Two Chaps - Many Cultures
Global Business Excellence Through Cultural and Emotional Intelligence (ICE-Q)
Welcome to ๐๐ฌ๐ค ๐พ๐๐๐ฅ๐จ โ ๐๐๐ฃ๐ฎ ๐พ๐ช๐ก๐ฉ๐ช๐ง๐๐จ. We help you navigate the business of culture and the culture of business. Christian Hรถferle and Brett Parry ponder many topics related to culture through a combination of short bursts and deep dives.
We feature guests from the world of business and personal development, speaking about their experiences developing a combination of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) and Emotional Intelligence (EQ), as well as it's vital importance to successful global organizations.
It's not only about culture. There are also tips and strategies for creating abundance in your professional and personal life.
Level up your ICE-Q by hitting the SUBSCRIBE button. Add your questions and comments related to culture, business, and personal growth.
Two Chaps - Many Cultures
6 Reasons to Ignore Leaders' Nationality: Rethinking Leadership Qualifications
Can the nationality of a CEO truly determine their leadership success? On this episode of "Two Chaps. Many Cultures.," we challenge you to rethink the stereotypes and misconceptions tied to leaders' national origins. We delve into how cultural traits like the confidence often linked with American leaders and the assertiveness attributed to German, Dutch, French, and Russian executives shape our biases and decisions when appointing leaders. We question whether these perceived qualities genuinely reflect leadership capabilities or simply reinforce outdated national stereotypes, potentially overlooking remarkable talent from lesser-known nations.
Through our personal experiences and a rich tapestry of global insights, we dissect how the headquarters' country of an organization can heavily influence leadership perceptions. Comparing cultural attitudes, such as Australia's preference for humility versus America's competitive spirit, we emphasize the importance of cultural intelligence in leadership selection. We invite you to reflect on your own biases and consider the immense value that diverse perspectives bring to the table in global business. Tune in and join the conversation on how to foster a more inclusive approach to international leadership.
๐๐ฌ๐ค ๐พ๐๐๐ฅ๐จ โ ๐๐๐ฃ๐ฎ ๐พ๐ช๐ก๐ฉ๐ช๐ง๐๐จ is the worldโs #1 show on the business of culture and the culture of business. Christian Hรถferle and Brett Parry ponder culture in short bursts and deep dives, featuring your questions and comments related to culture, business, and personal growth.
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our YouTube channel for even more great content: https://www.youtube.com/@TwoChapsManyCultures
Visit https://theculturemastery.com/ for more information about the skills for working in a global context.
The music on this episode is provided courtesy of Sepalot.
โDuum Diipโ - Artist: Sepalot - Label: Eskapaden - Copyright control
Today we're talking about the six reasons to ignore leaders' nationality or the nationality of leaders. Let's throw those words around a little bit. Does a country of origin give somebody an automatic pathway to leadership? Let's talk about that. Welcome to 2Chaps.
Speaker 2:Many Cultures.
Speaker 1:In an increasingly globally connected world, it is vital to possess the essential skills of cultural intelligence.
Speaker 2:Listen along as we present the topics, tips and strategies you can use to develop the power of cultural understanding in your personal and professional life.
Speaker 1:Here are your hosts Christian Huffala and Brett Parry.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Chaps Many Cultures, the show where too much culture is barely enough, and the show where we talk about how culture affects leadership styles and how maybe your cultural background plays a role in your ability to lead. Does it, brett? I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 1:Well, think about the branding of a country itself. As we navigate the world and we have perceptions and we're in this global, interconnected world of social media and news cycles that we perhaps have a presumption or an assumption of country and its brand in the world and of course those brands come with it a certain amount of traits that we may imbue on those countries and then it might influence how we think about the people that come out of that and whether we appoint them as leaders or not.
Speaker 2:So you're, in a position you're a board, maybe, or you're a senior leadership team and you're looking to appoint a leader for one of your teams and you have candidates from different national backgrounds. And what do you pay attention to? Will the nationality of these candidates play a role in your decision making, or are you only looking at their track record, at their education, at their whatever skill level metrics you want to apply? Will that be the only factors that you look at, or does the country of origin factor into that for you? Well, we are here to tell you that nationality may be the wrong attribute to look at, because what does a nationality tell you about somebody's leadership style? And yet we do recognize that nationality, sometimes more often than we'd like to admit, has been playing a role in how people get assigned for leadership roles has been playing a role in how people get assigned for leadership roles, so let's think about some.
Speaker 1:we've identified six, maybe brands of certain countries in the world that we think people might be driven towards drawing their assumptions from. First one is confidence. So let's think about that. What countries might we see as very confident in the world?
