Cooking together is a great way to increase cultural understanding and lower cultural friction in a multicultural team

Leading Multicultural team – the 5 Best things to do

by Finn Majlergaard | 29. Mar, 2025 | Blog, Article

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Making your multicultural team happy and motivated is difficult. If the group is very diverse it might seem almost impossible - but it is not - read on

Are you one of those people who always feel responsible for other people not feeling comfortable? Or have you realised that you for professional reasons need to have a team that works well together despite all the differences of the individual members? Most likely you are a combination of the two plus a lot more.

This article is about the best things you can do for your multicultural team irrespectively of your motivation for wanting your team members to work well together.

What are the challenges for multicultural teams?

Some of the most common challenges we identify when we assess a multicultural team are misunderstandings and misinterpretations. We often think we are on the same page when we use the same words, but that is often far from reality. We often use the word "Quality". Try to ask all your team members or colleagues to define the word "Quality" and see what happens. Even if it is a homogenous group of people you will get very different definitions of "Quality". When we communicate with other people we instinctively assume they have the same definition as ourselves. It is not until later we discover that there have been some misunderstandings. Often we don't realise it is a misunderstanding. Instead, we blame other people for not listening, being stupid or running away from agreements. A conflict is born!

You can minimise the risks of ending up in that unfortunate situation by adopting a few new habits that will make your life in a multicultural team easier and hopefully increase the satisfaction level among all the team members.

There is one quality you and the other team members must possess in order to become a successful multicultural team. And that is cultural intelligence. We have a thorough test for individuals and teams but you can have a teaser here to test yourself

Best things you can do for your multicultural team

  1. Focus on - and promote commonalities
    You always have a choice whether you want to focus on the differences or the commonalities when being together with other people. Our brain is quite biased. We think we are in control, but that is just an illusion. When for instance we fall in love we focus on all the things and values we have in common with that other person. When years later we are going to divorce that same person we focus on all the things and values where we are different from that other person.
    Being in a team is a constant challenge that requires us to focus on the commonalities all the time. The reason for that is that when you start by focusing on the commonalities it is much easier to overcome the differences afterwards. When you focus on the commonalities in a group it helps to create trust. Trust is a fundamental necessity when you need to overcome challenges in a group.
  2. Ask: What do you mean by...
    Teams are often under immense time pressure but it is important to make sure that the team members are on the same page communication-wise. If the team have members from different nationalities we are usually aware that misunderstandings can happen because of differences in languages. But if your team members speak the same language but come with different professional, organisational, educational or personal backgrounds there is an equally good chance that you will end up in cultural misunderstandings. But because you all speak the same language you will assume you are culturally aligned too, which of course isn't the case.
    That is why it is a good habit always to ask for clarification even if you think you know what the other person means.
  3. Do social things together
    Your role in a team gets fixed very easily - even if you try not to. Other team members will quickly discover your strengths and weaknesses in the team and bring you into play where your strengths can be most useful. The problem is that the image we have of other team members strengths and weaknesses is usually wrong or at least not completely. But because you are all busy achieving whatever your team is meant to achieve you don't have time to evaluate if you are utilising your team members' resources in the best possible way.
    It is therefore very important that you do things together where you can take on new roles. It can be anything like cooking together, overcoming a group challenge in a different setting e.g. nature, play theatre together. The list is endless. The important thing is to get out of your professional comfort zone so you can show other aspects of your personality and new talents. In Gugin we have arranged a lot of such events for our clients ranging from cooking challenges to via ferrata in the Alps to survival trips in the Borneo Rainforest. It doesn't have to be extreme to be successful.
    You can read more about how to resolve cultural conflicts in multicultural teams here.
  4. Don't stereotype - because stereotypes don't exist
    It is easy to stereotype on other people and in the cross-cultural area, there is a lot of literature and consultants who are promoting stereotypes because it is easy to sell and fuels our idea about the world being simple and manageable. But it is wrong. It is wrong because we are far more complex than that. We stereotype on nationalities, religions, professions, genders, sexual orientations, etc. usually with the purpose of establishing a "them" versus "us" relationship. It is a fundamental attribute to all cultures as we largely define ourselves by who we are not.
    It might seem harmless and fun when we in a multicultural team joke about other team members nationality, religion, profession, sexual orientation etc. And there is no problem as long as everybody sees it the same way and agree that it is ok.
    It is not ok when you try to wipe out someone because of the factors above. We all have at least 10 different identities, and we decide which of these identities we choose to flash at a given point in time. Just because we have an identity doesn't mean it means a lot - especially not if it is an identity we haven't chosen ourselves e.g. nationality, gender, race, etc. We have therefore no right to impose the importance of any identity on anyone.
    You can read more about the dangers of stereotyping here
  5. Be open to different ways of doing things
    One of the best ways to make team members feel included is to let them climb beyond their role and let them contribute with something more and bigger. But that requires that you and other team members are open to new suggestions even if what you have today works. The old saying "If it works don't fix it" doesn't apply here. Just because things work doesn't mean they can't work better. In a complex world like ours, it is unlikely that the status quo is the best solution. So use the diversity in your team to experiment with new ways of doing things - just because you can.
    One of the things you have to become good at is managing exceptions in a multicultural team. You can read more about that here

