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How a leader must reframe their thinking when interacting with employees of different cultures.

The four areas of cultural intelligence mentioned by Cultural Intelligence for Leaders (2012) are: reframing, adaptive work, systems thinking, and consciousness.

Reframing helps a leader in intercultural efforts by promoting the adoption of multiple perspectives that results in increased mindfulness and decreased mindlessness. Of the many questions leaders should be asking the one that I find the most useful is: “what can I (we) learn from this relationship, and how can the learning move us toward our vision?” (Cultural Intelligence for Leaders, 2012, p. 188).

Adaptive work helps a leader in intercultural efforts by calling for identifying and reducing differences in values, beliefs, and behaviors within a group. By asking how our values impact interactions within the group, we can interpret feedbacks and challenge our behavioral portfolio to meet new contexts.

Systems thinking/Interdependency helps a leader in intercultural efforts by asking to clarify the individual passions and motivations in the context of the desired organizational outcome. This process helps understand the unique perspective that each individual bring to a role. The key question that our textbook mentions is “if we did not do this work, what would be lost?”

Consciousness helps a leader in intercultural efforts by increasing the awareness of dichotomies and opposites within groups, and by helping to strike a balance between them.  Consciousness brings awareness which leads to discover ours unbalances (Cultural Intelligence for Leaders, 2012).



When interacting with employees of different cultures, a leader should reframe thinking by putting himself in the employee's shoes and see issues from their perspective too.

Examine the different methods a leader can utilize adaptive work to adjust his/her thinking.

A leader can use adaptive work with employees of different cultures to think about how else he could behave. He could also use adaptive work to analyze previous experiences and transform them in learning opportunities.

How can leaders demonstrate interdependence when/while dealing with diverse cultures?

 A leader can demonstrate interdependency when dealing with diverse cultures by highlighting the personal and organizational benefits obtained by the job.

Discuss how being culturally conscious is important to the success of a leader.

Being culturally conscious helps a leader to be successful by understanding the distinguishable tract of his behaviors that may harm professional relationships.




References

Cultural Intelligence for Leaders. (2012). Saylor Academy. Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0.



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