Leading with Cultural Intelligence

This book is written for leaders who want to learn about cultural intelligence and its application to leadership. Leaders emerge from all walks of life, in formal and informal ways, and notions of leadership differ among cultures. This book uses the definition of leadership from the GLOBE study of leadership across cultures: the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations which they are members. 9 People who engage in this process are called leaders

The model of cultural intelligence is a research-based model that I have used in my consulting and education work with executives, leaders, administrators, boards of directors, students, volunteers, parents, and more. Whether you are in government or in a nonprofit or private sector business, the cultural intelligence framework is practical enough to help you create organizational growth and change. The model speaks to a diverse audience base, and its theoretical foundations, are useful to those who want to learn more about the scientific elements of culture.

Reading the Book

This book outlines the importance of understanding culture and its impact on our lives, the strategic value of cultural intelligence, and the significance of integrating and practicing cultural intelligence in everyday life. The book is designed to help you overcome the challenges in intercultural interactions by focusing on cultural intelligence in leadership and management.

This book does not focus on specific cultural etiquettes or how to do business in other countries. It is a book designed to help you apply cultural intelligence to any cultural situation. This is not an academic textbook, although the concepts presented here are essential to your knowledge about culture and intercultural interactions.

The eight chapters in this book consist of reflection exercises and case studies that can be used as a guide to your continued learning and development in cultural intelligence. Each chapter begins with a personal story, quote, or idea about culture and intercultural work and ends with a summary of the key concepts.

To continue your work in cultural intelligence, there is a website that has been set up to provide you with more sample case studies and inventories.

• Introduction: A Global Community provides an overview to the topic of cultural intelligence. It examines globalization and its significance for culturally intelligent leadership.
• Culturally Intelligent Leadership Matters explores the literature on culture and leadership. It examines several studies that illustrate the importance of understanding culture in leadership and management.
• Understanding Culture examines the concept of culture. The chapter focuses on recognizing the different levels of culture and how culture is shared and learned. It also highlights the significance of cultural value dimensions in intercultural work.
• Cultural Intelligence Defined focuses on what cultural intelligence is and what it consists of. It describes how cultural intelligence is different from other forms of intelligences.
• Thinking About Thinking delves into the first component of cultural intelligence: cultural strategic thinking. It focuses on the topics of cognition and metacognition. Techniques and tools to practice and improve metacognition are offered.
• I Think I Can and I Will moves into a discussion of motivation and mindfulness, the second part to cultural intelligence. The chapter centers on the role of self-efficacy in culture and the value mindfulness has in intercultural interactions.
• Adapting and Performing focuses on the third component of cultural intelligence: behavior. It focuses on the notion of self-concept and how this impacts behavior and attitudes. Additionally, this section examines the impact of behavioral communication.
• The Future of Cultural Intelligence looks into the future and examines what is needed for cultural intelligence principles to thrive. It also discusses the types of leadership needed to bring more attention to cultural intelligence.