 

 

 

Dr Finn Majlergaard
Dr Finn Majlergaard

CEO Gugin, Professor, Author, Keynote Speaker, Author

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Top 5 challenges for managers

I just say things as they are…

I just say things as they are – is a phrase we often hear. It reveals that the person saying it has very low cultural and emotional intelligence

What separates a good leader from one who truly moves people? Research — and decades of cultural intelligence practice — point to one word: charisma. And unlike talent, charisma can be learned.

In 1979, Warner Records refused to send Prince on tour. Not because of his music — they knew he was exceptional — but because he lacked charisma. He couldn't yet move an audience. Fast forward one year, and Prince had transformed himself into one of the most commanding performers in the history of popular music. He didn't wait for charisma to arrive. He worked at it, systematically, studying and adopting the techniques of the performers he admired.

That story is not just about rock and roll. It is a precise metaphor for leadership. At Gugin, we have spent over two decades helping leaders across cultures and industries make exactly this kind of transformation — not by telling them to "be more confident," but by equipping them with concrete, learnable strategies rooted in emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, and communication science.

 

Why Most Charisma Advice Fails

The most common advice leaders receive about charisma is frustratingly vague: project confidence, be warm, be present. These qualities do matter. But they are nearly impossible to "just do" on command, especially under pressure, across cultures, or in unfamiliar organisational contexts.

Research by Professor John Antonakis and his colleagues at the University of Lausanne Business School has shown that charisma is not a personality trait reserved for the few — it is a set of communicative behaviours that can be identified, taught, and practised. In their studies, randomly selected middle managers who underwent structured charisma training were subsequently rated by peers and subordinates as more charismatic, more competent, and more trustworthy. The training worked.

At Gugin, we have built on this science and gone further — weaving it together with emotional intelligence (EQ) and cultural intelligence (CQ) to create a leadership development approach that is both evidence-based and globally applicable.

The Nine Charismatic Behaviours — And What They Really Require

The Antonakis research identifies nine concrete charismatic leadership tactics: using metaphors and stories, showing moral conviction, expressing shared feelings, setting high expectations, using contrast and rhetorical questions, using lists, and animating communication with body language. These are the building blocks. But building blocks need a foundation — and that foundation is emotional and cultural intelligence.

Take metaphors, for example. A metaphor is only powerful if it resonates with the audience. In Gugin's cross-cultural leadership programmes, leaders quickly discover that a metaphor drawn from American sports culture may fall flat in a team from Northern Europe, and that a story invoking individual heroism may alienate a collectivist audience in East Asia. The charismatic tactic is the same; the cultural calibration is everything.

The same applies to moral conviction. Appealing to shared values is one of the most potent charismatic tools a leader has. But whose values? Which moral frameworks? A leader operating across multiple cultural contexts must understand that concepts like fairness, loyalty, duty, and hierarchy carry profoundly different weight in different cultures. High cultural intelligence — the ability to read, respect, and adapt to cultural difference — is what allows a leader to express genuine moral conviction that actually connects rather than alienates.

Emotional Intelligence: The Inner Architecture of Charisma

Charisma without emotional grounding is performance. It can work in the short term, but it rarely sustains trust. The leaders Gugin works with are taught to understand that emotional intelligence is not a soft supplement to charismatic leadership — it is its inner architecture.

