Leading Culturally Diverse Teams
Effectively leading and managing culturally diverse teams in the workplace is an essential 21st Century skill. It is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have. Organisations have an increasingly diverse pool from which to recruit and are expected to reflect their diverse range of clients, customers and communities in their staff.
Aotearoa/New Zealand’s population and workplaces
First and foremost, Aotearoa/New Zealand is a bicultural country. And then within that, New Zealand is a multi-cultural nation. The latest 2023 Census results highlight New Zealand’s growing cultural diversity. One in three people were born overseas, with the Census recording more than 200 different birthplaces from around the world, and more than 150 languages spoken in New Zealand.
Auckland, already recognised as one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world, continues to be New Zealand’s most culturally diverse region – with nearly one in three Aucklanders having an Asian cultural background.
Māori, Asian, Pacific peoples and Middle Eastern, Latin American and African groups are the fastest growing population groups. These groups have young populations. This is important for how we develop our future workforce.
We are also part of a global world and workplace. Many organisations have colleagues and customers in different parts of the world and in different time zones.
Now, more than ever, in almost all Kiwi workplaces, the need for effective cross-cultural communication forms an integral part of doing business, no matter our cultural backgrounds.
Building Cultural Intelligence to lead culturally diverse teams
Building Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is a vital skill that plays a key role in getting the best from our interactions in any business or organisation, with an increasingly diverse range of colleagues, customers, business partners and other stakeholders. It is important that it is done well. Like Emotional Intelligence (EQ), CQ is a skill that can be developed.
‘We need leaders who don’t just shy away from difference, but gravitate towards it. They don’t see heterogeneity as threatening; they see it as creative, exciting, inspiring and enriching. They are the leaders with CQ. (CommonPurpose.org)
Opportunities and challenges
At times people may feel uncertain about how best to engage and interact with people from other cultures without causing offence. This is understandable and normal.
Everyone has a culture. Every workplace has a culture. They are deeply embedded and subconsciously influence how we communicate and interact with our workmates, colleagues, managers and customers.
Helping staff from diverse cultural backgrounds to connect effectively increases staff engagement levels, innovation and productivity and reduces staff turnover and absenteeism. Team members feel more valued, better appreciated, more highly motivated and more able to bring their best selves and do their best work.
The richness and creativity of the workplace is enhanced.
Safe, inclusive and appreciative approach
Talking about culture can be a very sensitive issue, because it taps into our deepest values and identity. Therefore, acknowledging that everyone has a culture and giving people an opportunity to explore their cultural influences in a curious, safe, inclusive and appreciative way, brings out the best in people. Often people have never thought about this and love the concepts that ‘We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are’, and ‘Fish can’t see water’.
Knowledge of ourselves first as (multi) cultural beings is fundamental before we can understand other people and lead culturally diverse teams well.
Understanding different cultural values and dimensions and how they are expressed in the workplace is key for all leaders and members of culturally diverse teams, eg understanding that for some cultures looking people in the eye is a sign of respect and for other cultures it can be a sign of disrespect.
Most importantly, having an opportunity to explore and deconstruct some real work scenarios is essential – reviewing what went well, what went wrong and what you would do differently in the future. It’s very revealing to dive beneath the surface and think about what different cultural values, dimensions and behaviours might be at play.
Leading culturally diverse teams versus homogenous teams
Well-managed homogenous teams out-perform diverse teams in the early forming and storming stages of team development, but well led and managed diverse teams out-perform homogenous teams in the later stages of norming and performing. So it can feel like more work and be harder to start with, but hang in there, do it well and you will reap the rewards.
Korn Ferry, The benefits of inclusive leadership
Authored by Trish and Holona Lui, two of our culture and diversity facilitators. If you would like some help with leading culturally diverse teams, contact Nicky on 021 133 1201 or info@odi.org.nz.