Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The New Secret to Success

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Leading with Cultural Intelligence

CQ is more than just knowledge

•

. The cultural intelligence

approach goes beyond simply emphasizing cultural under-

standing. It also includes a leader’s personal interests, strategic

thinking, and resulting behavior in cross-cultural situations.

Understanding the sociological differences in cultural beliefs,

values, and behaviors is essential, but it is incomplete apart

from also exploring the psychological dynamics involved as one

person interacts with another.

CQ emphasizes learned capabilities more than personality traits

•

.

Although it’s helpful to understand how our predisposed

personality influences our cross-cultural behavior (e.g., extro-

verts versus introverts) it can be paralyzing because personality

is difficult to change. The emphasis of CQ, however, is on what

any leader can do to enhance cultural intelligence through

education, training, and experience. CQ is not fixed; rather it

can develop and grow.

CQ is not culturally specific

•

. Finally, cultural intelligence is

not specific to a particular culture. The emphasis is not on

mastering all of the specific information and behavior needed

for individual cultures. Instead, CQ focuses on developing an

overall repertoire of understanding, skills, and behaviors for

making sense of the barrage of cultures we encounter daily.

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The relevance of these distinctions of CQ will be elevated in

Chapter 2 in more thoroughly describing the cultural intelligence

model. Cultural intelligence offers leaders a realistic, practical skill

set to meet the demands of leadership in today’s fast-paced world.

Conclusion

Stop and look around you. How is culture shaping what’s there?

How is it shaping what you see? It is. I guarantee it. And the degree

to which you can see it and adapt accordingly is critical.

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You Lead Across a Multicultural Terrain: Why CQ?

I’m sitting in an airport right now. For a split second, I forgot

where I was. And the familiarity of the scene around me did little to

help. The Body Shop is right in front of me, the Disney Store is to

my left, Starbucks is to my right, and the huge duty free shopping

store is just around the corner. The guy next to me is typing away

furiously on a Dell laptop. It’s easy to see the familiar airport totem

poles in Sydney, Sao Paulo, London, Hong Kong, Orlando, and

Johannesburg and believe the world is flat in every way. In part, it

is. You can order your grande, triple-shot, nonfat, vanilla, no-foam

Starbucks latte in more than twenty-five countries of the world.

And endless competitors offer their own versions of the same drink

in many more places. But beware of thinking the same negotiating

skills, sense of humor, and motivational techniques can be used in-

discriminately with everyone and everywhere.

Leading in the twenty-first-century world means maneuvering

the twists and turns of a multidimensional world. The continually

shifting landscape of global leadership can be disorienting; experi-

ence and intuition alone are not enough. But cultural intelligence

offers a way through the maze that’s not only effective but also in-

vigorating and fulfilling. Join a community of leaders across the

world who are acquiring cultural intelligence to tap into the oppor-

tunities and results of leading across our rapidly globalizing world.

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