Consider the tactic of expressing shared feelings. Antonakis identifies this as key: when a leader says "I feel the same uncertainty you do, and here is how I am holding it," they build identification and trust. But this requires real self-awareness. Leaders must be able to name and regulate their own emotional states before they can credibly reflect the emotions of others. In Gugin's programmes, we invest significant time in developing exactly this capacity — helping leaders identify their emotional triggers, understand how their inner states broadcast outward, and build the emotional vocabulary needed to communicate with authenticity.

Empathy — a core dimension of emotional intelligence — also directly underpins several charismatic behaviours. Setting high expectations while simultaneously communicating belief in others (another of the Antonakis tactics) requires a leader who genuinely sees the potential in the people around them. That kind of seeing is empathic. It cannot be faked over time. When Prince produced the band The Time for Warner Brothers, he did not simply demand excellence — he made each member believe they were capable of more than they thought. That is emotionally intelligent leadership in action.

Cultural Intelligence: Charisma That Travels

One of the most important — and most overlooked — dimensions of charismatic leadership in today's world is its cultural portability. A leader who is magnetic in one cultural context may be perceived as arrogant, shallow, or inappropriate in another. This is not a flaw in those audiences. It is a signal that charisma, like all communication, is culturally embedded.

Gugin's work in over 60 countries has shown us that the nine charismatic tactics are universal in their structure but must be culturally adapted in their expression. Rhetorical questions, for instance, invite participation and create anticipation — but their delivery must match the power-distance norms of the audience. In high-hierarchy cultures, a rhetorical question from a senior leader may silence a room rather than energise it. In low-hierarchy cultures, it may spark exactly the engagement intended. Cultural intelligence tells the leader which dynamic they are working in, and how to adjust.

Similarly, the use of storytelling — one of the most powerful charismatic tools — varies enormously across cultures in terms of what stories are appropriate, how direct or indirect they should be, and what kinds of protagonists resonate. Gugin teaches leaders to build a culturally diverse repertoire of stories and to develop the sensitivity to know which story belongs in which room.

How Gugin Trains Charismatic Leaders

Gugin's leadership development programmes integrate the science of charismatic communication with structured development in emotional and cultural intelligence. The process is iterative and experiential, not theoretical.

Leaders begin by gaining honest self-awareness: understanding how they are currently perceived, what emotional signals they project under pressure, and how their default communication style reads across cultures. This foundation phase often surfaces important blind spots — the technically brilliant executive who speaks too abstractly to inspire, the empathetic manager whose conflict-avoidance reads as a lack of conviction.

From there, leaders move into skill-building: practising charismatic communication tactics in safe, structured environments with real feedback. They learn to craft metaphors that carry cultural resonance, to tell personal stories that build connection without oversharing, to use contrast and rhetorical structure to sharpen their message. They receive coaching on non-verbal communication — the body language, vocal variety, and presence that Antonakis identifies as essential to bringing charisma alive.

Finally, leaders apply these skills in live contexts, with coaching support, and receive 360-degree feedback that tracks their progress. This mirrors the approach Antonakis found to be effective — group training combined with individual coaching — and embeds it within the broader cultural and emotional intelligence framework that makes the development durable and globally relevant.

Charisma as a Leadership Responsibility

There is a deeper point worth making. Charisma is not about making yourself more impressive. At its best, it is about making others feel seen, energised, and capable of more than they believed. It is about communicating in a way that bridges difference, builds shared purpose, and creates the conditions for people to do their best work.

In a world where leaders must navigate unprecedented complexity — technological disruption, geopolitical volatility, multi-generational and multicultural workforces — the ability to communicate with clarity, conviction, and emotional resonance is not optional. It is a strategic capability.

Prince didn't work on his charisma because he wanted to be famous. He worked on it because he knew, instinctively, that the music mattered — and that without the ability to connect, the music would never reach the people it was meant for.

The same is true of leadership. The work matters. Charisma is what carries it across.

 

About Gugin  |  Gugin is a global advisory firm specialising in cultural and emotional intelligence. We help organisations build the leadership capability to thrive in a complex, multicultural world. Learn more at www.gugin.com

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