Archive for category: Uncategorized

We all know who they are – those narcissists who seem to rise quickly in organizations only to crash and burn eventually. We can point to failed corporate leaders such as Bob Nardelli of Home Depot, Tony Hayward of BP and Ken Lay of Enron as prime examples of such leaders. However, others point to leaders like Steve Jobs and Jack Welch, who are seen by some as narcissistic and yet have led their companies to great success. So how do we sort out the relationship between narcissistic leaders and team/organizational success or failure?

Some researchers say that not only do we like narcissists, but they tend to make for better leaders. Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer (2015) has argued that narcissism “helps people attain leadership positions in the first place and then, once in them, positively affects their ability to hold on to those positions, extract more resources (salary), and even helps in some, although not all, aspects of their performance on the job.” (pp. 71-72). In summarizing a meta-analysis of individual differences related to effective leadership, he points to four traits that he says narcissists have more of: energy, dominance, self-confidence, and charisma. He also explains that one of the reasons why women and Asian Americans are less frequently chosen for leadership roles is because they are on average more modest and self-effacing, and therefore less narcissistic than men. Finally, he claims that companies prefer “immodest, grandiose, and narcissistic leaders” (p. 83) and they continue to select and promote those who exhibit these qualities.

It’s important to gain some clarity on this concept of narcissism since there is much confusion about what it is in the first place. For example, Kets de Vries (1994) has pointed out that narcissism is not necessarily dysfunctional; there is a difference between healthy or constructive narcissism and unhealthy or destructive narcissism. He suggests that there are three different types of narcissists: the reactive one who is cold, ruthless and exhibitionistic, and has a sense of entitlement; the self-deceptive one who is Machiavellian and who lacks empathy; and the constructive one, who is ambitious and self-confident. In their view, the constructive narcissist can become a good leader; in fact, “a certain dose of narcissism is necessary to function effectively” … and … “we all show signs of narcissistic behavior.” (p. 588). Similarly, Maccoby (1990) refers to “productive narcissists” who may be good for an organization, although even they should not be left unchecked. However, in my experience, it is not always easy to distinguish between these different types of narcissists. Not all those who are energetic, dominant, self-confident and charismatic are pathological narcissists.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has a diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and lists criteria such as the following: grandiose sense of self-importance, preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success or power, and a belief in one’s special or unique status. “Subclinical” or non-pathological narcissism is different; whereas pathological narcissism is associated with arrogance, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy, subclinical narcissism is defined as having an inflated sense of self-importance and extremely high levels of self-esteem. A widely-used measure of subclinical narcissism is The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) scale, which scores people on narcissism based on their responses to statements such as: People always seem to recognize my authority, I really like to be the center of attention, I am apt to show off if I get the chance, and I always know what I am doing.

An important contribution to this topic is a recent study by Grijalva et al. (2015), who did an extensive meta-analysis of the literature. They start out by stating that there is no consensus on the relationship between narcissism and leadership. Their meta-analysis focuses on studies of subclinical narcissism, and what they found was very interesting. First, narcissism is related to leadership emergence, although that relationship decreased over time; that is, the longer the leader spent time with followers, the weaker the relationship. We are attracted to individuals with “leader-like” qualities such as those that Professor Pfeffer has mentioned (e.g., dominance, self-confidence). However, according to these authors, to know them is not to like them too much. Second, they found that when the effects of extroversion were sorted out, that relationship weakened considerably. In other words, much of the reason for why narcissists are selected as leaders is because they are also extroverted.

Third, Grijalva and her colleagues also found a wide range of relationships between narcissism and leadership effectiveness. On average, narcissists were no more or less likely to become effective leaders. The authors in fact found an inverted U-shaped relationship; leaders who are weak as well as those who are very strong narcissists don’t tend to become effective leaders.

