Though, now in Russian business young managers and entrepreneurs, those who reject control systems and behaviors, have already out numbered conservative leaders.

leadership culture russian community

Leadership by GLOBE

According to the GLOBE research (Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies 2004) that redefined scholarly understanding of how culture and leadership vary by national culture we can make an indicative assumption of preferable leadership style for Russian society. The GLOBE research team defined leadership as the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members (House et al, 2004). By analyzing 62 societies the GLOBE research team managed to define 21 primary dimensions of leadership concluding them to six global dimensions. The research was aimed to observe to which extent leadership is affected by specific culture.

As presented in the Leadership Visualization scale Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies - House et al, 2004 (Figure 3) there were chosen six major leadership approaches:

Figure 3

Charismatic/Value-Based Leadership: Reflects the ability to inspire, motivate, and expect high performance outcomes from others based on firmly held core values. It includes the following six primary leadership dimensions: visionary, inspirational, self-sacrifice, integrity, decisive and performance oriented.

Team-Oriented Leadership: Emphasizes effective team building and implementation of a common purpose or goal among team members. It includes the following five primary leadership dimensions: collaborative team orientation, team integrator, diplomatic, malevolent (reverse scored), and administratively competent.

Participative Leadership: Reflects the degree to which managers involve others in making and implementing decisions. It includes two primary leadership dimensions labelled as nonparticipative and autocratic (both reverse scored).

Humane-Oriented Leadership: Reflects supportive and considerate leadership and includes compassion and generosity. This leadership dimension includes two primary leadership dimensions labelled: modesty and humane orientation.

Autonomous Leadership: Refers to independent and individualistic leadership attributes. It is measured by a single primary leadership dimension: autonomous leadership, consisting of individualistic, independence, autonomous, and unique attributes.

Self-Protective Leadership: Focuses on ensuring the safety and security of the individual and group through status enhancement and face saving. It includes five primary leadership dimensions labelled: self-centered, status conscious, conflict inducer, face saver, and procedural. (House et al, 2004)

As it is seen from the values which characterize each leadership style it is possible to suggest division to three groups, accordingly to the leadership styles described before. Charismatic/Value-Based leadership is focused on motivating its followers; leader of such style should create clear vision of the goals to further benefit of organization's performance. Charismatic leadership as a part of Transformational leadership to great extents values integrity, encouragement and creativeness. Partly the same values are expressed by Team-Oriented leadership focusing on team integrity, good diplomatic skills fro a leader and collaboration, which also allows us to mark it as Transformational or at least Situational style. These to leadership styles appeared to be the most preferable for Russian community at the time when the research was held so as at the beginning of 21th century, what correlates with the results seen from the articles which were analysed earlier. Next two leadership styles proposed by GLOBE appeared to mid-favourable fro Russian society. Participative and Autonomous leaderships came into the view as the almost opposite extents. According to the values Autonomous leadership favor independence, uniqueness and individualism, whereas the score for Participative leadership was measured mainly on the reverse score for Autonomous. As these leadership styles have practically the same score, we can suggest that here appears the preference toward Situational leadership used by entrepreneurs. At the start of the 21th century many Russian managers, as was described by McCarthy in 2010, use Situational leadership, believing that it would be more efficient to combine different leadership style according to current situation. Though, Autonomous leadership as well as Self-Protective leadership exhibits the values which might be more favored by the entrepreneurs and freelance workers given that these styles are more concerned with leader's face than with the management of working group. Nevertheless, Self-Protective leadership appears to be less favored by Russian community due to the high Collectivism. However, Human-Oriented leadership apparently seemed to be less preferred than Team-Oriented, though these styles have close values. That could happened because Russians do not like to be singled-out, as they expect that it would result in being punished (Kets et al, 2000). Summing up the presented by GLOBE leadership scores, it may be pointed out that at the beginning of the 21th century Russians tend to favor more those leadership styles that stand more for Transformational leadership within the Collectivistic approaches.

