Four recommendations for cross-cultural leadership
Managing people from different cultures is not always easy. But if you know how to handle it correctly, cultural diversity can provide new opportunities for value creation.
Ellen Barsett Magnus, Country manager Norway, Talogy
Written by Ellen Barsett Magnus, Country manager Norway for Talogy, formerly Cubiks PSI
We are in a global labor market with a growing number of workers from different cultural backgrounds, which presents both new opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, cultural diversity can lead to creativity and innovation, more and better ideas, less uniformity and better performance. People from different cultural backgrounds have different life experiences and knowledge that give rise to alternative views on work.
Read also: How to create a good management culture
On the other hand, cultural diversity can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, lack of cohesion and inefficiency. For example, a Norwegian manager expressed great frustration that the task was not done when his Indian employees had confirmed that they would do it. He didn't understand that in some Asian countries it is impolite to tell your superior that you don't understand the task or don't have the necessary knowledge to solve it. Nor do there have to be major cultural differences before irritation and conflict can arise. Many a Norwegian has sat in a meeting with Swedes and been annoyed that they can never reach a decision because everyone has to agree first, a contrast to the Norwegian "shoot from the hip" mentality.
How can managers make the most of the opportunities and deal with the challenges? Here are four recommendations for managers in a culturally diverse work environment:
- Creating community
In order for cultural diversity to be perceived as positive for employees, it is important to avoid an us-and-them attitude and to create a common identity in the team or organization. This can be done by focusing on common goals and shared values, strengthening social ties through social events and facilitating trust and familiarity. - Emphasize the value of diversity
A diverse workforce gives rise to a lot of useful information. This information may be hidden because employees are not aware of the benefits of information exchange or are not motivated to explore them. The company's perspective on diversity creates a framework for how employees interpret and act on cultural differences. Managers should therefore emphasize diversity as a competitive advantage, a source of learning and a resource for creativity and productivity. In addition, the company should encourage greater cultural diversity through recruitment processes, team composition and by motivating employees to learn about other cultures. - Acknowledge challenges
It is important not to ignore challenges that may arise and that employees feel that their frustrations are heard and acknowledged. The manager must be aware of the challenges and seek to bring all issues to light, to discuss and defuse them. - Developing and employing cultural competence
A culturally diverse work environment requires special skills from employees, as they have to adapt to different ways of thinking, acting and experiencing the world. For example, a German writing an email to an American has to use more polite phrases than what feels natural, so as not to be perceived as sour and rude. I would like to highlight four important competence groups: Social competence is the ability to be in tune with the social environment, i.e. understand the intentions of others and intuitively adapt one's behavior to different people .Flexibility is the ability to adapt to different contexts, see situations from multiple perspectives, and the ability and willingness to change one's assumptions and integrate different approaches to a problem .Openness is interest, tolerance and acceptance of other people as they are .Resilience isbeing comfortable with challenges and unpredictability and the ability to recover from setbacks.
If Norwegian business and industry is to be competitive in the global economy of the future, it must adapt to new challenges. It is therefore important to facilitate the best possible utilization of the values and resources provided by cultural diversity. Managers should hire and develop people who master cultural diversity and create a working climate characterized by unity that recognizes both the opportunities and challenges of diversity.