My own experience supports the research evidence that self-confident, sociable and likeable people are more likely to be selected and promoted into leadership positions. A recruiter I know once explained to me that his corporate client wanted him to find an executive with “gravitas” or “executive presence.” A self-confident and charming manager who is technically competent and gets results will in many Western organizations get promoted before the equally competent, results-oriented manager who is perhaps too self-effacing and introverted.

I also believe that productive narcissists can contribute to team and organizational success – to a point. Perhaps, as Grijalva et al. suggest, there is a level in which too much narcissism becomes dysfunctional. I would argue however that there are two elements of narcissism that if left unchecked, can be fatal in the workplace: an overriding interest in fulfilling one’s own needs versus the organization’s needs, and a lack of empathy or humility. I would not disagree with those who would argue for example that both Steve Jobs and Jack Welch were narcissistic; yet it was clear that both also subordinated their personal needs for the good of their organizations. This passion they had for putting their organization’s needs ahead of themselves (for the most part anyway) was important to their respective companies’ success.

How do narcissists fare in other cultural settings? There is evidence that displays of extreme self-confidence are not always welcome in non-Western contexts. In an interesting study, Zhang et al. (2015) suggest that paradoxical leadership behaviors are actually aligned with the Eastern yin-yang philosophy, where two opposing forces can be integrated. Among the paradoxical behaviors they identified are those associated with combining self-centeredness (certainly a component of narcissism) with other-centeredness. Others include the following:
·      Shows a desire to lead, but allows others to share this leadership role
·      Likes to be the center of attention, but allows others to share the spotlight as well
·      Insists on getting respect, but also shows respect toward others
·      Has a high self-opinion, but shows awareness of personal imperfection and the value of other people
·      Is confident regarding personal ideas and beliefs but acknowledges that he or she can learn from others.

They found that among their samples of Chinese students, a combination of narcissism and humility was related to leadership effectiveness. While these authors suggest that humility may counterbalance narcissism, will different cultures accept lesser or higher levels of narcissism and humility depending on where their cultural values are in terms of power distance, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance? And what about context? When individuals perceive threats to their environment, do those who show narcissistic characteristics tend to be perceived as better leaders?

In the meantime, here are a couple of take-aways from all this research. First, individuals who wish to aspire to leadership roles would do well to adapt some leader-like skills such as energy and self-confidence. However, the extent to which these are displayed may depend on culture and context. For example, Cain (2012) has suggested that introverts and Asian-Americans can become successful leaders by using more of their soft power, such as having strong convictions and persistence. Note, however, that using soft power does not mean reducing one’s energy or self-confidence. Second, organizations should be careful in being seduced by those who may have the sizzle but not the steak (an expression I once heard from an executive when describing the dangers of picking style over substance). Learning to distinguish between constructive and pathological narcissists may be difficult, but it is important for organizations to avoid hiring and promoting the latter.

Cain, S. (2012). Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. New York: Broadway Books.

Grijalva, E., Harms, P., Newman, D., Gaddis, B., and Fraley, R.C. (2015). Narcissism and Leadership: A Meta-Analytic View of Linear and Nonlinear Relationships. Personnel Psychology, 68: 1-47.

Kets de Vries, M. (1994). The Leadership Mystique. The Academy of Management Executive, 8 (3): 73-92.

Maccoby, M. (2000). Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons. Harvard Business Review, January-February.

Pfeffer, J. (2015). Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time. New York: HarperCollins.

Zhang, Y., Waldman, D., Han, Y., and Li, X. (2015). Paradoxical Leader Behaviors in People Management: Antecedents and Consequences. Academy of Management Journal, 56 (2): 538-566.

My favorite business writer, the late Peter Drucker, once wrote a slim but important book called The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization. The questions are clear and simple and seem intended for executives (especially those in non-profits) wishing to conduct a self-assessment about their organization. According to Drucker, this “self-assessment process is a method for assessing what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what you must do to improve an organization’s performance.” The five questions are the following: What is our mission? Who is our customer? What does the customer value? What are our results? What is our plan? Within each of these questions, Drucker offered more detail and more specific probes.

