Being a Manager in Afghanistan

The business set up in Afghanistan is extremely hierarchical and as such strictly defined roles exist.
Managers in Afghanistan are often very paternalistic and relationships with their employees usually overlap into the personal sphere. You may find that managers in Afghanistan give their employees help and assistance with family and even money problems – loaning money where this is considered necessary.
The concept of honour is extremely important and managers in Afghanistan will go to great lengths to protect the honour of their employees. They do this by ensuring that employees are always taken to one side to discuss issues as it would be considered great shame on behalf of the employee if other employees became aware of any issues being discussed. If someone is fairly close to them in status, then the manager will only speak to that individual indirectly about the issue, i.e. describing the issue as a third party act as opposed to something that the individual concerned may have done directly.
Managers in Afghanistan rarely communicate the real reasons to an individual that is being dismissed. Again, this is to protect honour. They will typically tell the individual that the reason for their dismissal is due to budgeting problems for example.