What Culture Actually Is: Power! — Who Obeys It, Who Questions It. Wednesday's Edition

All People Are the Same: They Just Do Things Differently. Series 22 #3

Power Distance shapes every relationship where one person has authority over another — government, work, school, home. Should you question the person in charge, or always do as they tell you? This is what it looks like in real life:

A junior analyst at a Copenhagen company spots an error in the CEO’s budget presentation. She interrupts, points it out, and the CEO thanks her for catching it. The meeting moves on.

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The same situation in Kuala Lumpur. Same meeting, same error. In this case, the analyst says nothing. After the meeting, she mentions it quietly to her direct supervisor, who may or may not pass it up the chain.

Two completely different ways to handle the same situation based on the power dynamics of the culture. That difference is what Hofstede’s Power Distance dimension measures: the degree to which people who hold less power accept and expect power to be distributed unequally. The keyword is expect. This isn’t about oppression. It’s about what feels natural and correct for a given cultural framework.

In low power distance cultures, hierarchy exists because someone has to make the final call, not because the person in charge is superior or somehow special. Denmark scores 18 on this dimension. In Denmark, the CEO and the janitor just have different jobs.

In high power distance cultures, hierarchy isn’t just for organizational function; it carries moral weight. A subordinate who publicly challenges a superior isn’t being direct and helpful; he’s being disrespectful. That disrespect ripples outward through the team and beyond. Malaysia scores 100, the highest of any country Hofstede measured. In Malaysia, the CEO and the janitor don’t just have different jobs; they are on different social and personal levels.

The consequences show up everywhere. In high power distance cultures, teachers transmit knowledge rather than debate concepts, children learn obedience before independence, and political change tends to come through upheaval rather than elections. In low power distance cultures, students challenge professors, parents treat children as small equals, and a politician caught abusing authority loses office because the electorate finds it genuinely surprising.

Neither system is right or wrong or better or worse than the other. High power distance cultures produce clear decision-making, social stability, and an order that members find reassuring. Low power distance cultures produce flatter organizations, faster feedback, and institutions that respond to pressure from below. Each delivers its own benefits, but each has its drawbacks as well.

Problems happen when the two perspectives meet. For a low power distance person, a high power distance nation can feel oppressive. The high power distance person in a low power distance country can feel they lack direction. A Dutch manager running a team in Jakarta who expects direct feedback in meetings reads silence as agreement, ships a flawed product, and blames the team for not speaking up. An Indonesian manager reporting to a Dutch executive waits to be told what to do, and his supervisor reads that as a lack of initiative.

Whatever end of this spectrum you sit on, remember: blindly following orders feels as unnatural to you as making a decision rather than being told what to do feels to someone else.

Thursday’s Edition covers uncertainty avoidance: why some cultures write a rule for everything, why others treat rules as suggestions.

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