A great leader must be a great communicator. However, communication in a global context means communicating successfully across a diverse population - culturally, functionally... and often geographically. Specifically when communicating across cultures, communications are complex - often difficult and easily misinterpreted or misunderstood if not skillfully navigated. The ability to successfully connect across cultures can be facilitated, not by trying to understand the many nuances of every culture, but by understanding that there are basic orientations (or perspectives) that, if understood on a continuum basis, can foster the potential for leaders everywhere to change their paradigm to leverage cross-cultural communications for a new energy boost to high performance in increasingly diverse environments.
My observation has been that there are few leaders (or companies) that truly embrace cultural differences and leverage them for global success on a personal and organizational level - yet cross-cultural communications are an invaluable lever to global success. Those of you who are managing across countries and regions and who are willing to get the best out of the rich melting pot of cultures that you navigate, have the ability to build virtual bridges between cultures and geographic locations, creating thriving teams and organizations that will enable you to become a Game Changer vs. a Game Player.
Incorporating cultural orientations into your worldview will allow you to unleash exponentially more human potential to achieve meaningful objectives. You will be better equipped to manage and coordinate across diverse audiences, bridge cultural gaps, and make communications relevant to a diverse workforce that will enable impossible futures across boundaries and borders (more on that in my upcoming podcast!).
There is no viable way around it, your cultural orientations influence and impact the way you communicate with those you interact with - the workforce, customers, partners, suppliers, and vendors. As you begin to have the ability to understand your own cultural perspectives and communicate effectively across alternative worldviews, you will begin to have the ability to leverage cultural differences constructively and for the benefit of all... communicating efficiently and effectively across your global organization. This lever is critical to success in an interconnected and increasingly diverse marketplace.
In highly competitive global markets, the aim is to achieve concrete impact and tangible results that are enabled through accelerated performance across all regions. Challenging cultural assumptions and looking at yourself and your entire extended network (including customers) through a different cultural lens, and communicating back through that lens, will propel you beyond your previous limitations to discover creative solutions that are outside of your proverbial box – leveraging differences to achieve business results well beyond anyone’s expectations.
Are you prepared to shift your paradigm for global success?
You can contact me at SheriLMackey@gmail.com or by visiting our website at sherimackey.com. Check back next week for the next installment of Leadership Across Boundaries & Borders.