The implications of this for leadership in Sino-American dyads
should be clear. In contrast to the Chinese history of reliance on
networks of relationships, American history describes rugged individ-
uals and self-reliance. Both of these myths contain a grain of truth,
but clearly both the Chinese and American relied on both individual
and network activities to survive and prosper. It has been a mistake
for scholars to call Americans ‘‘individualistic’’ and young Chinese in
coastal China ‘‘collectivistic’’ in the twenty-first century when even
the family networks are breaking down, not to mention the village
networks and the state networks. The pendulum of network to indi-
vidual has swung from one pole to the other for both peoples from one
generation to the next, but both require leadership theory that speaks
to both individualism and collective networking. Such a theory is
available and has been tested empirically in both China and America
(Graen and Graen, 2006 ).
Leaders must be the best in the network and dependent on the
network over time. The network must grant leadership and can
reclaim it (Graen, 2007b). American organizations have recently
accepted the power of teams and are beginning to discover that
leadership cannot be contained by them but requires networks (which
may include numerous teams).
Dramatic tidal change
As late as 1949 (the year the People’s Republic of China was founded)
China was a feudal society largely untouched by the scientific and
industrial revolution in the West. Beginning in 1949, the new chair-
man Mao Zedong signaled the People’s Revolution that would grant
an iron rice bowl of universally shared prosperity to all Chinese and a
philosophy of ‘‘never forget class struggle.’’ His plan called for the
nationalization of all property and organizations and strict adherence
to Mao’s way. For over a quarter-century Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) state-owned organizations were maintained despite huge
annual losses. Finally, Deng opened the door to the world in 1978
with CCP’s official rejection of Mao and Maoism and gradually
allowed the steady privatization of property and organizations until
today only a third of the GDP has yet to be privatized.
One clear consequence of this change to private and Sino-foreign
ventures was that Chinese workers who were socialized into the roles
282 George Bear Graen