In today's interconnected world, and with the rise of remote work, how to lead a global team has become a common challenge for many leaders. From onboarding, and offering the right benefits, to getting the most from global teams (remotely and otherwise) – managing an international team takes effort. While challenging, it is also rewarding.
As companies expand their operations beyond borders, it is crucial for leaders to adapt their leadership styles to new cultural norms. Global diversity is an advantage and an unbeatable force with the right leadership. This is key to improving the productivity of your international teams and succeeding in global business.
There are many common challenges leaders face when managing global teams. This may include streamlining different ways of communicating to varying degrees or interpretations of respect and authority. For example, communication in Brazil, even in the workplace, tends to be more informal. Business culture and etiquette can vary vastly from country to country, and continent to continent. With globalization, the differences will become more apparent.
For example, in East Asia, there is a strong culture of hierarchy (particularly in China) that does not exist as strongly elsewhere in the world, especially in highly egalitarian societies like the Netherlands. However, culture can converge and bring out the best in teams with diverse cultures, experiences, and skills across the world.
Are you a team leader managing an international team? Let’s explore the importance of understanding and embracing cultural differences when leading a global team. Here are some practical tips for adapting your leadership style to effectively manage, build connections with, and encourage team members from diverse backgrounds.
What is Cultural Intelligence?
Before we go any further, let’s explore what cultural intelligence means since this is a key concept for adapting leadership styles to new cultural norms.
Cultural intelligence, otherwise known as cultural quotient (CQ), is a term coined by professors Christopher Early and Soon Ang. It is the ability to adapt and understand cultural settings. Cultural intelligence is just as important as emotional intelligence when managing an international team.
In fact, they are both related, but cultural intelligence takes emotional intelligence a little further. High emotional intelligence helps managers empathize, but high cultural intelligence allows managers to identify similar or different features and use this knowledge to lead.
People with high CQ aren’t culture experts. Instead, they are people with the skills to adapt to new environments with confidence. This helps people recognize and respect cultural norms and differences. Based on environmental observations, they are also able to identify similar cultural influences within a group and make informed decisions for themselves or their global teams to unify people. While these influences are nuanced and can be complex, they are often interconnected.
Culture can also go beyond countries and continents – people with high CQ are able to identify differences in intergenerational or company culture too. Simply put, these are people who don’t make assumptions or generalizations based on one aspect of someone’s identity. They observe and make decisions from there. They can interpret unfamiliar gestures without judgment. After all, every individual is different!
Key Components of Cultural Intelligence
According to Harvard Business Review, there are three components to CQ. This includes:
Head
This is the knowledge and understanding to acquire or improve one’s cultural intelligence. While observation and research are important, the head also consists of developing strategies to gather information on unfamiliar cultures to tackle points of entry into new cultures (the most difficult part!).
The work isn’t over, leaders with high CQ also work hard to recognize shared understandings. This will help leaders make better and more informed decisions and improve communication.
Body
This is the act of translating cultural information into actions that make sense to people from other cultures. These actions are an extension of your understanding. From the way you shake someone's hands to how you say ‘thank you’, these mannerisms or customs show how willing you are, as a leader, to adopt and adapt to team members from other cultural backgrounds. This is especially helpful for forming meaningful connections!
Heart
This is the ability to make honest mistakes and to keep improving in tackling new and ambiguous cultural situations. There will always be obstacles when you are adapting to a new culture, but the key is to persevere through challenges and grow in confidence and understanding. No leader is perfect, leaders are learning too.
To adapt your leadership style to new cultural norms, you should integrate all three components into your management approaches for global teams. When managing an international team, it is important not to make quick judgments and assume based on stereotypes. These are poor fallbacks.
Instead, interpret cultural settings with care and intention and adjust your behavior based on your observations. This will help you serve your customers better and work alongside other managers, your team members, and anyone who is different from you! Having cultural awareness will help leaders avoid cross-cultural faux pas.
The Impact of Cultural Differences on Leadership
Great leadership looks very or a little different in various cultures and countries. That’s why it’s important to understand the impact of cultural differences on leadership and incorporate these learnings into your management approaches for global teams. There’s never been a time when cultural intelligence could not be more important!
