English. The lingua franca of business...
Global business speaks English!
We assume that leaders will thrive in their diversity if they master this universal business language among other things…
But is language standardization enough when communicating with multicultural teams?
I saw multilingual teams operating at global scale collapse because of poor communication skills…
I saw multicultural teams operating at global scale collapse because of poor cultural intelligence…
I saw global leaders on denial; blindly focused on performance, they don’t see the value of learning about the individual cultures of their team members…
I saw leaders too attached to their cultural comfort zone…
Every culture nurtures its own communication and leadership style…
Different cultures have different expectations of what is appropriate…
Different cultures have different interpretations of leadership values…
We know that the concept of leadership isn’t the same in every culture so how do we expect people to be culturally competent leaders if they are not educated first on cultural differences…
How do we expect them to lead in a globalised work environment if they are not assessed on their social capital and global mindset…
Truth is…Leaders with broader multicultural experiences tend to be better communicators and more effective when leading multicultural teams…They display more respect, patience and sensitivity to others…
They know how to pull the right levers to get the best out of their multicultural team…
Cultural sensitivity is the new business language…
Culture intelligence determine leadership!
Always Unstoppable,
XoXo
Hindy
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