A question to think about before the next lecture: What characteristics does it take to have an intercultural leader? Use the comments to react.
Some possible directions:
- charisma
- playing with media (e.g. role of the internet)
- linguistic ability
- thinker vs. doer
- knowing everything about two (or more) cultures
-...
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8 opmerkingen:
Cultural sensitivity and global leadership skills are essential for inspiring people from cultures other than one’s own.
Cultural sensitivity:
Leaders, as well as others, attempting to influence a person from a foreign country must be alert to possible cultural differences.
The leader must be willing to acquire knowledge about local customs and learn to speak the native language at least passably. A cross-cultural leader must be patient, adaptable, flexible and willing to listen and learn. All these characteristics are part of cultural sensitivity, an awareness of and a willingness to investigate the reasons why people of another culture act as they do.
Cultural sensitivity is also important because it helps a person become a multicultural worker. Such an individual is convinced that all cultures are equally good and enjoys learning about other cultures. Multicultural workers and leaders are usually people who have been exposed to more than one culture in childhood. Being multicultural leads to be accepted by a person from another culture.
Sensitivity is the most important characteristic for leading people from other cultures because cultural stereotypes rarely provide entirely reliable guides for dealing with others.
Global leadership skills:
Global leadership skills are so important that they improve a company’s reputation and contribute to a sustainable competitive advantage. Global leadership skills are those specially important in dealing with workers from different companies.
Excellent global leaders have a leadership style that generates superior corporate performance in terms of four criteria:
(1) profitability and productivity;
(2) continuity and efficiency;
(3) commitment and morale; and
(4) adaptability and innovation.
Global leadership skills also include stewardship, because excellent global leaders act as responsible stewards of human and natural resources.
The global leader must tap into a deep, universal layer of human motivation to build loyalty, trust, and teamwork in different cultures.
Thinking about intercultural leader makes me think first about Mother Thereza (who was born in Macedonia), Gandi even Princes Diana. What makes them intercultural leaders is their charisma, honesty, generousity... They have reached the level of intercultural competence, helping individuals all over the world without making difference in skin color,religion or nationality. That's why maybe I see them as intercultural leaders.
In business terms, the leader must be flexible, communicative, positive and optimistic person but also very smart to influence or maybe shape the opinion of "the followers". The leader has grater exposure to relevant media, more knowledge, more innovative ideas and is seen as credible and confidental person. The manager of the company is not always the leader. The intercultural leader has the knowldge, skills and attitude that are accepted as "the right ones". The leader is the opinion maker/shaper and that makes him thinker and doer.
How to become intercultural leader? I am sure the path is long, but it's not unreacable. Not everyone can be a leader. The leader has positive aura and makes the others feel comfortable in their company. But it's not that everyone shoud try to reach that position, it's a matter of personality, character and willingness to be a leader.
Kind regards,
Elena Sukleva
To be an intercultural leader you need a lot of capacities. You need to speak different languages and you have to know what other cultures contain. But you also have to understand them and you have to be neutral. You may have your own opinion about a culture but you cannot judge them or discriminate them. You need to be able to sympathize with other cultures. I think it is very difficult to be intercultural not to mention to be an intercultural leader. You also have to know what you are doing and not only thinking what to do but actually doing it.
Being an effective intercultural leader requires possession of extensive cross-cultural skills and knowledge, awareness, positive attitudes and openness toward other cultures. These are essential aspects to developing intercultural competence and being successful in bringing a number of diverse cultures together, inspiring and helping them to achieve common goals. Of course, all of your multicultural education will be superficial and useless if you don’t become first aware of your cultural identity and face up with your own ethnocentrism. Creating a pleasant environment of cultural, and maybe ethnic and racial diversity is not a simple task and demands a lot of effort and commitment to personal changes if you want to become more welcoming and inclusive leader.
You must learn how to see reality from variety of perspectives, put away your prejudice and built stereotypes about other cultures and try to develop cross-cultural empathy.
I believe these are the crucial assets a person must acquire in order to become good intercultural leader, and if he/she wants to avoid the famous "knowing-doing gap" must begin to implement them and turn their knowledge into action, because being an effective multicultural leader doesn’t mean just learning about theory (and let the others-your followers do it) but also applying it to concrete situations and in that way take the best of it.
At the end, I should not forget the basic skills required to become a leader in general. This refers mostly to the good communication skills a leader must have (for both written and spoken communication) but also leaders must be eccentric sometimes using their body language, change the tone of their voice, keep positive attitude and smile all the time even if they disagree with what is being said and do everything else necessary in order to get their message across as better as possible.
Kind regards,
Suzana Janackova
Not everyone can be an intercultural leader. Actually I think that very few people can be intercultural leaders. Firstly, not many people are suitable to be leaders at all. Most of the people tend to be leaders, but in fact theye are just "opinion followers".
But if we leave out that issue and think only about being an -intercultural- leader, then that is even harder to achieve. That person definitely has to accept the differences among the various cultures he/she represents. Since, if one does not know and accept the values of one group, then that person cannot support that particular group. In this manner, it would not be a leader for that group.
Furthermore, I do not think that a person that is an intercultural leader has to know everything about every different culture. It is obvious, one person cannot do that. What the leader has to possess, is an ability and willingness to constantly learn new things, acquire knowledge about the -surrounding- he/she is considered a leader. It could be the whole world or one country.
It is not easy to become and to stay a leader. And being an intercultural leader is even more demanding, but in my opinion, in today's world a leader cannot stay a leader for a long time if he/she is not -intercultural competent-.
Sonja:
I think the most important skills of a intercultural leader are:
to communicate well so to know different languages, to know the essential things about the different cultures, to be open for new things and be willing to learn new things.
It is impossible to know every single detail about all the cultures, but when you know the most important things about different cultures you show that you are interested and willing to make an effort for them. When you must take an important decision as a leader you must take many things in consideration, such as certain opinions of cultures. However you can never do well for everyone, so you must take a decision in between. Show that you respect other's opinions and that you not only take decisions that are good for your culture only.
If you adress to different cultures you cannot make an differce between their culture, color, language or religion. SHow that you are open for everything and therefor everyone their choices. I you speak different languages and know essential things about cultures you show respect for the people, and then, in my opinion, you will have the biggest attention.
A cultural leader is more than just a leader he has to be a guide person 2 and he must atleast know the cultures from the person who he is working with
for ex :
You will not start shouting like the microsoft person when you are talking to chinese men !! Cause they will be ofended .
greetz gary
Some enlightening views, I must say... Thanks for your contributions, they will be a basis for reference in class.
If you have something to say afterwards, please feel free to add.
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