Although these questions were intended to apply to organizations, I believe it has value in applying them at the individual or personal level. This idea is not entirely original; Marshall Goldsmith, another great management guru, wrote that he once asked Peter Drucker about applying his five questions at a personal level. So let’s give it a try in the context of someone thinking about going into business for himself/herself or doing a start-up with some kind of promising product or service that he/she has come up.

1. What is your mission? Here’s what Drucker wrote about effective mission statements. First, they reflect an “exacting match” of the organization’s opportunities, competence, and commitment. At an individual level, to me this sounds like you find the sweet spot where there is a convergence between what the environment or customers need, your capabilities, and what you value. This is similar to Goldsmith’s point that what you value means two things: what makes you happy and what you consider to be meaningful (Goldsmith, 2015). Second, effective mission statements say why an organization does what it does (not how to do it). Ray Dalio, the successful founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, wrote something similar in his treatise (Dalio, 2011) when he made a distinction about the difference between values and principles:

“Your values are what you consider important, literally what you ‘value.’ Principles are what allow you to live a life consistent with those values. Principles connect your values to your actions; they are beacons to rule your actions, and help you successfully deal with the laws of reality. It is to your principles that you turn when you face hard choices.” (p. 7)

And third, effective mission statements are short and sharply focused; they should fit on a T-shirt. When thinking about your business at the individual level, ask yourself: do you or does your potential business have a mission statement? What do you want to be remembered for? What do you want your business to be remembered for?

2. Who is your customer? In other words, who must be satisfied for the business or organization to achieve its results? Drucker asks organizations to think about who their primary and secondary customers are. Management theory suggests that the organization has different stakeholders; the distinction that Drucker makes between primary and secondary customers is simpler. So who are your primary customers – those individuals or groups who will use and benefit from your business’s products and services? In other words, who is your product or service intended for? And who are your supporting customers – the other stakeholders, such as employees, funders or investors – that you need to identify and be aware of? Recently, I was having a discussion with an acquaintance who had patented a medical device that he hoped to commercialize and was asking my advice on potential investors. Although his device would eventually be used by individual customers, it was not clear to me that he had thought through carefully who his primary and secondary customers were, and how they might impact the success of his venture. By applying this framework, he was able to target a specific customer segment and identify potential investors to pursue.

3. What does the customer value? Drucker points out that organizations need to understand what their primary and supporting customers value. This does not necessarily mean doing intensive market research; Steve Jobs was well-known for pointing out that he never did any market research. Yet he was very much in tune with what he believed customers wanted, and Apple continues to be successful. I think the important lesson here for individuals is to listen, listen, listen. Customers may not exactly know what they want, but when we try to truly understand our customers, which involves deep listening, among other things, then we will be able to provide them with what they value – whether they knew it at the time or not. Drucker also states that organizations need to accept what customers value as “objective fact.” At an individual level, many organizations use 360-degree feedback tools to help managers identify their strengths and development needs. As an executive coach, I often supplement this tool with interviews of my clients’ key “customers” – their boss, co-workers, direct reports, and perhaps their customers, such as suppliers and sometimes even friends and family members. These data provide great insights to a person on what their customers (such as their manager and even their peers) value, and can be of tremendous value to those who listen and accept them. Are you clear on what your potential customers will value about your product or service? How will you find out?

4. What are your results? The key insight for me here is Drucker’s discussion of assessing, based on results, what must be strengthened and what must be abandoned. Determining whether an organization is assessing the right results is an important issue. When I was an intern at General Motors a few decades ago, I remember being in meetings with senior management in which they regularly discussed their objective of reaching a market share of 50%. At that time, GM was the most successful of the Big Three (Ford and Chrysler being the other two major U.S. car companies at that time), and it has been argued that this obsession with market share caused GM to lose sight of focusing on profitability and the creeping Japanese challenge. This question also reminds us that effort, while laudable, is not enough at an organizational or personal level, unless you are clear on what the right results should be and what the right measures of success are.