In this paper there would be observed three research works based on the GLOBE's leadership model. The research conducted by Eric Van Genderen from 2003 to 2007 was aimed at identification of the dominant leadership style for Russian managers, accordingly to the division of three various leadership styles (Dulewicz and Higgs. 2003; 2004): Engaging as Transformational leadership, Involving as Participative, and Goal as Transactional leadership style. Van Genderen suggested that Russian managers would favor more the Transformational working method and in commodity the Transformational leadership style. That statement is supported by the previous studies made by different scholars who stated that Russian managers are highly susceptible to the transitional business environment, where the Transformational leadership approach appears to be more efficient and somehow beneficial. However, the research did not full approve this point. Russian managers as a whole group could not certainly define their environment as highly transitional, although more than a half of them approved that the level of transitions is rather significant. With regard to leadership style, major part of managers-respondents defined themselves as Involving (or Participative) leaders, whereas during the demonstration part most of them performed Transactional, or rarely Transformational leadership behaviors. The author notes that his research cannot be fully compared to the GLOBE's one, because at the period when the GLOBE organization was collecting data the country was nearly at the beginning of the transformation of economy, market, business and managerial systems. The environment was rather fluctuating and unstable so the data could partially mismatch the real situation.

Another research based on GLOBE's score was held by Elkaterina Omeltchenka and Andrew Armitage in 2006. The study observed leadership in correlation with gender and age of a leader and the second part to a great extent correlates with the question of this paper. Starting with the analysis of Russian culture (Elenkov 1997) it was stated that Russian leaders often perform ethical duality towards the subordinates, dividing them in accordance with personal attitude. Moreover Russian managers traditionally dual their actions favoring collective work but individual potential, willing to take control of everything but acting only through top-down communication, appreciating stability but eager to take risks. All power in Russia traditionally was centered to the elder people and it was not perceived as something questionable. The values traditionally expressed by Russian society were such as Collectivism, Power Distance, and low Level of Uncertainty, others as Assertiveness, Individualism or Risk taking, however, was not so highly pronounced till the end of the 20th century. In accordance with Veiga et al. (1995), older Russian managers insist that strong, controlling leadership is still required in the country, whereas, on the contrast, young leaders tend to be more people-oriented and less authoritative, because Authoritative leadership rarely can be beneficial long term at the same level that People-oriented. Therefore, leadership preferences vary depending on generation, gender, personal traits and job position, so it is almost impossible for a leader to be liked by everyone. Depending on the job position people usually have different leadership prototypes in their mind, so as a senior manager would think about CEO, middle managers would associate it with the senior manager and so one, and due to these positions each manager would think about specific characteristic as strategic thinking or establishing relationships and trust. The given study presents that according to different job positions employees tend to draw more attention to different values and traits. So as middle manager draw more attention to operational success and administration, whereas those who stand on lower job positions value integrity and human orientation. Taking into account Russian context it again might result to the level of Power Distance. Being used to the strong vertical of power people are common with delegating tasks and acting through top-down communication, though such approach may seem efficient for the senior and sometimes middle managers, the employees would like their executives to draw more attention to the impact and importance of each organization's member. The traditional paternalized approach has lost its efficiency in the context of current business situation replacing it with the sense of independence. Younger employees favour autonomous leadership higher than the elder ones who have more collectivistic behaviour.

Though, in general collectivistic values remain to be very strong in Russian society differing only on the extents of team relationships or team outcomes. Interesting point of the given study is that employees of all levels and all ages practically at the same level value performance-orientation in leadership. It is difficult to define do older employees really favor performance-orientation on the same level that the youngest, because the underlying reasons for this choice are different. Older employees experience great need for achievement, whereas the younger ones need to perform better in order to be more competitive in the new business and market conditions.

