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Why cultural intelligence is important in corporate world?

            While interacting with employees of different cultures, leaders must reframe their thinking to be critical of who they value and ask to be part of the conversation and how they engage them. (cultural intelligence for leaders, 2012).
            According to Cultural intelligence for leaders(2012), reframing one’s thinking helps create a long-lasting relationship, relationships have the power to build trust and unity, therefore, it requires a shift from using the relation to achieve one’s or organizational goals to putting interest in learning from the relationship and the learning should be the one to move the organization/ individual to the desired vision, 
            Cultural intelligence forces leaders to be more adaptive to their surroundings (cultural intelligence for leaders, 2012), this means a culturally intelligent leader will have to change in his values, beliefs, and or behavior (adapting work), a leader in a foreign cultural context will have to lead through conflicting values held by different groups including his own values, beliefs and behavior. Thus, leaders are forced to understand and articulate what values drive their behaviors and attitudes, by challenging and questioning the deeper stories that give life to their belief systems and be courageous enough to give themselves a “reality check” for any dissonance surfacing between their beliefs and actions. (cultural intelligence for leaders, 2012).
            Culturally diverse leaders need to demonstrate that working with diverse cultural groups is more of an advantage than a challenge to organizational management and growth, by exploring their motivation, passion and personal journey, which can serve as a foundation for reaching the desired vision to create cultural awareness and understanding. A leader must further demonstrate to the subordinates that everyone has a unique contribution to the overall organization and that this contribution does count, this should be the basis to support a culturally inclusive environment. (cultural intelligence for leaders, 2012).
            In an intercultural World, what is required is cultural intelligence, however, a leader needs to be culturally conscious in order to counter balance the “would appear like opposing sides” of different cultural contexts, hence, a culturally conscious leader would have a view of such extreme cultural contexts as complementary for each other, for example individualistic Vs. Collectivist cultural context or high context Vs. low Context cultures, therefor, a culturally conscious leader will not struggle to search for what cultural cues are better than the other, rather finding the balance between the two. (cultural intelligence for leaders, 2012).

Reference:
Tom Verghese, 2016, February 2, the four components of Cultural Intelligence, retrieved October           26, 2018, from http://culturalsynergies.com/the-four-components-of-cultural-intelligence/
Cultural intelligent for leaders, 2012, Saylor academy, creative commons by -nc-sa 3.0. retrieved             October            26, 2018, from https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/325629/mod_page/content/5/BUS5211Textbook.            pdf

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