It is a little bit disappointing that Drucker does not raise the issue of the importance of “how” results are achieved. Since his time, there have been numerous discussions of this issue; Seidman’s book How goes into detail on the importance of this. As he has written, “… leaders now recognize that sustainable behavior is an offensive strategy that you need to deploy over an entire field … (and) behavior has become a powerful source of excellence and competitive advantage.” Many large companies, such as GE, Ford and Siemens, have competency models in which employees are evaluated not just on their results but also on their behaviors, or how they achieved those results. As individuals, we need to pay attention not only to whether we have achieved our goals, but also to whether we have done so with integrity, consistent with our values and principles.

5. What is our plan? For Drucker, “planning defines the particular place you want to be and how you intend to get there.” Planning consists of having goals, no more than five for an institution, in Drucker’s opinion. I agree; in the research on successful strategy execution, one common theme that emerges is that companies that have been successful in executing their strategies successfully have focused on a few selected priorities rather than a laundry list of initiatives they try to tackle. The CEO (and his or her team) is responsible for the development of objectives, action steps, and the appropriate allocation of resources. The five elements of an effective plan are: abandonment (if it’s not working, are you prepared to change or even abandon it?), concentration (are you putting your best efforts into what’s working well and in fact raising the bar?), innovation (what’s around the bend – is this what our customers might value and where we can add value?), risk taking (will you take the risk, while balancing the short term with the long term), and analysis (do your due diligence). For Drucker, creating action steps – the execution of the plan – is very much a part of this aspect of planning.

In summary, here’s how these questions can apply to someone at an individual level. By stating a mission, you are in essence trying to answer the question of what you want to be remembered for. By defining the customer and what they value, you will be answering the question of what problem it is your product or service will be solving and for whom. By specifying your results, you will be able to clarify what success will look like for you (e.g., is it an IPO, is it building a brand?). And by creating your plan, you will be able to define your short- and long-term goals and be able to monitor your results (e.g., how will you scale, have you identified the elements in your value chain?).

Dalio, R. (2011). Principles. Unpublished manuscript.

Drucker, P. (2015). The Five Most Important Questions: Enduring Wisdom for Today’s Leaders. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Goldsmith, M. (2015). Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts – Becoming the Person You Want to Be. New York: Crown Business.

Seidman, D. (2007) How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything. New York: Wiley.

Traditionalists (otherwise known as Matures or the Silent Generation), those born before 1946, are hard-working and detail-oriented. They are disciplined and like consistency and uniformity. They are stable and loyal, and, at work, they are concerned about healthcare and retirement benefits and possibly being discriminated against because of their age. Baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, were indulged as children and are generally optimistic; they work hard and believe in self-improvement. They are driven but uncomfortable with conflict. At work, they put in long hours and are concerned with competition from the coming generation. Gen Xers, those born between 1965 and 1979, were alienated as children and do not respond well to authority and are willing to challenge it; they tend to be skeptical. However, they are practical in their approach to work and are technologically savvy. Millennials (or Generation Y), those born between 1981 and 1995, were protected as children and their parents are often their BFFs. They are digital natives and like to collaborate but are also achievement-oriented. They like to multi-task and are self-assured. They like to be autonomous, but also feel they deserve to be recognized and rewarded. They are used to working in teams and have a can-do attitude at work.

You have no doubt read many generalizations like the above that have been made about these four generations, and the challenges organizations have because these four generations are working side-by-side in the workplace today (see for example, Hawley, 2009; Taylor, 2014; and Twenge, 2006). In addition to these four generations, organizations are already starting to hire members of Generation Z, those born after 1995. Despite the many descriptions of these generations and their differences that are found in the popular press, the reactions from researchers and the scientific community have been quite mixed. In fact, it is one of the few topics in social science research today for which there is no end of controversy and debate. The more tempered of the researchers would say that we should exercise caution in making these generalizations because the evidence is not yet in. On the other hand, there is another group of researchers who have concluded that the evidence just does not exist, and that generational differences are for the most part artificial. They explain that it is difficult to separate the effects of age and life stage with shared experiences (or cohort effects). Others go further and argue that it is dangerous to even consider generational differences because it stereotypes people of different generations. Furthermore, such differential treatments might lead to age discrimination lawsuits, at least in the United States.

