Ways of Working: Different Management Styles Across Cultures

One of the most difficult things I've had to figure out in my career has been understanding different ways of working across various environments and cultures.

Let me explain.

Cultural Differences in Management

In countries like Turkey and Iran, managing teams and companies is different compared to Norway. There you would have a more hierarchical way of managing.

You have the top-level managers who make the big decisions, then you have the mid-level managers who are making more granular decisions, and then you have the workers who don't need to make many decisions and focus more on execution.

This reminds me of a story from university.

A friend of mine was taking a soil mechanics exam. The professor asked, “How many holes do you need to dig?” My friend didn’t fully understand and asked for clarification. The professor said, “Imagine I’m the worker and you’re the engineer — how many holes should I dig?” My friend confidently answered, “Six.” “Why six?” the professor asked. “Because you’re the worker,” my friend replied. “Just dig. You don’t question my decisions.”

That conversation captures how work hierarchies often operate — clear authority, limited questioning, and fast decisions.

A more democratic approach

But in Norway I experienced something different. When working, there is more discussion around decisions and everyone gets to say what they are thinking.

I imagine it like this: you have a giant ship to build. You either give the workers each a small hammer and let them do their work, or you have a huge hammer and you all have to lift the hammer up and hit the nails together.

This is actually quite tricky to do because you need to be open to finding the solution together. You need to be able to know what you are deciding but be open to decide with others. Titles can sometimes make it harder to keep an open mind, but the right culture helps overcome that.

Size and Structure Matters Too

But cultural factors aren’t the only thing that shape management styles — company size and structure also play a big role. In large organizations, there are often more layers of management, established processes, and clearer roles — which can make decision-making slower but more predictable. In startups, however, things tend to be more fluid. There’s less structure, fewer defined roles, and decisions can happen quickly — sometimes too quickly and sometimes can take for ever to decide. That freedom can encourage creativity, but it can also lead to confusion or misalignment if communication isn’t clear.

Finding Balance

Which one is better? I think there are times you need to use either approach and you need to be smart about using them. But the challenge for me at first was that making some decisions felt unnatural and I even felt like I might be rude to the manager. But there is a thin line here. Without balance, teams waste time over-discussing decisions. As a manager, it is important to be able to distinguish when it is needed to make a decision and when to let people discuss. If you leave everyone too free, then it becomes chaos. If you decide everything for people, then it also becomes chaos.

Key Takeaway

Overall, having a balance between the two approaches is the key, and the difficult part is knowing when to use which one. A way to handle it is to timebox the decisions that need to be made and establish clear frameworks for when collaborative discussion is valuable versus when swift decision-making is required.

Understanding these cultural dynamics has helped me adapt faster and build trust across teams — something every global professional eventually should learn.