Why is Cross-Cultural Leadership so challenging?

Managing cross-cultural leadership challenges can be a complex task, requiring a deep understanding of diverse values, preferences, and communication styles.

At Gugin, we have been helping organizations navigate these challenges since 2001. Our expertise lies in bridging the gaps between different cultures, whether they stem from different professional backgrounds, age groups, nationalities, or departments.

One of the major challenges we often encounter is the unpredictability of behavior. Individuals from different cultures have varying definitions of key concepts, such as quality and timeliness, which can lead to conflicting priorities. For example, when outsourcing IT projects, tensions can arise if one party prioritises delivering on time while the other focuses on perfection. This divergence in values can cause frustration and misunderstandings.

However, by cultivating cultural intelligence and understanding the underlying values, we can find solutions that leverage the richness of diverse perspectives. Compromising values is another significant issue in cross-cultural leadership. Our behavior reflects our values, and clashes arise when others’ actions challenge our own. However, rather than judging which cultural norms are right or wrong, it is essential to reconcile these differences in business dealings. To do so, we emphasize the importance of understanding your own culture and conducting thorough cultural due diligence.

While managing diverse teams may present challenges, it also offers great rewards. By developing cultural intelligence and fostering an inclusive environment, organizations can harness the full potential of multicultural teams. At Gugin, we help align corporate culture with strategy, guide organizations through change, and cultivate the cultural intelligence necessary for success. Join the more than 600 companies worldwide we have assisted in creating winning corporate cultures.

Cross-Cultural Leadership definition

If you google cross-cultural leadership you will find thousands of definitions We like to stick with this definition

We don’t want to go into a long discussion about the differences between leadership and management here.

 Unpredictable behaviour in Cross-Cultural Leadership

We all have different values, different priorities in life and different understanding of what each word means. Quality, for example, is by some people associated with delivering on time, while others associate it with being perfect, beautiful or robust. We always say we want the highest quality delivered on time, but we all know that reality often is very different. We have to compromise. We have to either deliver an 80% solution on time or give up delivering on time. The cross-cultural leadership challenge is that we have different preferences for what is important.

Example: IT outsourcing

We have worked with quite a few clients who were frustrated about that the companies they had outsourced their IT development project too. The frustration related to cross-cultural leadership develops if the company prioritises delivering on time while the company they have outsourced to prioritises perfection over delivering on time. Both values are important but when you can’t achieve both you have to prioritise. From a cross-cultural leadership perspective, this is very challenging. We assume we prioritise the same way, understand words like “quality” the same way and communicate the same way. But we don’t.

So suddenly we experience other people behave and prioritise in ways we don’t understand. If we are less experienced with these cross-cultural challenges we get frustrated maybe even angry. If we have a higher level of cultural intelligence we assess the differences in the underlying values and will try to reconcile these differences and find a solution that enriches having different value sets in play.

 Compromising values

Our behaviour is closely linked to our underlying values and norms. As we have different norms and values because of differences in cultures leads to different behaviours. According to ourselves we always behave properly because our behaviour always reflects our own values – even when we do something cruel. Cultural clashes happen when other people’s behaviour compromises our own values. It happens all the time. You may have a value about giving up your seat on the bus to an elderly man, while others do not share that value. When an elderly person comes on the bus and no one gives him a seat you will feel offended – because your values are compromised.

Some years ago I moved from Denmark to southern France. I use to have a coffee at the same cafe every morning when walking the dog. In the beginning, I noticed that the regulars got a small Pain Au Chocolat together with their coffee, while I just got the coffee. I could feel offended. Why do they get better treatment than me – we are all equal. At least that is how the cultural norms are in Denmark. Everyone is treated equally bad and no one should think he is somebody special. In France it is different and that is one of the reasons why I love living here. By coming to the same cafe often you build a relationship and you show loyalty. That loyalty is rewarded with a small Pain Au Chocolat together with your coffee. If I was not aware of the differences in the underlying values, I could have made a scene ( what some tourists do sometimes). There are different values in different cultures and we are not to judge which ones are right. They are all right in the cultural frame, where they exist.

In business dealing with compromising values is an important issue to reconcile. As I wrote before – norms and values are closely tied to a culture. The norms and values you have in your organisation support your corporate culture, so when you employ new people, outsource to external companies or hire in-house subcontractors you have to make sure that they share your norms and values.

How do you check norms and values?

First, you have to be very aware of your own culture. In Gugin we call that the cultural DNA and we describe that Cultural DNA through our Cultural Due Diligence Process which goes through all the elements of your culture and make the diffuse term “culture” more tangible by looking at all the measurable elements in the cultural DNA.

 Difficult to perform as a manager

Many of the managers we talk to find cross-cultural leadership annoying and difficult.  Managing cultural diverse groups, because decision processes take much longer time, you have to explain everything and you never know what is going to happen. The managers don’t respond this way because they are narrow-minded or don’t acknowledge that we are living in a globalised world.

They respond this way because they find it difficult to perform well as a manager in that situation because they lack skills and experience in cross-cultural leadership. The managers have to meet deadlines, deliver high quality within the budgets. They can only do that in a multicultural environment if they know how to manage, motivate, encourage and communicate with a team of people with many different values. That is why developing cultural intelligence is crucial for most organisations.

Managing a culturally diverse team is like eating with a knife and a fork. They are two very distinct tools, but because you have the cultural intelligence that enables you to use the knife in one way and the fork in another – at the same time you can eat a huge variety of food.

Cross-Cultural Leadership explained

As annoying it might be working with a diverse group of people it is equally rewarding when you succeed and you experience how much better multicultural teams are when all the members understand the basic elements of cultural intelligence.