The Art of Leadership - Multi-cultural Teams

As we all move through the various stages of our lives, we absorb elements of the cultures within which we live.  These cultural influences can be due to religious beliefs; our race; our location (country, state, county, town…); whether we live in a city, town or in the country; our gender; our family; where we go to school or college… and so on.  They have a profound impact on how we think, how we behave and how we interact with others.  The best leaders I have worked with embrace these differences.

I once tried an experiment with a large group of professionals.  They were from many different countries.  I asked them all to consider the following situation:

“You discover that your best friend has killed someone.  Do you report them to the police?”

They were allowed to discuss amongst themselves but I told them that they could only answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.  Several asked if they could have the option of persuading their friend to hand themselves in but I said this was not an option as their friend had no intention of doing such a thing.  Whilst being far too small a sample to be statistically significant, the results were very interesting:

• The North American contingent voted overwhelmingly ‘Yes’, they would report their friend.

• The Southern European and Southern American contingents voted overwhelmingly ‘No’.

• The Northern European, Asian and Oceanic contingents were fairly evenly split ‘yes’ and ‘No’.

It was an interesting experiment and showed us all how much our cultural background might influence how we think and behave in different situations.  There was an Italian professional who said he would help his friend to bury the body!!!

The point of the experiment was to show that a leader needs to take time to understand as deeply as possible all their team members and what motivates them.  Without this knowledge, a leader may well not get the outcome they expected.