What's Your Cultural Intelligence?
Author: Sandy Thompson
If your organisation works in a diverse community, i.e. any community in Aotearoa/New Zealand, then cultural intelligence is critically importance to your success. At LEAD we have the privilege of working with a range of groups who are from different cultures and have members from a range of cultures.
Culture is the filter through how a group of people view and interpret the world around them. It is how people think, speak, do, and create. It is their knowledge, systems, beliefs, values, roles, art, habits, cuisines, symbols and attitudes. Culture is learned and transmitted through generations, and is often unconscious.
Cultural intelligence is the ability of someone to work and live effectively across a range of cultural contexts. Cultural intelligence is more than understanding different cultures. It is about having the knowledge, skills, and capability to recognise, understand, reflect on, and adapt to different cultural perspectives. It requires the self-awareness to relate to, and communicate effectively with, people from other cultures with empathy. It means being aware of your assumptions and how they influence how you inspire, motivate and connect with people who are from a range of cultures.
Apart from it being fundamental to the values found in our sector, investing in the cultural intelligence of your teams has a number of pragmatic outcomes:
A bigger impact and more positive change in your community
Your programmes and activities will be relevant to the communities you serve (increased participants and members)
Serving your community effectively and ensuring value
Having a better understanding of issues facing your community
Ability to provide services, programmes and activities that are responsive to your community
Reduction of misunderstandings and conflicts that arise from different perceptions, cultural values, and opinions amongst staff, volunteers, and other stakeholders
The ability to attract a diverse board, staff and volunteers
High performing multicultural teams
Alignment with the values of funders and donors.
The cultural intelligence framework is a good way to assess your teams competency to move in and out of different cultural contexts. Conceptualised by Soon Ang & Linn Van Dyne in 2008 and further developed by Dr. David Livermore in his book The Cultural Intelligence Difference, the CQ Model emphasises the importance of developing an overall repertoire of motivation, understanding, strategy and skills.
As mentioned before, at LEAD we have the privilege to work within a range of communities. Perhaps the most profound for us as leadership development educators has been our work in Pacific nations. In 2020 we took time out to reflect on how we delivered our programmes and built our own cultural intelligence. You can read some leadership stories from Pacific leaders here.
Like all leadership abilities, developing cultural intelligence is a continuous journey, not a single event that culminates in an outcome. It is a dynamic learning process requiring ongoing knowledge building, skills development, and the openness to explore new concepts and ways of seeing the world. At LEAD we have used our experiences to develop training for leaders in Aotearoa/New Zealand as a means to further our organisation’s mission to build strong communities. Contact us to learn how we can help your teams to develop their cultural intelligence.