In the media and among many managers I have spoken to, however, these differences seem real. A few of these managers express genuine frustration with the attitudes of some Millennials, and there have been many articles written about them, from how they should be treated, the kinds of work environments they prefer, their work-life balance, and their desire for continuous feedback. Price Waterhouse Coopers has made it a point in its recruiting to target Millennials, and to develop human resources practices to engage and motivate them. Other managers I have interviewed shared their concerns about Millennials managing older workers. In Silicon Valley, there are many start-ups where Millennials are finding it challenging to manage other Millennials.

Why the continued appeal of contrasting workers’ attitudes and preferences from a generational perspective? There are several explanations, and I offer the following, some of which are based on the hypotheses that Steel and Kammeyer-Mueller (2016) have suggested. First, we have a tendency to stereotype and make generalizations about groups of people. It simplifies our thought process and provides us with mental short-cuts. Generational grouping is one among many dimensions where it seems almost second-nature for us to believe that the differences among them are indeed real. Second, we know from evolutionary psychology that as a species, we humans make spontaneous ingroup-outgroup categorizations; even when the criteria for categorizing are sometimes trivial (like preferences for certain paintings or even certain colors) we affiliate ourselves with those who we feel we have something in common (Tafjel and Turner, 1986; van Vugt and Park, 2009). Forming these generational categorizations is not at all surprising, given that different generations have a presumed number of experiences in common.

Third, following attribution theory, our stereotypes are reinforced when we attribute the causes of behavior to a generational characteristic. For example, a manager attributes the difficulties a Baby Boomer employee may be having with a new technology being introduced in his company because he is of that generation that does not like technology. Fourth, our stereotypes are further reinforced because of cognitive biases – specifically availability and representative biases. As an example of availability bias, note that lottery organizers like to publicize their winners so when people are thinking about buying that lottery ticket, they will remember examples of these winners. Similarly, when we think about Millennials, examples that come to mind are from the media or from our recent encounters with millennial employees. With representative bias, we tend to generalize from a Baby Boomer or two and conclude that they are representative of the entire generation.

As mentioned earlier, the debate about generational differences is far from settled, with the skeptics arguing that many of these differences can be explained in part by age, life stage, or career stage, while others argue that there are in fact generational cohorts that we can view as belonging to different categories based on common shared experiences (e.g., World War II for Traditionalists, the Civil Rights movement for Baby Boomers). There are actually two sets of arguments here. The first argues that categorizing individuals by generation ignores individual differences. Costanza and Finkelstein (2015), for example, argue that “The key to managing a multigenerational workforce effectively is for managers not to make decisions about employees using their generation as a shortcut to their characteristics and needs but rather to measure critical individual differences as well as to track the gradual developmental and demographic changes that occur within and among individuals over time.” (p. 317)

The second argues for not using generation at all as a category to differentiate individuals. Here are Costanza and Finkelstein again: “The assumption that grouping people into arbitrary cohorts on the basis of supposedly impactful events they may have experienced in a common way will somehow magically make them much more homogeneous on those variables is not only unsupported by the research but also runs counter to what we know about individual differences.” (p. 321)

