Culturally Intelligent Leadership Matters in a Global Society

Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal wrote that organizations are a coalition of individuals and groups with different interests, preferences, and beliefs. The differences among individuals and groups can change, but this usually occurs very slowly. Leaders must be able to identify mutual interests, values, and beliefs in order to create a culture of mutual interdependence. Because conflict is unavoidable, and often necessary, it is best for leaders to create a picture of mutual dependence that is both beneficial and progressive for employees.

Leadership matters even more when cultures are intertwined in the workplace. Leadership and culture are like two pieces of rope. On their own, they can be used to bundle objects, connect one thing to another, and even support weight. When threaded and intertwined, they do all of these things but are much stronger and have less chances of being snapped. A rope is firm and strong yet flexible and pliable. Because change is constant, leaders can use their cultural intelligence to steer organizations, and those they lead, toward finding innovative strategies and solutions to intercultural issues.

Like an anthropologist, culturally intelligent leaders explore, discover, and find cultural artifacts in their business environment that are both barriers to, and promoters of, growth. A culturally intelligent leader will accomplish this from an “outsider” perspective while keeping his or her “insider” perspective in line. Ronald Heifetz says that one should take a leap to get a balcony perspective when one has been on the dance floor too long; this enables one to see a bigger picture of what is really going on in the intercultural business workplace. Reminding yourself that what you see is only one perspective of a bigger picture can help you to pay attention to what you did not notice or what you cannot see.

Cultural intelligence requires leaders to take a critical role in guiding different values in order to bring them into alignment with the business. However, leaders need not do this alone; in fact, they should invite and encourage members to assist in addressing diversity and then challenge them to be culturally intelligent as well.

This is excerpted from the book Culturally Intelligent Leadership: Leading through Intercultural Interactions. For more information about the book and to download sample pages, visit www.cileadership.com

Thoughts on Employee Affinity Groups: A Resurgence

Here is a link to a report on Employee Affinity Groups See Resurgence in Popularity: www.mercer.com/ERGreport

My Response to the Report, specifically to the following statement:
“For 30 years, ERGs have helped women, ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, and other demographic groups navigate the corporate world,” said Michal Fineman, a consultant in Mercer’s global equality, diversity and inclusion practice and the study’s chief author. “Many of the new generation of employees don’t tend to identify as strongly as their older colleagues with race and gender affinities, leading some to question whether ERGs are relevant today. This new study concludes that they are alive and well and, furthermore, that they can serve an important business purpose.”

ERGs are not irrelevant; rather we need to re-think how they can best serve a new generation while helping those who find value in its current purposes. It seems presumptuous that we would think a new generation of workers, because they are not interested in their older colleagues’ race and gender affinities, would lead us to think that ERGs are irrelevant. The last time I checked, Millennial workers, like the generations before them, have a strong sense of social identity, albeit for many, it may not be race and gender. Do they not also want to feel a sense of belonging within their place of work?

Second, I was a bit perplexed that there was surprise around the insurgence of ERGs among race and gender groups. In fact, the research used the terms “post-feminist” and “post-racial”. Race and gender have always been strong social identities and for many people of color and women, these two social constructions still remain powerful assets and barriers to upward mobility within corporate America. Until we have conversations at a corporate level to discuss power and privilege around race and gender, I believe ERGs will continue to see a high level of interest in these groups. This is because these are places in which people can still feel acknowledged and respected for their identities, and feel valued for the strengths they have without justifying it to a supervisor, manager, or executives.

Finally, the last piece I am most concerned about, and I thought was completely brushed over in this report, is the role ERGs will take in the future. In particular, I am concerned about the use of ERGs as “cultural knowledge vessels” and “burdens of representations” or “tokens.” I think this is a serious issue for companies to think about. Certainly when it comes to inclusion, this notion of “tokens” can be disruptive and not beneficial to a company’s work and progress. Additionally, there is an underlining implication and cultural assumption that using ERGs solely for the purpose of mining cultural information seems to “release” others in the organization from knowing and learning about culture. If we truly seek to be inclusive, we would think about how ERGs can share a space of collaboration and shared leadership, while honoring the knowledge that differences bring to an organization.

CI Leaders: Moving from Single to Multiple Perspectives

As human beings who are accustomed to behaving (consciously and unconsciously) in specific ways, we often do not recognize another perspective until it is presented to us. Ellen Langer, a social psychologist, says that it is in the perspective of another that we learn to see ourselves—to see who we really are.