Puffer (1994) argued that employees who are older than 40 usually hesitate to act on their own, the fear and even reject to take responsibility for the decisions that differ from those that are common or approved by someone on a higher position. Such behavior was inherited from the communistic society where an employee could be strictly punished for acting on his own. The younger generation, however, is absolutely okay with the risk-taking; they value leaders who give them possibility to act without command if it can at least theoretically lead to the better performance of organization. In comparison older employees prefer their leaders to give them clearly stated task by which they can somehow show their value to the organization. So the younger generation to a greater extent is open to innovation and transforming leadership style if it would include building trustworthy environment where the individuality among with individual's actions would be valued as high as reaching the stated goals, whereas the older ones prefer common, though, efficient collectivistic approach of team work.

The most recent study to be described in this paper was developed by Lam D. Nguyen, Natalia Ermasova, Victoria Geyfman, and Bahaudin G. Mujtaba in 2015. Stated that in according to GLOBE each leadership style has its own core values and beliefs that sometimes may correlate, it is compatible with the Hofstede's opinion that leadership experience great impact from the culture expressed in the nation. Many scholars have proved that statement by the research works. The question for this study is to observe whereas Russian managers tend to be more task-oriented or relationship-oriented and to what extent does this division affected by gender and age? The age variation for given study was between 17 and 60 years old. In correlation with previously analyzed articles it is possible to define task-orientation as a feature of Transactional leadership, whereas relationship-orientation defines the Transformational leadership style. The authors suggested that differentiation between these two leadership styles would be correlated with the age of respondents. The overall results demonstrated that in general Russians more lean down to Transformational leadership, being more relationship than task oriented. Taking into account Russian historical development, it becomes obvious why older respondents appeared to be more task oriented than the youngest generation. In addition, the author pointed out that the rate of preference hanged through the respondents age groups, so the score for task-orientation was the highest for those who a 41yo and older, less for the mid group 40-26 and the lowest for the youngest group of respondent. That draws us to the conclusion that within the ages people start to overcome remnants of the Soviet era changing the priorities from tasks and goals to people and relationships. Not surprisingly, that elder respondents are presented as more task oriented due to the command economy with stated tasks where they lived for many years.

Modern economy with its customer-orientation and flexibility requires different attitude. Moreover it is stated in the study that governmental experience greatly affect leadership behavoiurs, thus, respondents who have governmental experience to a greater extent evaluate task-oriented leadership and such correlation is noted towards all age group. That is rooted to the fact that state highly influences the development of leadership behavior (McCarthy et al, 2005) and it harder for governmental system to change. All in all the prevalent leadership for Russian society is marked to be relationship-oriented. Within the years people tend to understand that in a long-term relationships are more valuable so they shift from Transactional to Transformational style of leadership.

Summing up the observed theories there can be pointed out three predominant leadership styles in Russia so as: Transactional, Transformational and Situational. Each of these styles has its value to the Russian society, resulting in these or that manner. Nevertheless, most of the analyzed articles described the synchronic observations of Russian society, allowing only making suggestions about changes in Russian leadership style, though studies which took into account impact of the age differentiation mostly approved them. Transactional leadership is marked to be more favourable by the elder generation, but not as much as it was before, whereas Transformational becomes the dominant style for those who are younger. The Situational leadership for its part usually corresponds with the personal choice of a leader.

2. Study of generations

2.1 Methodology

Research

From the previous part it is seen that there are three leadership styles that are dominant in the Russian society - Transformational, Transactional and Situational. Russian employees tend to prefer one of those styles based on the traits, behaviors and values that it transmits. It is proved that such preference can depend on the job position of a person, his/her age and even gender. This paper contains research that is focusing mainly on the impact of generation diversity. Returning to the issue of the insights of stated leadership styles, it is need to shortly describe the given styles.

The Transformational leadership style can also be referred to as the Traditional as it has been the predominant leadership style for Russia for many years. Such leadership approach is mostly described by the task- and performance-orientation, using of the Contingent Reward or the “carrot and stick” approach. Leader-follower relations are based on the agreements of exchange where each party tries to grant the request of the other. Moreover, in Russian society there existed, although less than before, the Authoritarian leadership which promotes centralized control from the leader, priority of top-down communication, and task-delegating. The main drawback of these styles is that task implementation as well as performance outcomes are valued more than ordinary employees.