However, while those proponents of generational differences argue that individuals who have more or less experienced what sociologists call “history-graded influences” (such as the independence of Singapore for Singaporeans or the fall of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 for Filipinos) can potentially impact their developmental outcomes, this does not suggest that everyone will be impacted in the same way. As Lyons et al. (2015) stated: “… within-cohort variance does not disprove the existence of generations; it is an interesting empirical feature of generations that helps us to delineate patterns of thought and action within the generation.” (p. 351) For example, organizational behavior researchers analyze employee data by looking at groupings such as length of service. The assumption here is that in general those with differing lengths of service might have different attitudes about the organization – and in fact, they often do. This is not to deny the existence of variation within each of the categories of length of service, but simply to use a grouping variable to understand patterns. Similarly, market researchers segment potential customers through such variables as age and gender. Advertisers charge more for TV ads that are targeted for that coveted 18-49 segment.  Furthermore, as Banaji and Greenwald (2013) have pointed out, “It is not possible to be human and to avoid making use of stereotypes.” In fact, they suggest, we have stereotypes based on different categories, and we rarely stereotype persons on one category alone. It is the combination of these categories that allows us to form an impression that makes each person unique.

The reality for many managers is that more and more of them are facing multiple generations of employees in the workplace. Furthermore, millennials alone are expected to be 50% of the workforce by 2020. This adds even more complexity and another dimension to the diversity of the workforce (in addition to other dimensions such as race, gender, and cognitive styles). My advice to managers is the following. First, be aware of your own assumptions and biases with regard to different generations. Increasing your self-awareness by checking with others and asking for feedback should be part of a manager’s toolkit. Per, a Swedish Baby Boomer manager recently hired to manage a group of very young engineers at a high-tech start-up, initially started by giving a lot of autonomy to his team. To his surprise, not everyone responded well, with some of them asking for more structure and more direction than Per would have expected from these Millennials.

Second, learn to adapt a flexible style especially when communicating with different team members. While this might go against your natural preference, fight the tendency to always stay in your comfort zone, especially when selecting how to communicate with others. The most successful salespeople and presenters make it a point to know their audience and tailor their messages accordingly. Learn about and practice different styles so you will be able to draw on these different styles as needed. Third, make an effort to learn the wide range of social media platforms available. Most of us know about LinkedIn and Twitter, but what about Pinterest and Yammer? How much do you know about these tools, and how the extent to which your organization is using them as communication tools for employees? Read about, and/or ask colleagues and your direct reports, about how you can use some of these tools to improve your communication.

Fourth, seek commonalities among your diverse team members to build cohesion and a common purpose, and learn how to use these differences to your team’s and organization’s advantage. Kathy, a marketing manager for a consumer products company, built a highly effective team made up of different generations of members by involving them in developing a challenging goal for the team (in her case, to create a successful marketing campaign in 12 months) and drawing on the different types of expertise within the team for contributions. Another example of using generational differences effectively is the practice of reverse mentoring, which companies such as Cisco, MasterCard and HP have implemented successfully.

Banaji, M. and Greenwald, A. (2013). Blindspot. New York: Delacorte Press.

Costanza, D. and Finkelstein, L. (2015). Generationally Based Differences in the Workplace: Is There a There There? Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 8 (3): 308-323.

Hawley, C. (2009). Managing the Older Employee: Communicate, Motivate, Innovate. Avon, MA: Avon Books.

Lyons, S. et al. (2015). Generational Differences in the Workplace: There Is Complexity Beyond the Stereotypes. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 8 (3): 346-356.

Steel, P. and Kammeyer-Mueller (2015). The World Is Going to Hell, the Young No Longer Respect Their Elders, and Other Tricks of the Mind. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 8 (3): 366-371.

Tafjel, H. and Turner, J. (1986). The Social Identity Theory of Group Behavior. In S. Worchel and W. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of Intergroup Relations, pp. 7-24. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.

Taylor, P. (2014). The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Slowdown. New York: Public Affairs.

Twenge, J. (2006). Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitles – and More Miserable Than Ever Before. New York: Free Press.

Van Vugt, M. and Park, J. (2009). The Tribal Instinct Hypothesis: Evolution and the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. In S. Sturmer and M. Snyder (Eds.), The Psychology of Prosocial Behavior, pp. 13-32. London: Blackwell.

