Manila, 18 January 2023 — Why international leaders liberate themselves from cultural conditioning.

Story

It happened this week. While working with an emerging international leader in Asia who faced challenges in cross-cultural teamwork, we unpacked how to get better results by practicing effective communication skills. The problems we worked on reminded me of a headline in Global Asian Leader: From Asia, For the World, the 2022 report offering insights into “the mindsets, skills and experiences leaders must possess to excel in global roles.” The co-authors from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) and Swiss Re, an international reinsurance firm, said that an “inability to span cultural boundaries sets Asian leaders up for failure.” A strong statement indeed.

The authors’ elaboration that the “cultural hardwiring of Asian leaders emerges as a key blocker in their ability to access and succeed in global roles” serves as a powerful reminder of the need to master cultural boundary-spanning practices, one of the specialties taught by CCL. The authors argued that it is particularly difficult “for leaders who have never left their home shores” to appreciate “the mindset jump needed to undo the impact of years of cultural influence during formative years at home, at school, and during early professional life.” Looking at it from my own international experience, I would agree.

To become successful on the international stage, there is a need for leaders to liberate themselves from cultural conditioning. That’s an important part of becoming inclusive leaders who can respect and leverage cultural diversity as a strength. However, this isn’t just about Asian leaders. In my experience of bridging East and West in leadership coaching, I can easily see how the report’s findings apply to all leaders who want to work internationally, regardless of where they were raised. Over and over, I have observed the benefits gained when leaders experienced an immersion in either an international workplace or in a job outside their country and ‘home culture.’ Yes to liberation from cultural conditioning.

Challenge

Most of the international leaders I work with will invest in learning about the differences between cultures, especially those they will encounter in their work. They dive into books to gain more knowledge about it. How cultural differences impact leadership, however, wasn’t easy to discover until quite recently. The classic works on the subject were written by Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social psychologist, who based his findings on his 1960s research at IBM. He introduced the differences among national cultures along six dimensions: Power Distance, Individualism, Uncertainty avoidance, Masculinity, Long Term Orientation, and Indulgence vs. restraint. Today, these need updating in my view.

To further unpack and understand the specific implications of cultural differences for leadership, a global study with researchers from countries around the world has followed in Hofstede’s footsteps to produce the Globe Leadership reports, described on their website as a “unique large-scale study of cultural practices, leadership ideals, and generalized and interpersonal trust in 150 countries in collaboration with nearly 500 researchers.” This is truly a massive study. And it is good to see that Gert Jan Hofstede, the pioneer’s son, is continuing to build on his father’s legacy in the field of cultural studies. A more widely used addition to the literature, however, is Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business.

The theories found in these studies can definitely help leaders to start unpacking and understanding cultural differences in the workplace, and to start exploring how to span these cultural boundaries (the term used by CCL). Few leaders, however, will have the time and resources to plow through the Globe Leadership reports as I did. And the sense of complexity one discovers in the books doesn’t necessarily help to take practical boundary-spanning action. In leadership development, other research by CCL has shown that structured learning from books, videos, and training only contributes 10% of a leader’s growth, with 70% coming from taking on challenging assignments like moving to another country. Hence my preference is to coach leaders in practicing effective leadership behaviors that will, almost immediately, begin bridging gaps and spanning cultural boundaries (as well as many other boundaries). In practice, I found this approach to be easier to grasp and start. 

Question

My question for you this week is to self-reflect on your ability to work across cultural boundaries. How ‘hardwired’ is your cultural conditioning? Is it blocking you from becoming an effective leader on an international scale? If you’re not sure about this, it might help you to travel, preferably alone, to a country with a distinctly different culture and then immerse yourself in that culture for a week or two, while doing an assignment to influence ten people to adopt a new initiative of yours. Such an OUTsight travel experience might give you some new insights into the distance you have to go in liberating your mind from your cultural conditioning.

Cultural hardwiring is not the only blocker for (aspiring) international leaders. It is equally important to liberate yourself from other biases that make it hard to become an inclusive leader who can recognize and leverage diversity in the workplace to boost innovation and lift performance. In The Seven Ways of Inclusive Leadership, our corporate workshop offering, participants are asked to describe more than twenty ways in which people can be different. For many, that is still a challenge. As the Global Asian Leader report suggests, changing your mindset to become an effective international leader is not easy. Becoming aware of your mindset already takes time, and then the work on changing your mindset follows. 

Because of our many human biases, it’s almost impossible to change your mindset all by yourself. That’s where leadership coaching can help you. If you are committed to liberating your mind from your cultural and other conditioning, book a free strategy session. We will discuss the changes you want to make to become an effective and impactful international leader who is adept at spanning cultural (and other) boundaries. I am looking forward to hearing from you.

P.S. Here is the link to access the Global Asian Leader report.