Opportunities and challenges in leadership
Hi everyone,
following up my blog post from the last week, I would like to conclude what I've learnt about the leadership in intercultural componies and what are the opportunities and challenges that I take with myself for my own future leadership roles.
Firstly, I think it is very important to understand that followers are the most important in any management situation. However, talking about followers we also have to talk about leaders and leadership itself. I think that best leaders are those that have the purpose of why they do their work and those who in parallel know how to do it. By this I mean, that leader must observe his followers, as his leadership very much so depends on them. Furthermore, I believe that every leader, especially in this case, should understand that culture, organization and each individual that he is working with is dynamic and always in flux, which means that they all are changing all the time and affected by the inside and outside influences. That is why leader must know that what is working now, might not be working later on, thus leader must be aware of innovations and the ideas for development.
Also, I see leadership as very human like activity, so a lot of every day work of the leader does not necessarily has to be complex, sometimes leaders should go back to the “basics” of communications and interactions. I think that the welfare of the members starts with the simple human act like listening and asking questions rather than assuming something just because we do not know something or worse – we assume from cultural stereotypes. Listening in this case meaning compromising the cultural norms above the imposed values of the dominant group. Moreover, it is important for a leader of such group to understand that most of the conflict that arise are cross cultural. Diversity exists not just between different cultures and nationalities, but within the cultures itself too. Most of our working communications are and will be multi-cultural, after-all, men and women structure two gigantic cultural groups.
Opportunities come from the challenges if one wants to see them. Leadership activities always include a lot of communication, in this case even cross cultural interaction. I always see this as a great challenge. A lot of arguments or misunderstandings in such international teams come not only because of the cultural differences, but usually of something else too – which can be literally anything: individual aspect or values. Even being an expert in specific culture you can fail in your leadership, because culture is never the answer to all the problems that arise between the people, even if it seems to be cultural from the first sight. A lot of cultural or social meaning are portrayed and I believe that is the greatest challenge of this case. We cannot assume that if some dimensions are culturally created, that all will adapt to them.
On the other hand, as I already mentioned, from this challenge the great opportunity of diversity arises. Leader can see these all differences and cultural complexity as the environment to learn and to grow individually as well as implementing those values to the team. In other words - Viva le difference!
following up my blog post from the last week, I would like to conclude what I've learnt about the leadership in intercultural componies and what are the opportunities and challenges that I take with myself for my own future leadership roles.
Firstly, I think it is very important to understand that followers are the most important in any management situation. However, talking about followers we also have to talk about leaders and leadership itself. I think that best leaders are those that have the purpose of why they do their work and those who in parallel know how to do it. By this I mean, that leader must observe his followers, as his leadership very much so depends on them. Furthermore, I believe that every leader, especially in this case, should understand that culture, organization and each individual that he is working with is dynamic and always in flux, which means that they all are changing all the time and affected by the inside and outside influences. That is why leader must know that what is working now, might not be working later on, thus leader must be aware of innovations and the ideas for development.
Also, I see leadership as very human like activity, so a lot of every day work of the leader does not necessarily has to be complex, sometimes leaders should go back to the “basics” of communications and interactions. I think that the welfare of the members starts with the simple human act like listening and asking questions rather than assuming something just because we do not know something or worse – we assume from cultural stereotypes. Listening in this case meaning compromising the cultural norms above the imposed values of the dominant group. Moreover, it is important for a leader of such group to understand that most of the conflict that arise are cross cultural. Diversity exists not just between different cultures and nationalities, but within the cultures itself too. Most of our working communications are and will be multi-cultural, after-all, men and women structure two gigantic cultural groups.
Opportunities come from the challenges if one wants to see them. Leadership activities always include a lot of communication, in this case even cross cultural interaction. I always see this as a great challenge. A lot of arguments or misunderstandings in such international teams come not only because of the cultural differences, but usually of something else too – which can be literally anything: individual aspect or values. Even being an expert in specific culture you can fail in your leadership, because culture is never the answer to all the problems that arise between the people, even if it seems to be cultural from the first sight. A lot of cultural or social meaning are portrayed and I believe that is the greatest challenge of this case. We cannot assume that if some dimensions are culturally created, that all will adapt to them.
On the other hand, as I already mentioned, from this challenge the great opportunity of diversity arises. Leader can see these all differences and cultural complexity as the environment to learn and to grow individually as well as implementing those values to the team. In other words - Viva le difference!
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