For the Transformational leadership the situation stands to be complete opposite. Here the focus is shifted from the task- to relationship-orientation. Leader acts through the means of encouragement and inspiration of his subordinates. There stands a great value of innovation within the individuality. Transformational leader builds credibility and motivates the followers to learn new things, do not hesitate to ask for help and communicate with the executives and each other, as well as being open to the risks. Transformational leadership style, in contrast to the Transactional, is oriented to the long-term, so it is the best approach for managing change and building trustworthy working environment. Within the latest decades Transformational leadership style became the dominant one for the Russian society, presenting the change in the culture, which requires new leaders, who are more oriented toward their subordinates and relationships than goals and control.

Situational leadership successfully combines the approaches used by both of these styles. Means of down-top communication, openness to a leader, and value of innovation are combined with such as approaches Contingent Reward, task-orientation and implementing control. Notwithstanding, those behavioral patterns are implemented not all at the same time but responding to situation. Situational leader responds to the circumstances presenting required practices.

The presented study further examines relationship between generations and presented leadership styles. It is hypothesized that there is a strong correlation between these two phenomena. Taking into account the Contingency Theory, leadership appears in context, so consequently it also responds to the changes in given context. Analyzing Russian society, it can be stated that people of different generations has been raised in diverse political, economical and social context, so the preferred leadership styles would vary due to these conditions. Moreover, it is stated that employees on higher job positions tend to be more task-oriented compared to the subordinate (Omeltchenka, Armitage. 2006). Considering three generations - Gen X (1965-1980), Gen Y (1980-1995) and Gen X (1995 and younger), it is suggested that representatives of the oldest generation are more likely to occupy the higher positions compared to the others. At the same time representatives of the youngest age group are expected mostly to take the lower job positions, compared to the elder ones, or even prefer to choose freelance or self-employment as their line of business.

Methodology

This study examines the correlation between generations and preferred leadership styles. Proposing the idea that people of different age groups express different demands to a person they would like to see as their leader. Though, it is needed to take into account that throughout this research leader is observed not only as someone who takes the superior position, and not as a politician, but as a person, who presents leadership behaviour, so as a manager or a leader of study or project group. Therefore, the hypotheses stated for this research are:

H1: Preference of leadership style depends on the generation

H2: Older generation more likely to favor task-oriented so as Transactional leadership, whereas the younger generations prone to favor more Transformational style.

There was used a convenient sampling model for selecting the target respondents. The target population sample is a group of Russians which represent three generations, so the respondents are from about 55 years of age and below - 18 years for the youngest. They were asked to fill in the 18-question form by choosing the more suitable answer, marking the rate or by giving a short answer. As the Russian language is native for all the respondents, the survey was made in Russian and then translated into English. The English version further was checked by the supervisors of the paper to diminish possible variation of terms.

The questionnaire did not require respondents to leave any personal information. Division by the generation groups was made by the first question where respondents were asked to define their affiliation to one of presented age groups. Such anonymity is aimed to achieve high response rate, as Russians sometime hesitate to express their opinion on the topic and reveal ideas especially in the surveys. Although, they tend to express their opinion better if they know that researcher or an examiner will not be able to identify the respondent by his answers.

The questionnaire was available through the link to a google from. Link could be attached to email or to the post in any social network. Distribution of the link to the survey was conducted via personal messages, and posting in such social networks as Facebook (aimed at the older generation), Twitter (for the Gen Y and Gen Z), and VK (focused on Gen Z and Gen Y). Such distribution method was used because Russian people are more willing to deal with the surveys that are provided (or shared for the social networks) by someone who they know. If there appeared any questions the respondents could make them under the post or through private messages. In all cases the collected data as automatically saved and later converted in Excel file for further analysis. The questionnaire both in Russian and English as well as the results for each generation presented in the pie chart diagram forms can be found in the appendix for this paper.

2.2 Results

Questions presented in the survey can be divided into two groups - questions about leader and about leadership. That was aimed for the analysis of how people perceive a leader and how they expect him to behave in different situation.