Despite some universal core ingredients, successful global leadership requires localization that is culture-specific. Culture impacts important aspects of leadership such as decision-making and communication style. Plus, every team member will be different, so you'll need a variety of approaches to embrace your entire team.
Understanding Cultural Differences
In follow-the-leader cultures, such as China, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and more, strong leadership is based on consensus and overcoming threats.
In more flexible cultures, such as in Germany, Scandinavia and most of the West, strong leadership is based on ambition and finding creative ways to solve a problem or reach a goal.
Asian countries such as Malaysia and Singapore have cultures that are closer to this than their Northeast counterparts.
Communication can look different, too. In the former, communication tends to be more straightforward and direct. Meanwhile, in the latter, communication is more friendly and there is a bigger work culture of checking in with your team. This is not only important to team dynamics, but also for potential promotions.
Knowing this, you can adapt your leadership style when leading teams from various countries and cultures. Understanding cultural differences is essential to accommodating them and adapting your leadership to new cultural norms when leading global teams.
Overcoming Language and Communication Barriers
Language and communication don’t need to be a barrier when managing an international team. Effective communication can help global teams work well together. Leaders can establish a manual on how to communicate effectively such as a ‘How to Work With Me’ Manual.
To make communication as simple as possible in cross-cultural global teams, make sure to use clear and concise language, especially in meetings, emails, and instant messaging. Avoiding idioms, jargon, and complex language structures. This helps everyone on the team get on the same page. You may also want to have important meetings and documents in multiple languages. This will prevent misunderstandings.
During the hiring process, it’s also essential to understand the level of language proficiency of your future staff. While a simple interview might be enough, you can also include language assessments as part of the interview process to ensure a good fit for your team.
If you find the perfect person for a given role, but their language skills need improvement, you can offer language training. This can be a great employee benefit and an opportunity to bring on skilled talent no matter where they are from. Make sure to tailor such training programs to business language.
Netflix: Reed Hastings & Global Leadership
Reed Hastings, for example, has famously discussed the cultural challenges Netflix has faced as it grew internationally and established offices all around the world. Today, there are Netflix offices in over 190 countries in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Netflix has even branched out to produce non-English content, which requires cultural diversity within its organization.
Hastings took a give-and-take approach to all things Netflix, sticking to his core values of accountability and autonomy while accommodating cultural differences. From his international work experience, he was able to identify key differences between the countries he hired from and the Netflix culture.
For example, the HR team at Netflix noted that in countries like Japan, feedback was provided differently than in Singapore. By taking notice of cultural nuances, even in similar societies such as these, Netflix was able to grow. Hastings understood the need to develop different feedback systems to accommodate cultural differences without losing the company’s values.
Adapting Your Leadership Style to Lead Global Teams
So, how can you lead global teams successfully? First of all, you should ask yourself – what kind of leader are you? You can take the DiSC personality assessment to figure this out. It’s important to know what your leadership style is before adapting.
However, no matter what your leadership style is, to adapt your leadership style to new cultural norms when managing an international team, leaders must embrace diversity in the workplace and in leadership. There are many benefits to diverse perspectives and skills. When done right, it can fuel innovation and boost productivity, but how? Here are five management approaches for global teams.
- Create an Inclusive Work Environment
To successfully lead a global team, leaders should build a diverse and inclusive work environment that allows employees from all over the world to thrive. To create one, start at your organization's roots by creating a diversity policy. This should aim to achieve the goals you want to achieve as an inclusive organization.
You an also improve diversity and inclusion within your organization by hiring diversely and using data-driven HR tools. Your day-to-day operations should also be inclusive. For example, flexible work arrangements have been proven to promote diversity in the workplace. Also, make sure that your benefits packages are tailored to various types of lifestyles and individuals.
- Recognizing and rewarding diverse contributions
Being open to new ideas and approaches is important when leading a global team. Use your team’s diversity of cultures, skills, and thought processes to your company’s advantage.
Create a space where your team can share ideas openly and allow for cross-cultural events at the same time so teammates can better understand one another. Analyze and identify your team’s strongest advantages and leverage those. At the same time, identify cultural similarities in work and beyond to align your global team.
Strong global leadership also recognizes what employees from different countries and cultures consider as feedback and rewards. Some cultures appreciate constant and informal feedback. Meanwhile, other cultures don’t have a feedback system at all.