In a recent coaching session I had with an executive I will call Henry, we reviewed the results of 360-degree feedback interviews I had conducted with over 12 of his stakeholders (e.g., his boss, direct reports, internal and external customers) as well as the results of an anonymous survey. Like many very successful managers, Henry believed he was pretty self-aware, yet was surprised at some of the feedback he heard, especially from his direct reports in several Asian countries. While Henry saw himself as a “straight shooter” and open about his opinions, his Asian direct reports had a different impression. They described him as intimidating and as someone who argues too much without listening.

We know that self-awareness is an important component of emotional intelligence and for becoming an effective leader. For global managers, I would add that cultural self-awareness is also an important key to their success interacting with and getting results through others from various cultures. In psychological counseling over the past twenty years or so, there has been a strong emphasis in making sure that therapists are aware of their own assumptions, biases and values. Various assessments and training have been introduced to enhance therapists’ competence and their effectiveness (Roysircar, 2004). As Royscircar notes:

“Therapists must put their assumptions, values, and biases to scrutiny because they will resort to these anyway. They need to ask themselves how U.S. sociopolitical issues, such as prejudice against minority groups, communism, Islamic fundamentalism, immigration to the U/S., bilingualism, or those with visible physical differences and disabilities have affected their social views of people and whether these social views may be related to their theoretical orientation in professional practice.” (p. 660)

Similarly, global managers (especially those from the Western world) must also put their assumptions, values and biases to self-scrutiny since otherwise, they will resort to these unthinkingly. Their unconscious biases when dealing with others who don’t speak English very well, whose attire might not fit with what might be considered appropriate in a corporate setting, or whose physical mannerisms might be inappropriate in a Western setting will certainly affect their interactions with and judgments about these individuals.

According to Eurich (2017), there are two main categories of self-awareness: internal (understanding yourself) and external (understanding how other people see you). Her distinction is actually based on self-concept theory; psychologists in this field use the term objective self-awareness and subjective self-awareness respectively. Eurich argues that the two are not necessarily correlated but there is some evidence that these might be influenced by culture.

Cultural self-awareness is first of all about understanding your own culture, and acknowledging that part of your behavior (as some anthropologists claim, as much as 25 percent) may be due to cultural influences. This may difficult to achieve, especially for those who have never traveled, or who have not been exposed to cultural diversity. Hall (1973) and Adler (2008) have used the analogy of a fish that cannot imagine what it is like outside the water because it has been swimming in that environment all its life.

The second aspect of cultural self-awareness is recognizing the differences between your culture and other cultures, especially when it comes to behavior in the work place. Gina, a manager for a global financial services company whose parents were Puerto Rican, recalled the excitement she felt when her company asked her to move to London for two years: “In my mind, London was just like New York. I had travelled internationally before and of course spoke English; I was set. I came to New York as a young child and growing up, thought it was the center of the world. I really subscribed to the cliché that if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. I expected the world to conform to my beliefs.”

She remembered some of her initial impressions of her British colleagues at the F/X desk where she worked. Most of them spoke more than three languages, and she met one colleague who spoke seven languages. When she mentioned to him that she wanted to learn another language, he commented, “You do not speak English, you speak American. We speak English.” Rather than taking this remark as an insult, Gina reflected on her lack of cultural self-awareness, and her arrogance in thinking that coming to London would be easy because she already knew the language. Adler (2008) makes this insightful comment: “Although we may think that the biggest obstacle to conducting business around the world is understanding foreigners, the greater difficulty actually involves becoming aware of our own cultural conditioning.” (p. 81)

A third aspect of cultural self-awareness includes understanding of different gestures and other non-verbals, which are important in building our intercultural competence. This ability to understand cultural rules and codes has been shown to be a predictor of positive interpersonal outcomes. In an interesting series of studies, Molinsky and his colleagues (Molinsky et al, 2005) developed a measure which they called the Gesture Recognition Task (GRT). This was made up of a series of 15 real (e.g., a shoulder shrug) and 13 fake non-verbal gestures (e.g., twirling the right finger in front of the body from chest level to above the head). Several hundred U.S.-born and non-native-born students participated in the study. In their first study, they also developed a measure of intercultural competence, and they found a positive relationship between performance on the GRT with self-ratings of intercultural competence. In a second study, performance on the GRT was also positively associated with ratings of observers who rated the students on their intercultural competence, reinforcing the importance of the ability to “read” cultural non-verbal behaviors.