The results for the part about perception of a leader showed that more than three quarters of the respondents for each generation have in mind an image of leader when they are asked about it. Whereas for the question of an ability to define yourself as a leader the highest rate was shown by the representatives of Gen X, while younger respondent hesitate to claim it, although the ate for Gen Z was higher than for Gen Y. That leads to the fact that in case of group work the leader's role is expected to be taken by the older representatives to a greater extent than the others (27% for Gen X, 24% for Gen Y and 18% for Gen Z)

Figure 4

Though the biggest part of all respondents still prefer to avoid the leading part. Speaking about cultural orientation of a leader, the representatives of Gen X expressed opinion that a leader should stay on the balance between acknowledging the worth of Russian culture as well as being open to the process of globalization and adapting to a new environment. As for the younger generation, principally for the youngest Gen Z, the respondents suggest that equilibrium should be shifted towards the globalization extent.

Concerning questions focused on identifying how does concept of a leader changes in people's view, it can be stated that all respondents claim that gender is not the key factor of leader's efficiency - approximately 70% of all respondents marked it as non determining factor, whereas the age of a leader turned out to be highly evaluated. Almost half of the youngest respondents claim that the younger leader is the better can he adapt to the current situation, followed by the 40% which think that leader should also be well-experienced. When for older generations it is hard to define general opinion on the question.

As for the leadership, the survey mostly is aimed at defying patterns in leadership behavior that are expected. To start with, it is important to mention that within the changes of generations people tend to a greater extent agree with the statement that requests to the leader are changing through the time (Figure 5). Scale 1,2 represented absence of changes, whereas 4,5 stayed for the dramatic changes.

Figure 5

Moreover, major part of respondent was able to give examples based on history or personal experience that proved their point. As for the leadership skills, results of the survey demonstrated that with the generations people tend to believe that it is more an acquired feature than innate. According to the leadership theories, major part of respondents on the scale from 1 (do not have any knowledge about leadership theories) to 5 (do have practical knowledge), especially from the Gen X (54%), claimed that they do not have any particular knowledge about it (Figure 6).

Figure 6

However, two thirds of Gen Y and Gen Z stated that they have at least moderate awareness of it. Nevertheless, all respondents were able to define general leadership traits that should be presented by a good leader. The opinions on this point tend to vary throughout the generations, presented by more task- and even goal-orientation for the oldest age group, and slightly shifting towards people-orientation for the younger ones. Gen X value more (73%) the control and good administration skills presented by a leader, whereas the half of younger respondents is leaning towards coaching and coordinative leadership behavioral patterns presented by their leader.

All three generations provided approximately equal results toward task- or people-orientations, although the rate of the last-mentioned appeared to be slightly higher for the youngest generation group. That supports other three scales where the respondents were asked about valuing personal or group interests. The received responses presented that mainly respondents tend to put personal interest in group work higher than interest of the group, expecting their leader to correspondingly reward them considering individual contribution.

The responses from the survey revealed the following results respectfully to the hypotheses stated before, as following:

The first hypothesis “Preference of leadership style depends on the generation” was supported, as the major part of respondents approved the correlation between time period and a leadership style that could be more efficient on current environment. Moreover, the results of the study presented, that people of different generations tend to seek for and value different traits in their leader, and expect different leadership behaviours corresponding to their request.

Another hypothesis so as H2 “Older generation more likely to favor task-oriented so as Transactional leadership, whereas the younger generations prone to favor more Transformational style” was supported to a slightly less degree. However, despite the fact that all three generations in their request toward leadership style and leader's behavior presented traits proposed by both Transactional and Transformational leadership, it is possible to say that the older generation is to the greater extent it promotes Transactional characteristics.