As an educator and facilitator, I meet people in positions of leadership every day who believe that their perspective about culture and how they should work with differences is the right way and that there is no other possibility for a different way of working or thinking. For example, a participant in my training session, Jacob, felt very strongly about the “invasion” (his word, not mine) of immigrants in his neighborhood. This was because the city he worked for was increasingly diverse and would need to set up services and programs to meet the needs of the new immigrants.

As a native of the city, Jacob felt strongly that his neighbors needed to assimilate more quickly. As a city employee and manager, he felt excluded that the city would create new services for the immigrants. His issue of conflict here was that he had developed proposals for expanding current services in his department, but they were never approved, mostly because of budgetary reasons. He did not understand why creating “special services for a small population” mattered more than the services for current residents of the city, and he was angry that the funds set aside for the new programming would be large, much larger than his proposed changes.

Jacob, in this example, is bound to his single perspective or viewpoint. He cannot see beyond the situation. And, in fact, when discussing this situation with Jacob and other managers present, other pieces of the story began to unravel. Yes, Jacob had a perspective about immigrants based on his experiences with one immigrant–his neighbor. He used his knowledge and interactions with this person to stereotype an entire population. Additionally, what really mattered to him in his place of work was that he did not feel his ideas mattered. Because every time he proposed changes and they were not approved, he took that as a deliberate attack on him. This was not the case at all and he was told this by his peers in the training.

When Jacob was presented with another perspective, he let his guard down. Over time, he was able to focus on the real issue, which was that no matter what your status, creed, ethnicity, or reason for moving to the United States, as a public sector employee it was his role to provide the appropriate services that would meet the residents’ needs.

As culturally intelligent leaders, we must make strong efforts to see a different perspective than what we believe and hold to be true. We must challenge ourselves, as Byron Katie says, by asking whether we know what we see to be true is really, in fact, true. And if it is, how do we know that? What stories have ground us in a single perspective?

This is excerpted from the book Culturally Intelligent Leadership: Leading through Intercultural Interactions. For more information about the book, visit www.cileadership.com

A Tree as a Metaphor for Cultural Systems

Imagine a tree as a metaphor for a cultural system—all the things that make up who you are. The roots of a tree are essential for the survival of the tree. They carry the nutrients needed for the growth of the tree and store nutrients for later feeding. Roots of trees are generally located in the top 6 to 24 inches of the ground, not too deep from the surface. The roots are impacted by their surroundings, and environmental factors contribute to their health and vitality.

Just like the roots on a tree, cultural systems have roots that are impacted by their surroundings. A culture’s rituals, traditions, ceremonies, myths, and symbols provide it with the nutrients it needs to survive. Environmental factors can change a tree by uprooting it or letting it die off, making space for new life in its place. Similarly, environmental changes impact cultural systems, forcing it to adapt and change to its surroundings or transition into death, creating new cultural stories that carry new life.

But unlike trees and their roots, we get stuck in our cultural systems and do not budge even when our surroundings have changed. Trees, like anything in an ecosystem, have natural cycles of renewal and rebirth. Sometimes this renewal and rebirth is gradual and gentle, while other times it is fast, disruptive, and violent. Trees, because they share their environments with others, will learn to adapt and allow change to occur, no matter what the direction of change may be. Change in their cultural environments is inevitable and a part of the life cycle.

In similar ways, we can think about our cultural systems as part of a larger system. Some cultural anthropologists would describe the cultural systems as “big C” (macroculture) and “little C” (microculture). The macroculture refers to a larger cultural system, for example, Catholicism is a culture that is not bounded by geography. Within the macroculture of Catholicism are smaller units of culture called subcultures. Change is constant in each cultural system, and transitions, renewal, and rebirth are endless cycles. As cultural shifts occur in the macro- and microcultures, small and large, gradual and disruptive, the entire system learns to adapt in different ways.

The Handshake: The Case of First Lady Michelle Obama and Indonesian Minister Tifatul Sembiring

On a November trip to Indonesia, the media reported that First Lady, Michelle Obama, shook the hands of Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring. Sembiring was described as a devout Muslim who followed strict Islamic laws and responded to the press that he shook Michelle Obama’s hands “not by choice.” The gesture itself in the United States would not pose a problem as it is customary in introductions, but within Islamic conservative faith the gesture is severely frowned upon. This is because shaking the hands of women is not allowed, except if the female is a close relative. A strict cultural code within the Muslim culture was violated when Michelle Obama reached out her hand in a gesture to shake Sembiring’s hand. The Indonesian leader has received criticism from conservative Muslims in the country for doing this; they said that he should have known better to not accept the First Lady’s handshake.

