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Success in understanding between cultures

NEGOCIACIÓN INTERCULTURAL
Lic. Beatriz Díaz Reyna

6 Tips for successful leadership in the Global Era

The number of American workers employed by foreign-owned companies is on the

rise, according to the Pew Research Center. And, according to the Business
Roundtable, with “more than 95 percent of the world’s population and 80 percent of
the world’s purchasing power outside the United States, future economic growth
and jobs for the United States increasingly depend on expanding U.S. trade and
investment opportunities in the global marketplace.”

For this reason, leadership is more complex than ever. The traditional approaches
that worked even as recently as a decade ago are proving insufficient for the range
and breadth of demands in the new global environment. Global leadership expert
and author Melissa Lamson believes it is vital to equip managers with tools and
techniques to help them understand their international working environment and
the mosaic of individuals within it.

Melissa Lamson is an executive coach, author and speaker specializing in global leadership.
THE PWP STUDIO TEAM

“The new global environment is all around us,” Lamson says. “ No business
environment is local. We are interacting with people from all over the world,
everywhere, all the time . Immigration and globalization trends will not reverse any
time soon. Advances in technology further stir the pot, making it more likely that
you will have frequent contact with people with diverse norms, perceptions, and
values. Our workplaces are increasingly virtual, and we have connection to
locations and regions like we never had before. It’s exciting and, at the same time,
challenging.”

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1. Success in understanding between cultures

For over 20 years, Lamson has provided leadership training and executive coaching
for aspiring leaders up to the C-level in small, medium and large corporations
including Space X, SMA Solar, SAP, and LinkedIn. She helps managers understand
the complexity of cross-cultural interactions, providing research and proven
methodologies they can implement in their own organizations.

Lamson speaking on the importance of a global mindset in business.

SANDRA KUSH

Here, Lamson offers six tips for successful global leadership:

1. Adapt your behavior so that it works best with the person or situation you’re
facing.

The most effective managers have always been the ones who modified their
behavior to fit the situation. Now you have situations that include more and more
people with different personal, cultural, and organizational understandings. You’ll
do better if you adapt to a behavior that’s likely to succeed rather than expect
people to adapt to you.

For example, look at the way individuals are motivated. You might be motivated by
making money or moving up the ranks in your organization, but your team
members might prefer working with people they consider friends or learning new
skills. If you apply your motivators to theirs, you might unintentionally cause
disengagement.

2. You won’t come up with the right behavior or decision just by thinking about
it. Be prepared to do something, see if it works, and modify if necessary.

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1. Success in understanding between cultures

It would be nice if you could follow a recipe for every management situation that
you’ll face. Then you’d know exactly what to do. But that’s impossible. You’ll be
more effective if you Observe, Ask questions, and then React based on that
information – a process I call OAR.

For example, a manager from Japan writes an email to his team in the US every
Monday morning with a list of to-dos. He doesn’t expect dialogue or pushback, just
execution on the list. The US team feels put off. They would prefer to discuss the
list of tasks with their manager in order to feel a sense of collaboration and
ownership. The US team accomplishes some of the tasks but not others.

If the manager in Japan just gets upset and sends more lists of tasks, this won’t
help. But if he takes a moment, asks some questions about why tasks aren’t
getting done and tries to understand the whole picture from the perspective of the
US team, then he can react appropriately.

3. Remember: You make choices and decisions based on your culture, but
other people make decisions based on their culture.

Your initial actions make perfect sense to you, but they may not make sense to the
person you’ve encountered. They will filter their understanding through their own
cultural and experiential lens. Keeping that in mind, figure out what’s going on, then
be quick on your feet so that you can adapt effectively.

4. Get used to being comfortable being uncomfortable.

As you move through your days and your career, you will encounter many
situations that are new and puzzling. They’re likely to make you uncomfortable.
That’s okay. Take being uncomfortable as a challenge to find the best thing to do.

5. Use cultural tendencies as a starting point, but treat them as guidelines, not
rules.

There is a lot of cultural research out there, but I chose four cultural dimensions for
my book, The New Global Manager. Based on my experience, these are most likely
to influence your encounters in the workplace. The four dimensions are: thought
Patterns; time; communication style; and formality.

• Some people like to think about the results first and figure out how to reach
them second. Others like to have a more detailed plan in order to reach
outcomes. This is what is meant by thought patterns.

• There are two extreme dimensions with respect to time: Those who believe
deadlines and appointment times are flexible, and those who believe they
should be fixed.

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1. Success in understanding between cultures

• Communication style relates to how directly or indirectly a person

communicates. If your manager gives you feedback and it feels like a slap in
the face, this indicates a direct communication style. If you have trouble
understanding what the feedback is referring to exactly, this is an indirect
style.

• Formality dictates how people feel about and react to hierarchy. This is very
important to understand in order to establish credibility as a leader. Some
individuals feel a manager is should make all the decisions and deliver bad
news. Others feel managers are there simply to facilitate a team of experts
and should leave the solutions to the individual team members.

6. Expect to constantly be surprised by the way people behave.

As a global leader, you will always be in learning situations. Stay

curious. Investigate and ask questions. Take notes on what surprises you, what
you did and how things worked. Make notes about how to do things differently next
time. The best managers keep asking and learning for their entire lives.

In the modern era, almost all businesses are global.

MELISSA LAMSON

Lamson feels she is totally aligned with her life purpose in her career as a global
leadership consultant. She earned a Master’s degree in Intercultural Relations with
a specialization in Diversity Management. After three years at a training firm in
Boston, she moved to Europe, where she ran two companies focused on
intercultural training and diversity management. Since 1998, she has worked on
projects in over 40 countries. “I love what I do,” she says. “People implement what I

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1. Success in understanding between cultures

teach, and I get to see and hear from them years later. It is exciting to see others
as satisfied and happy with their professional and personal lives as I am.”

Not all companies and leaders understand the value of diversity and investing in
people development, however. Lamson says, “There are still many organizations
that assume a bunch of smart people will get things done. It’s true they will, but its
short-term thinking to believe they can sustain growth without investing in training
and development of their people. And with the advancement of technology,
empathy, social skills and the ability to influence will all be even more important for
individuals in organizations!”

Bibliography
Forbes. MeiMei Fox – Contributor. “6 Tips For Successful Leadership In The Global Era. Sep 6, 2018, 06:48am
EDT. Consulted [June/05/2020]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/meimeifox/2018/09/06/6-tips-for-successful-
leadership-in-the-global-era/#6fa55e53187f

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