Speaker 2:Well, those who speak the loudest, right, those who like to put themselves center stage, into the spotlight, national trades. If there are any of those, well, let's keep in mind these are largely overgeneralized attributes that we ascribe to certain nationalities, generalized attributes that we ascribe to certain nationalities. And yet, if you look at the stereotypical US Americans, they tend to be not shy to seek the spotlight, to seek the attention, to put themselves front and center and say, hey, I take charge, I will lead, I find myself capable, I can do this. You find that in other nationalities as well. My origin country of Germany isn't shy of that. You will find people in the German speaking world who will speak up to take charge, quite differently from those in the US. And yet it's combined with the second trait, or the second characteristic that we came up for our list, which is Brett Assertiveness.
Speaker 2:Assertiveness, right, germans can be quite assertive, as can be people from the Netherlands or from France or from Russia, right, cultures that have a behavioral tendency to to assert themselves, to seek for what they think is right, and if that means to take charge of the leadership role, they will step up to do that. But back to confidence. Which country cultures would you see or do you think would be perceived as being confident, brett?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the US is one.
Speaker 1:They certainly take a lot of the cycle of the news up in the world and if people are working with Americans they do see that there is a lot of confidence in the information that they're projecting, that they're delivering, is done with a certain degree of power, it assumes a sense of authority, so it becomes almost like over washing over, just taking over the conversation in many ways. You know so. And then there's the assertiveness. One is perhaps maybe even more so, like you say, with those cultures like yours Christian Germany and those kinds of things. It's more a seriousness. I mean, americans might do it in more of a friendly way. The directness and the assertiveness that comes in cultures that are a little bit more to lower on the emotional expression scale probably have this perception that they are good, decisive leaders and I think you've talked about also Christian, you know and there's this misperception that perhaps in a hierarchical culture like yours that just the boss makes all the decisions right, and I think that's a kind of a misconception that you've taught me about.
Speaker 2:Talk a little bit about that too, I think if you let me rewind that tape on this thought, I think it really depends on one of our six factors that we identify is the country in which the company or the organization is headquartered in, or what do you call it domicile country of an organization. So if we're looking at a for the sake of this argument a german organization looking for filling a leadership position, do they look for someone who respects hierarchy? Maybe, maybe not, depends on the organization. Germans are not as hierarchical as one might think, especially when it comes to decision making. They're very consensual, and that trips people up, because there are noticeable hierarchies in german organizations and yet decision making sometimes takes forever because the group has to be involved in the consensus building, unlike, for example, in the United States, where it's a lot less hierarchical, and yet decisions are made top down, because people are in a nominal position of leadership and therefore are given the authority to decide, and do that fairly quickly.
Speaker 2:That's what they're paid for. And yet to decide who gets the leadership job may very well depend on the nationality of the company. So do we pick one of ours? So does it have to be someone with the same passport as the company's headquarters? Will that make them a better leader? Because that candidate gets the organizational culture better, because they have a better understanding of how the company works, and therefore nationality is seen as a qualifier, or perhaps as a disqualifier, for a strong, otherwise strong candidate that doesn't come with the passport that the organization would like to see. Is that a factor that should play a role, or shouldn't it? We argue it shouldn't, but we'll put this up for discussion. We'll see what you say to this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. So we touch on confidence, countries that might be seen as being confident, countries that might be seen as assertive in the world. These can be kind of intersectionality related to, of course, some countries can have various, and then we've also, as we just touched on, it doesn't just naturally kind of follow that a person from the company's country of where they are headquartered in, where they've grown, where they've kind of developed their DNA, is naturally qualified for the job. So that's not something that we just automatically use to influence our decisions. So another one we get into.
Speaker 1:The next one might be empathy. We might see that certain countries, certain cultures in the world might express, we might think about, empathy as something that is, uh, that that is inherent to those people in that country. One thing might be I'm just kind of just randomly might think about japan. I mean, we might think that japanese people are the whole idea of the japanese mindset, especially when it comes to things like you might think about a community. You know the way they look at community, the way they support each other. Children are driven towards looking after their parents into old age and those kind of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, confucian principles throughout East Asia play a part in that empathy development right. It's baked into the behavior of a whole society Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And yet some people might be surprised when they go there that when it comes to leadership, that perhaps is not expressed, you know, there might be some very kind of top-down directed authority-driven decision-making that perhaps does not express that what we see on the surface of a country. So empathy doesn't the branding of an empathetic culture, as you say to the Confucian as an example, is one that we don't assume. That necessarily washes over into the corporate world as well.
Speaker 2:And whether it's empathy or we would call it a separate characteristic, but that is intersectional as the other ones that we had earlier perceived warmth behavior that can be classified as quote unquote warm, that means being friendly, being a relationship focused personality or individual, and we find cultures that build trust much more based on interpersonal relationships and we find cultures that build and establish trust more based on the successful completion of tasks.