In Culturally Intelligent Leadership, I describe that leaders working in today’s global economy must be strategic thinkers, mindful of their behaviors, and adaptable and agile in intercultural interactions. I call this a leader’s ability to be culturally intelligent. The ability to successfully adapt to unfamiliar and new cultural environments and settings is not a one-way street. Everyone has the capacity to develop and learn from their cultural environments to be more culturally intelligent, no matter your national and ethnic affiliation or the cultural identity you identify with.

In this situation, we can use the cultural intelligence model to reflect upon the cultural norms and behaviors, and to learn how we could approach the situation from a different lens.

1. Acquire. A fundamental aspect in cultural intelligence is the ability of a person to think differently about the intercultural situation. The ability to “think about thinking” represents a person’s capacity to identify what is known and unknown in a situation. The process includes bringing to the surface experiences, particularly emotions and feelings that are similar to what one is facing, and strategizing what could be done based on what knowledge is known. In this important piece of CI, asking questions of oneself to gauge the situation is critical. Ideally, when you know you will be entering a culture unlike your own, it is important to think about and plan for your cultural interactions. Of course, even in planning, not everything will go as planned.

In this incident, both leaders could use the Acquire component of CI in this way:

Both leaders could benefit from understanding how gender and power are conceived in different cultural contexts.

Micelle Obama: What are the gender roles in Islamic culture? How might the leaders I meet treat me as a female, not of the Islamic faith? What are the appropriate languages or words I could use to address these male leaders? How do I feel when I meet someone who doesn’t share the same idea of gender equality or equity?

Indonesian Leader: What is the power afforded to me because of my gender within the Islamic faith? What are the gender roles outside of Islamic culture? How might female leaders I meet treat me? What are the appropriate languages or words I could use to address these female leaders? How do I feel when a female, who is not a relative, shakes my hands? Why do I feel this way?

2. Build. In CI work, it’s important to be able to identify the key things you know about a culture and the things that you need or want to learn. It’s preferable to do this before entering the culture, but you can do it during and afterwards as well.

A simple tool that can help you to build your CI in this area is to take a piece of paper and draw a line in the middle to create two columns. On the left column, write down the things you already know about the culture you are entering. On the right side column, write down the things you feel you need to learn. Generating a list is helpful as it forces you to think about the things you need to acquire and build throughout your relationship with a new and unfamiliar culture. In this situation, both leaders would identify the things they know and what they want to learn (e.g. gender roles in different cultural contexts).

3. Contemplate. Essential to CI is one’s ability to be resilient, confident, and be forgiving. Cross cultural studies demonstrate that individuals who are more adaptable in cultural settings are those who are able to “bounce back” from mistakes, defeat, failures, and/or misunderstandings. A person’s ability to be motivated and confident in situations like this is crucial. If the First Lady or the Information Minister walked away thinking “It’s frustrating and useless to engage in conversation/interaction with someone of another culture” then this begins a pattern of thought that can move one away from adaptability. However, if each decided that they made a mistake or even recognized the fluidity of their own cultural values and norms, then this creates a different pattern of thought and behaviors. They turn a “situation” into a learning experience for themselves. As leaders of large, global societies, they model the way for others.

4. Do. This fourth component of CI speaks to one’s ability to be adaptive and be willing to change. In this situation, the First Lady and the Indonesian Information Minister would need to contemplate the following: What would I lose if I decided to shake the hand of another person that I am not allowed to shake? What about me will change? What will be different that I didn’t notice or see before? What will I gain in this experience?

These are questions that help one to transition from one state of being to another. By identifying the thought patterns and behaviors that will be lost, leaders like First Lady Michelle Obama and Minister Tifatul Sembiring identify what values and beliefs underline their thinking, as well as the assumptions they have about each other or themselves. Adaptive behavior is difficult but it is not impossible to achieve. This is why the other elements of cultural intelligence e.g. acquire, build, and contemplate, are so important and they all work together to create a more culturally intelligent person, someone who can successfully adapt to unfamiliar cultural settings.

To practice cultural intelligence, I would recommend using this case study and working through the Acquire, Build, Contemplate, and Do elements of the CI Model. Take the perspective of the other and see where your CI journey leads you!

For more information about this topic and to purchase Culturally Intelligent Leadership: Leading through Intercultural Interactions, please visit www.cileadership.com