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The frequently used influencing tactics in a relatively high collectivist and high power distance culture have been investigated. An exploratory study indicated that leaders used both implicit influence and more directive forms of influence. Empirical measures suggested that none of the western influence strategies were frequently used in Turkey. Analyses of influence incidents revealed that most frequently perceived influence behaviors were “granted power/authority” and “taking over responsibility” followed by “rationalizing and involving” and “pressure”. These findings, which seemed to be contradicting each other at the beginning, reflect the high collectivism, power distance and paternalism values found in Turkish culture.

The purpose of this study is to test an adaptation of the servant leadership survey to Turkey for the first time and to explore the relationship between perceptions of servant leadership and paternalistic leadership styles in the Turkish business context to contribute to the complex process of contextual dynamics of leadership.

Data were collected from 305 self‐administered surveys completed by white‐collar mid‐level managers in Istanbul, Turkey. These white collar employees conveyed their perceptions about the leadership styles of their immediate supervisors.

The results revealed that Turkish employees perceived a high correlation between paternalistic and servant leadership styles, demonstrating that leadership practices held by employees are strongly culture‐specific. In particular, all dimensions of servant leadership construct – i.e. altruism, relationship, empowerment and participation – showed a significant positive correlation with the paternalistic leadership construct. Servant leadership attributes as perceived by Turkish employees reflect a higher degree of “people orientation”.

Although this is a cross‐sectional study, its findings have implications for contemporary leadership research and practice, particularly with regard to understanding of leadership in the cultural context.

The study findings may assist human resources practitioners in multinational corporations and in Eastern and Western countries to unravel the confusion and misunderstandings created when different cultures perceive leadership in disparate ways.

This paper is among the first to establish empirically a possible link between servant leadership and paternalistic leadership perception as shown in the understanding of the Turkish employees. Turkish mid‐level managers did not consider servant leadership and paternalistic leadership styles as inconsistent, while the Western populace thinks of them as mutually exclusive. This study is a step in the complex process of theorizing about the contextual dynamics of leadership.

In this study the authors endeavour to further develop and validate the Behavioural and Contingency theory of leadership.

In a field survey research study, the authors collect, analyse, compare, and discuss explicit leader behaviour preferences of employed businesspeople in Istanbul and Izmir, Turkey, rating their “ideal managerial leader” and their actual organisational manager.

In Istanbul and Izmir businesspeople tend to prefer leaders who focus on managing the business system over other considerations such as relationship management; task orientation is more important than relationship orientation. In the business environment, there appear to be little or no differences in preferences relating to gender; men and women have nearly identical preferences; age has some influence; generally, older businesspeople tend to have higher preference scores for a managerial leader who clearly defines his or her own role, and lets followers know what is expected, and pushes them to work harder and exceed past performance. Subordinates neither received nor expected Paternal leader behaviour. They expected and did receive moderately Authoritarian leader behaviour.

The large majority of studies of leadership focus on implicit leadership theory, describing characteristics and traits of leaders. This study employs explicit leader behaviour theory and operationalisations to identify subordinates’ ideal leader behaviour compared to actual organisational manager behaviour in Turkey.