And what to do about it.

We all learn differently. I love to read and I recently discovered the joy of audiobooks as a way to keep myself entertained on a long car journey.

If you’re like me, you have probably got a list somewhere with an ever-growing list of books to consume, whether that’s to improve your professional skills, to grow as a leader or even to tackle what you feel is blocking you from living your best life.

(That last one might be because so many people are recommending ‘The Let Them Theory’ by Mel Robbins to me right now.)

But something that David Livermore, the author of ‘Leading with Cultural Intelligence’ keeps saying is making me think differently about what I’m reading.

“90 per cent of leadership content is designed for leading people with individualist, egalitarian values. Yet 70 per cent of the global workforce is collectivist and prefers more directive leadership.”

So, what’s the problem?

Essentially, most of the magazine articles and books you might be reading (or listening to) are based on and designed for cultures and individuals who value individual goals, success and rights. Individualists may work independently and are generally more task-oriented.

In contrast, collectivists often base their identity on who they belong to, whether that’s their family or their team. They value consultation and prioritize building relationships, usually for the long term. Working with them means focusing on consultation and consensus building.

Now think about how you might lead or manage these two very different approaches to work and understanding of success.  Collectivists may think that individuals are just out for themselves and don’t care about their colleagues. Individualists may assume that collectivists are too busy worrying about people’s feelings to get anything done and don’t have enough ‘drive’.

Leadership and communications approaches that focus on individual reward, success and motivation aren’t going to be effective with collectivist employees.

And to complicate things further, much of our leadership content is a bit WEIRD – that’s Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic – and so it may focus on approaches and advice that work in this type of cultural context, but that may not translate into different cultural situations.

And because human beings are messy, these ideas of collectivism and individualism are on a messy continuum. Very few of us are entirely one or the other, and while individualism may be seen more in countries like the UK and the US, and collectivism has traditionally been seen more in China, we need to be careful to avoid making assumptions based on anyone’s national background.

Does this mean you should stop reading?

No!

It does mean we all need to read more critically, asking ourselves what assumptions authors and organisations are making about cultural values, and whether this approach or advice will work in every cultural context.

Spoiler alert: it won’t.

Here are some questions to ask yourself as you start your next read:

1.      What evidence or stories does the author use to support their argument? If everything they are referencing is from the same country or countries with similar cultural values, you might need to think about how well their ideas will work in other cultural contexts.

2.      Are there any risks to taking this approach in different cultural contexts? The focus on vulnerability in leadership is a good example of a leadership approach that may not translate, depending on how you demonstrate it. In cultures where leaders are meant to be almost beyond reproach and where employees don’t like any uncertainty, admitting to your mistakes may cause a total crisis of confidence in your leadership.

3.      What perspectives are missing from this content? This is always a good question to ask when you hear ‘global research’ cited – make sure you look at where respondents came from and where they didn’t. While a person’s place of residence doesn’t determine their cultural values, it gives us an idea of potential WEIRD-ness in the data.

This is why building your Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is so important. It will help you better recognise these issues and then adapt your leadership and communications to suit your cultural context, and to help teams which include both individualists and collectivists perform more effectively, and with less time in conflict with each other. Adapting like this doesn’t mean that you compromise who you are, just perhaps how you express it.

For more on this, David Livermore’s blog on Leadership Advice You Should Ignore is a great resource.

Or drop me a note for a free virtual cuppa and chat about Cultural Intelligence and the impact of understanding cultural values. You can message me on LinkedIn or email me at sarah@athrucommunications.com