Question

Discuss how the four areas of cultural intelligence aid a leader in understanding culture as well as intercultural efforts.

Answer 1

It is extremely important for a leader to be able to deal with cultural aspects and to be able to better understand how certain cultures work.

The culture of a nation, society or region has considerable relevance to the culture of organizations and, consequently, much of the success or failure of organizational programs and management method implementations may be associated with disregard of national traits.

Denying the fact may induce the individual (professional, researcher or scholar) to biased conclusions. By no means should the traits be given full importance, but disregarding them can be a mistake.

Thus, organizations are social institutions that have their history and develop their own culture, but considered part of a broader context of national culture.

The term cultural intelligence to determine this ability to interpret the foundations of cultural interactions, the development of attentive posture to these interactions, and the ability to adapt to different intercultural situations, while avoiding turning on 'autopilot'.