Chapter 2: Cultural Competence for Leaders
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Emotional intelligence means that you understand yourself and others. This includes three
components: emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment, and self-confidence. These
are important because:
a. You must be able to handle other people well; be able to give others realistic
evaluations of their weaknesses; and you must be able to improve yourself.
Like emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence (CQ) has certain aspects that deal with self-
awareness and other-awareness. A person with strong cultural intelligence specifically can:
a. Be smart about how to communicate with others who are different from them because
they never know when the other person will become upset.
The Cultural Sense-Making Model is made up of three steps:
Frank Mitchell is a US businessman who was sent to Mexico to head up a manufacturing facility
based largely upon his tenure with the company and his success as an accountant. Upon arrival
in Mexico, he assumed that it would be “business as usual” (that everything would be the
same) since he had previous success with his employees back in the US. However, Frank found
it increasingly difficult to adjust to the culture and the work values of his team in Mexico—his
superficial knowledge of Mexican culture based upon previous language study in high school,
trips to Puerto Vallarta, and enjoying Mexican cuisine was certainly not enough. Frank needed
to adjust because he was looking at this from an ____________ perspective.
a. altruistic
Enculturation is the process whereby we learn the ways and manners of the other culture and
reconcile it to our culture.
Regarding our discussion of the Cultural Sense-Making Model, we have little control over what
script we select—that is why we need to develop intercultural competency.
A US consultant recently complained that he was having difficulty getting several Japanese–
American joint ventures off the ground because the CEOs of the American companies kept
sending junior executives to Japan to meet with the CEOs of the Japanese companies. This was
insulting to the Japanese businesspeople, who responded by sending their own junior
executives to the meetings, and nothing was getting done. In this particular instance, why was
this insulting to the Japanese?
d. Japanese people were insulted by the Americans because they did not understand
protocol.
The president of Leila Amari’s firm asked her, as VP of the marketing division, and her staff
(three males younger than she) to set up and close an important contract with a Saudi firm. He
thought that his choice was especially good since Leila (a Jordanian American from California)
knew the industry well and could also speak Arabic. As she and her staff were being introduced,
Leila noticed a quizzical look on Mr. Al-Masri’s face and heard him repeat “VP of Marketing” to
his assistant in an unsure manner. After Leila had presented the merits of the strategy in Arabic,
referring to notes provided by her staff, she asked Mr. Al-Masri what he thought. He responded
by saying that he needed to discuss some things further with the head of her department. Leila
explained that was why she was there. Mr. Al-Masri smiled politely and replied that she had
done an especially good job of explaining, but that he wanted to talk things over with the
person in charge. Beginning to be frustrated, Leila stated that she had authority for her
company. Mr. Al-Masri glanced at his assistant, still smiling, and he asked the assistant to
arrange for him to meet with Leila at another time. Why did Mr. Al-Masri hesitate to close the
deal?
a. He did not really believe that she was actually telling the truth about who she was—how
could a woman be in charge?
Whether you work abroad or at home, chances are you interact with a variety of people from
diverse backgrounds and beliefs. Therefore, we all need to develop:
d. mindfulness, responsiveness, and understanding
The first three phases of the Developmental Model of Intercultural Communication reject
understanding cultural difference. One of these phases, minimization, means that there is:
a. No perception of difference at all.