Speaker 2:Now, in some parts of the world, in some organizations, the task focus, the task ability of a candidate may very well be the deciding factor for whether or not they're leadership material. In other cultures, the ability to be a trusting leader who, by building these relationships, is able to evoke the highest potential from every member of the team, may be considered a fantastic leadership quality. So whether or not someone is perceived as warm or cold, or perceived as empathetic or more I don't know elbows out in my way or the highway, these are factors that are often attributed to certain nationalities, and whether or not someone from a specific country displays these stereotypical behaviors is not a given. So nationality does not always tell us about an individual's behaviors and an individual's characteristics.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and status another one, another one we're bringing into the conversation. Do we basically assume that a certain country's status in the world, their influence globally, is a natural predicator for the leaders that come out of that country to be qualified for those jobs? We would argue again no, probably not, because you can find. Certainly other countries necessarily don't have the same kind of a sense of limelight in the world, we don't hear about them as much, and yet we work with many leaders from these countries that have highly educated, highly qualified and have spent their time crafting their skills as leaders within their own country country and are just as qualified and are just full of the ability to be able to lead.
Speaker 2:And I wonder who decides or what makes that status in people's minds of certain countries? There are lists branding agencies have been publishing these lists the national brand or country branding how countries are perceived around the world in terms of status, in terms of brand recognition. And I often wonder how do we shape these opinions related to a country status? What shapes that? Do we all have the same opinion of different nationalities?
Speaker 2:I would like to doubt that because I'm from Germany. That's, I think, a really good example. If I travel to anywhere in Southern Europe, Mediterranean Europe, in the last 15 years, I would be confronted with certain opinions about my country based on the foreign policy that is formed in Germany and throughout the European Union. That is based on the success rate of our national athletic teams. It is based on our economic strength or weakness. It's based on the perceived likability of people from the country. And then I go to North America and people would say about Germany in North America and compare that to what you hear about Germany, let's say, in Greece or in Turkey, and these two brand images do not really align. They're simply different perceptions of a nationality. So how safe can you be in ascribing status to a specific nationality, we say not very much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I'll vouch for you, mate. I think you're a pretty good guy, so you know, I'm still still working on that.
Speaker 1:As are you. Thank you very much. Yes, well, I mean, I do think about status in terms of my country as well. You know, you might not see Australian leaders being, you know, putting themselves above the pack. The value of leaders in Australia is their ability to be humble, their ability to kind of defray some of the attention away from themselves and put a spotlight on the group itself. And this is something in stark contrast to America, of course, where it's kind of it's different, where people are calling themselves out and you know it's a different kind of level of competition. I guess you know that, that perception of competition. You know that perception of competition Maybe we could talk about in terms of who tells these stories. Of course, you know, historically, when you've got powerful nations and colonialism and you've got, you know, we go down the whole rabbit hole of philosophical, historical references to winners always tell the stories right, they write the book, they write the history books.
Speaker 2:And also, I think, whoever is in charge politically in different countries shapes the opinion of these countries around the world. I mean, there's been plenty of surveys and data collection done about how do people view the relationship of their country with three other countries around the world with three other countries around the world, and the answers to these surveys change depending on who is forming the government, who is in charge of the country's political leadership. So the perception of nationality could easily be swayed one way or the other depending on what flavor of politics or what flavor of the global economical macro trends we're experiencing. Right, there could be times when we see in the Western world, china as something to gravitate towards. We saw the Beijing Olympics and was it 2008?
Speaker 2:I'm guessing, I might be wrong. So all of a sudden there was a favorable sentiment connected to China, and then there was less favorable sentiment when trade relations began to get a little choppy and there was friction. And all of a sudden the perception of certain countries changes and this is just one example from a very Western my perspective. And you ask anyone in Central Africa about how they view the United States or Russia or Brazil, you'll hear different stories. So nationality as a marker for leadership capability is a concept that is wrought with a lot of built in error. I would say Absolutely so.
Speaker 1:That's our argument. We would love to hear yours. Tell us what you think about the use of nationality as a marker, as a predicator of qualification for authority or leadership in any organization or any field of work. That we do, of course, and we would we'd dearly love to hear from you. And the way you do that is. You can certainly just randomly chat with us on email and other contact social media, but we would like you to subscribe, we'd like you to ring that bell and we'd like you to follow along and be a part of the conversation, because we're here talking about culture, where too much culture is barely enough when it comes to global business, even more so today and increasingly more into the future. So we argue anything and our opinions are just our opinions. They don't represent other organizations that we may work with, but we're just here offering what we've learned, I guess, from working with many, many different people from around the world and organizations in a cross-cultural setting. So think about that. Any other any other reasons to ignore nationality when it comes to leadership? We'd be happy to hear from you.
Speaker 1:All right, mate? That's uh. Two chaps, many cultures, another one in the can. Thank you very much. It's good to see you again, mate. Um, we're both fresh back from traveling europe and other places.
Speaker 1:And elsewhere.
Speaker 2:And elsewhere, it will not be disclosed.
Speaker 1:It won't be disclosed.
Speaker 2:Nationalities do not matter.
Speaker 1:No, nationalities don't matter, although I can talk about a few experiences I've had in different countries. Yes, that's a whole different episode. Two Chaps, many Cultures. Thank you again for joining us. Make sure you subscribe and we will see you in the next episode. For now,