2.3 Conclusions, discussion and interpretation of the results

As it was hypothesized, Russian respondent of different generation groups have different scores towards task and relationship orientations. Representatives of different age groups tend to seek for different in their leader. Such variation can be explained by the fact that people of different generations were raised in almost completely different environments, starting from the political situation and leading towards diverse social conditions. The oldest generation - the Gen X - is to a greater extent influenced by the Soviet regime and the behavioral practices it was promoting. Due to this fact, representatives of this group tend to expect an administrative behavior from their leader, which will include clear task articulation, goal and task orientations and focus on the organizational efficiency. In the vision of these people leader should have good diplomatic skills, provide control over implementation of the objectives and perform proficient analytic thinking. The respondents pointed out that leader have to take a role of an administrator, who is setting the tasks and goals and persistently controls their implementation. Nonetheless, only small part of the eldest respondents marked that leader also should respond quickly and effectively to the changes in the environment, encouraging his followers to take risks and develop in order to adapt to new conditions.

In comparison, within the changes of generations, the respondents tend to change their request toward leadership behaviors, although still valuing some practices as noteworthy. So the representatives of Gen Y continue to appreciate task-orientated leadership style. They expect their leader to be able to transmit clear vision of the stated goals combined with the strategic thinking. They do not oppose towards task delegating, however, if there appear any problems with the task fulfillment, the mid-generation expects its leader to take responsibility for this collapse. Moreover, in contrast to the Gen X, representatives of the next generation seek for the charismatic leader who will not only administer task performance, but also will find the way to inspire and encourage his subordinates aimed to the better efficiency of their work. Gen Y is stated to be more open to the process of change, compared with the older colleagues, thus, they appreciate if the leader not only tries to operate with the existing model of leadership, but adopts some practices that previously had not been circulated to Russian society.

The same tendency in transformation of preferable leadership style is noted in results for the youngest generation. Compared to their older colleagues, representatives of this age group tend to perform more appreciation toward people-oriented leadership style. Gen Z expects their leader to be charismatic and empathetic, as well as flexible and open to new practices and ideas. Leader should mainly be focused on coordination of his followers, encouraging and inspiring them, and appreciating their individuality on the work place. He should be open to criticism and any feedback from the subordinates.

Based on the results, it is possible to make suggestions about most preferable leadership style for each generation, for instance - more task-oriented Transactional leadership for the Gen X, or human-oriented Transformational leadership for the Gen Z. As for Gen Y, the requests to leader include features of both those leadership styles.

2.4 Limitations

This study has several limitations that are needed to be addressed. Firstly, as the sample method of convenience was used for the research, the study was conducted on available population that was easy to reach. The study observed answers of 126 respondents who were mostly from the central region of Russia, practically from Moscow or Saint-Petersburg regions. If there are future studies on the topic, the sample group should be territorially extended for the more specific and in-depth analysis. Moreover, it is well-known fact that central region of Russia to a great extent differs from other regions due to its better development and political status. Given that fact, the results of the study cannot be generalized to the whole country. Future studies can be extended to a larger sample size within the central region or even more to examine also the territorial variety of the phenomenon of leadership. To the same extent the study of changes in leadership phenomenon through generations can be combined with the study of Russian culture. The scholars has already pointed out the correlation between culture and leadership, however, the scores for Russian cultural-comparative studies are usually generalized, though, due to the territorial variations the rates for different regions can result to be very different.

Since the cultural parameters of Russian culture, as well as the behavioral approach to leadership, can have a serious impact on its economic, business and organizational performance, competitiveness and preferable business practices, it can be suggested that the study of these parameters is crucial for a better understanding of the management processes. At the same time one must be mindful of the particular geopolitical situation and historical development of Russia since these have caused drastic changes in economic and social aspects as well as cultural pressures in the course of the previous century, which the society has had a difficult time to process. Therefore the values of leadership orientation presented in this paper reflect the situation in the first decades of the 21st century, but apparently leadership will undergo further changes with the passage of time.

Conclusions

Summing up the information from theoretical observations and research, it is possible to say that there exists notable substantial correlation between generations and leadership styles. In the studies presented in theoretical part of the paper there is given an explanation to this process, when the research part proves that the concept of leadership does undergo several changes through the time.