It’s important to create feedback systems that work, as seen in Netflix! Make sure you create a strong performance management strategy for your global team. From performance management platforms like MyZenTeam and Culture Amp to instant messaging or productivity platforms like Slack, leverage technology to manage performance and productivity.
Similarly, some cultures value salary increases more, whereas in India in particular, titles tend to be more important. Understanding this helps you as a leader recognize and reward employees accordingly and meet the diverse needs of your team to retain them, especially their individual goals. You can also tailor mentorship or career development programs at your organization accordingly.
- Adjusting communication and decision-making styles
When leaders communicate effectively by adjusting their communication and decision-making styles no matter what their leadership style is, they can build trust and relationships within their organization. Active listening and empathy are also important to building trust and resolving conflicts efficiently. This fosters a sense of belonging and loyalty.
Going back to the three components of cultural intelligence. When you adjust your communication and decision-making styles as a leader, you are showing your employees that you are willing to adopt and adapt to their culture. This encourages them to do the same. Adapting also ensures that your team is on the same page as you which is critical for effective leadership when managing an international team.
- Cultural sensitivity training and open spaces
Additionally, to better adapt your leadership style to new cultural norms, you could undergo and provide cultural sensitivity training to nurture relationships across cultures. This helps to improve cultural awareness at every level of your global organization and how to best address cultural differences, especially in communication and conflict styles. This cultural sensitivity training could help to streamline and align company culture and improve communication and productivity, too.
Moreover, you can create spaces for employees to share their culture. This is possible even if they are not based in the same office space or time zone. An approach could be as simple as having a Slack channel or team meetings where employees share their traditions, holidays, food, music, and more. It’s important to celebrate diversity when you are managing an international team.
- Leveraging cultural strengths
Leverage cultural strengths by getting to know your employees. From understanding their backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, values, and goals to how things are done in their culture, leaders can learn how to improve processes.
For example, Japan’s work culture of organization and continuous improvement helps its workforce be innovative and productive. Meanwhile, in Germany, self-care is important for workforce productivity. When you are thinking about work-life balance and work hours, you can take into account what works in each culture and decide how to lead your global team.
When leaders leverage cultural strengths, they can better meet the needs of their global team. Leaders can also better appreciate their employees’ contributions, respect their differences, and identify their potential when they leverage cultural strengths.
Project Management Tools for Global Teams
While adapting your leadership style to new cultural norms is important when managing an international team, managing projects and making sure your team delivers results on time is also important. What project management system or project management tools do you have to keep track of your projects?
There are many project management software options out there. Whether you are starting from scratch or currently looking for an alternative, here are some recommendations.
- Asana
Asana is a project management software that helps assign tasks, define workflows, and set objectives. You can create a project plan and set deadlines in multiple views. Asana works with 200+ other tools, like Slack and Google Drive.
- Trello
Trello is a project management tool that uses boards to manage programs and tasks. You can add comments, attachments, and task due dates. Trello also has Power-Ups to customize boards and automate processes according to your team’s needs. Trello has over 350+ integrations.
- Monday.com
Monday.com is a project management system for a global team, especially a sales team. Monday.com has products for sales, marketing, and work management. Developers can also use Monday.com to track bugs. Monday.com can integrate with 70+ tools.
- JIRA
JIRA is an agile project management solution for software and product teams. You can track bugs and issues, manage the project lifecycle, and automate workflows. You can customize these processes to how you want and need to complete tasks.
- Notion
Notion is an extremely flexible project management tool. From ready-to-use templates, and storing documents to creating roadmaps or project plans, to-do lists, and Kanban boards, Notion can help your global team track tasks and manage projects from end to end.
Lead with Confidence and Borderless
Leading global teams requires leaders to adapt their leadership styles to new cultural norms. By understanding and embracing cultural differences, leaders can effectively manage and motivate team members from diverse backgrounds. Flexibility, adaptability, effective communication, building trust, and overcoming challenges are key elements in successfully leading a global team.
By embracing diversity and leveraging cultural strengths, leaders can create an inclusive work environment that fosters collaboration and drives success. Borderless can help tailor benefits to your global teams. Recognize and reward your global teams with Borderless. Speak to us today.
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