Even e-mail communication can be influenced by cultural differences. Holtbrugge and his colleagues (2013) did an interesting study of a sample of professionals in the IT and services industry of large multinationals. The sample, which was obtained from professional social networking sites such as LinkedIn, consisted of 235 participants from 28 different nationalities, including India, Finland, Germany, USA, and China. According to the authors, 75-80 percent of virtual team communication is done by e-mail. They constructed a 23-item questionnaire measuring such dimensions as directness, promptness, preciseness and task-relatedness. The researchers found significant differences between respondents coming from high-context (e.g., Argentina, Brazil, China, Italy, Pakistan, and Uruguay) and low-context (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and the U.S.A.) cultures in their e-mail communication styles, with high-context, polychronic cultures preferring more formal but more fluid e-mail communication, and low-context, monochronic cultures preferring more precise and prompt e-mail communication.

The following are several strategies to enhance your cultural self-awareness. One, find out what managers’ impressions are about your own culture. Of course, some of their impressions may be based on simplistic and even outdated stereotypes. However, they can provide some insights into the cultural influences that impact workplace behavior in your culture. Some might not be willing to express their opinions directly for fear of being “politically incorrect” (although in my experience Europeans seem to be more candid than Americans about expressing their impressions of different nationalities). In conversations, therefore, you might have to probe and ask different questions. For example, you might ask them to compare and contrast two managers they know who are of the same nationality.

Two, learn about the successes and failures of managers from your country who have worked in other cultures. For example, Brad, a British manager of a multinational identified several British colleagues who had been sent overseas on expatriate assignments. Through his contacts, he found a few who were successful and others who were less successful in their assignments, and reached out to them. Learning about the experiences of individuals in both groups gave him valuable insights on his own cultural self-awareness and important lessons to apply.

Three, look for opportunities where you can immerse yourself in a different culture. You might ask, how can I do this unless I actually travel to that country? Nieto (2006) has described a practice called a cultural plunge that professors in San Diego State University have been using over many years. A cultural plunge “…is individual exposure to persons or groups markedly different in culture (ethnicity, language, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and/or physical exceptionality) from that of the ‘plunger’.” Examples he gives are attending services or religious ceremonies of a group with a different ethnicity (e.g., African-American) or language (e.g., Vietnamese), or interacting with homeless people or people with disabilities. The plunges don’t have to be that long; to help with cultural self-awareness, however, it is important to reflect on the experience in a structured or organized way. Adapting Nieto’s suggestions, I would suggest that after whatever “plunge” you undertake, make sure that you jot down or type the following right after your plunge: what you experienced, your emotional response, whether the plunge reinforced or challenged your stereotypes, lessons learned and implications for your role as a global manager or leader.

Adler, Nancy J. 2008. International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition. Mason, OH: South-Western Publishing.

Eurich, T. (2017). Insight. New York: Crown Business.

Hall, E. (1973). The Silent Language. New York: Anchor Books.

Heine, S. Positive Self-Views: Understanding Universals and Variability Across Cultures. Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology, 2: 109-122.

Molinsky, Andrew. 2007. Cross-Cultural Code-Switching: The Psychological Challenges of Adapting Behavior in Foreign Cultural Interactions. Academy of Management Review 32(2): 622–640.

Nieto, J. (2006). The Cultural Plunge: Cultural Immersion as a Means of Promoting Self-Awareness and Cultural Sensitivity Among Student Teachers. Teacher Education Quarterly, Winter: 75-84.

Roysircar, G. (2004). Cultural Self-Awareness Assessment: Practice Examples from Psychology Training. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 35 (6): 658-666.