As it is described during the literature review of different articles on the topic, Russia has gone through a great period of transformation in the society. Considering the historic background the Authoritarian leadership style was a traditional and dominant leadership style presented in country. Trough the long time period, which lasted for more than 10 centuries, Russian tsars and emperors were perceived as a center power in the county. Such Autocratic and often the Authoritative leaders applied their power to all spheres of life. Later on in the 20^th century, when the whole governmental system was reformed, there appeared other leaders, however, they continued to value or even extended the worth of such things as total control, achievement-orientation and collective work. Within the development of new market few decades after the end of WW2 there began to appear young entrepreneurs who wanted to build their business in the new era. And at the same time, within the development of education among the world there started to appear different socio-cultural and leadership studies and theories.

Some of these theories became the basis for the further studies, for example the Hofstede's theory of cultural dimensions resulted in appearance of GLOBE program. The Given models were used for this paper in order to analyze the Russian cultural score and suggest more preferable leadership styles. As Hofstede's and GLOBE's researches were held at different time period it ca be suggested, that they to some extend vary in their outcomes. Taking the correspondent cultural dimensions measured by these two research teams such divergences appear between the Power Distance rates, Collectivism rates, and the Long-term vs Short-term, as well as Uncertainty Avoidance, orientation scale from Hofstede's model and value/practice score of Future-orientation from the GLOBE's. Due to the results of the studies, Hofstede's model first presented in 1960 and finished in 1980, Russia stands to be highly collectivistic country with the centralized power and strong power vertical, oriented more to the short-term actions, which allowed diminishing and avoiding risks. The most suitable leadership style for this situation is stated to be the Transactional leadership styles. The research further conducted in this paper supported the idea that the oldest of the considered generations tends to value more traits and values that belong to the Transactional leadership approach, such as task-orientation, clear goals' statements, team-work orientation and control from the group leader or executive. Within the changes of generations highly supported by the changes in Russian environment, the most preferable leadership style begins to change.

Supported by the GLOBE, it can be seen that at the end of the 20^th century Russian leaders still act by practically the same models, though the value score of different cultural dimensions progressively change their rate. People of Gen Y, who were born in the last decade of soviet era to less extend support values promoted by the Soviet community, they began to think more about their future, step by step they realize the need for globalization and changes in the demands toward leadership. From now one they began to seek for such traits in their leader as integration skills, long-term orientation, and people-orientation. They want their leader to be an inspirational and charismatic model, though at the same time a person, who they can ask for help and not only directions. Control and task delegating are still expected to take their place in the organizational performance, however, now the relationship between leader and subordinates are not based on the strong hierarchy but on the mutually beneficial exchange. At this point, Transactional leadership is transforming to something else, appearing in Russian context as the Situational leadership style. There are combined practices of both a directive and supportive dimensions. The leader reacts to the conditions of the environment determining what is needed in a particular situation and how competent and committed his followers are to perform a given goal. Due to this fact, leader might assess the situation and vary his approaches and motivation over time. Therefore, Russian leader at this point may results as being directive and supportive, considering the environment and request of his followers.

The transformation of leadership continues within the time, so the demand to a leader continued to change in order to suit for the youngest generation. Representatives of Gen Z expect their leaders to appreciate their individuality and personal impact at the same extent as organizational performance. The tasks should be clearly articulated, although there must be a space for discussion. Transformational leadership is mostly characterized by the shift from task-orientation to relationship-orientation. This leadership style is more open to the innovations and managing change, as leaders and followers encouraged by them, are less afraid of taking risks in planning their future.

Considering the stated before, it can be said that young people tend to be more open to the constantly changing world, adapting the Western practices to the Russian environment. Representatives of Gen X are more likely to be more conservative in regard to leadership transformations, favouring the Transactional leadership style. The Gen Y mostly stands in between of those two generations, taking practices and values from both Transformational and Transactional styles, combining them for the application of Situational leadership style.

This study supports previously stated hypothesis that there is a correlation between generations and preferable leadership styles. However, there is still a huge need for the diachronic studies on the same topic, because only comparative studies can reveal the underlying reasons for such transformations and process of change.

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