A little respect goes a long way.

In fact, when it comes to addressing conflict or tensions, our researchers have found that treating people with respect on a daily basis is one of the most helpful things an individual leader can do. And organizations must intentionally build a culture of respect if they want to attract, retain, and leverage the contributions of all their talent.

“Yet at work and in our communities, we are often faced with uncertainty or tension around our differences,” says researcher Kelly Hannum, co-author of our casebook on Leading Across Differences.

It can be a challenge for leaders to establish and nurture respectful relationships among many different groups, but effectively collaborating across boundaries is a key leadership skill. It’s important that leaders work to build an organizational culture of respect and create a climate of psychological safety at work.

3 Indicators of Respect

Our research survey of over 3,000 individuals across 10 countries revealed that being respectful is not just helpful when addressing conflicts between groups; it’s also viewed as a critical leadership responsibility.

“Treating people with respect seems obvious, but it may not be as intuitive as you think,” Hannum explains. She notes 3 key factors from the research that indicate what a culture of respect really means to people.

1. Respect is about listening.

People feel respected when they’ve been heard and understood. Being genuinely interested in and open to others strengthens relationships and builds trust. You don’t need to agree with or like the other person’s viewpoint; just listen to it closely.

Taking the time to actively listen to understand someone’s experiences, ideas, and perspectives is respectful — even if you ultimately choose another path.

2. Respect isn’t just the absence of disrespect.

Eliminating active disrespect — such as rude, insulting, or devaluing words or behaviors — doesn’t create respect.

Respect is an action: We show respect; we act respectfully; we speak with respect.

“Leaders need to know that the absence of disrespect doesn’t have the same positive impact in resolving disagreement, conflict, or tension as does the presence of respect,” says Hannum.

3. Respect is shown in many ways.

The perception of respect is influenced by culture and family, peers, and social relationships. Status, power, and role all create the context in which respect is interpreted. Leaders need to take the time to understand how their identities affect they way they lead, and how respect is given and received in cultures and groups other than the ones they think of as “normal.” Cultural intelligence is especially critical when leading a multicultural team.

“You may not need to make huge changes in your behavior to be more effective,” Hannum says. “Just understanding and acknowledging as valid what others expect from you will make a difference.”

How to Cultivate a Culture of Respect in Your Organization

You can help cultivate a culture of respect at your organization in the following ways:

• Exhibit an interest in, and appreciation for, others’ perspectives, knowledge, skills, and abilities. Express recognition and show sincere gratitude for the efforts and contributions of others.
• Openly communicate information about policies and procedures so everyone has access to and is operating with similar information.
• Clarify decision-making processes, and when appropriate, seek input into those processes, erring on the side of inclusive leadership.
• Consider whether you are in a position to serve as an ally on behalf of others. Make sure you understand allyship and focus on advocating with, not just for others — because advocacy should be done in close partnership with those we intend to serve.
• Take concerns seriously; if someone or a group shares that they feel wronged, show sincere empathy as you seek to better understand that perspective and offer a genuine apology.

At its core, creating a culture of respect is a continuous process of paying attention to people. Leaders must avoid making assumptions that, if unchecked, can lead to misunderstandings and ineffective behaviors. Cultivating a culture of respect requires intentional actions from every leader and the organization itself.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Partner with us to build a strong culture of respect at your organization. We can work with you to create a customized learning journey for your leaders using our research-backed modules. Available leadership topics include Boundary Spanning Leadership, Collaboration & Teamwork, Conflict Resolution, Emotional Intelligence, Listening to Understand, Psychological Safety & Trust, and more.

The post The Power of Respect appeared first on CCL.

Managing a multicultural team can be a rewarding experience, giving leaders the opportunity to work closely with employees from diverse backgrounds and offering the chance for personal and professional growth. However, operating a team with genuinely different people also comes with a number of challenges that must be overcome to create a productive work environment.

Leaders must be knowledgeable and open-minded about different cultures to gain a better understanding of employees from different backgrounds and find a way to help them work together as a team.

Multicultural teams are often composed of people who would rarely interact with one another otherwise. While their individual cultures should be celebrated (a critical part of inclusive leadership and spanning boundaries), it’s important to shape a cohesive and constructive atmosphere for everyone involved.

Where to start? Gaining a solid understanding of social identity and the common issues associated with leading a multicultural team will help managers be more effective.

Breaking Down Cultural Barriers & Understanding Cultural Differences

It’s easy for misunderstandings to occur on a geographically dispersed team, simply due to cultural differences.

When people have different values and are accustomed to certain behaviors, it can take some work to get everyone on the same page.

Business practices, customs, and acceptable topics of conversation vary greatly from one country or culture to the next. While certain employees may initially be viewed as difficult, lazy, or rude, digging deeper to explore their cultural norms can offer valuable insights that help all members of the team understand each other better.

For example, some cultures have a more direct and straightforward style of addressing problems, while others prefer to focus on the relationship and take a more subtle and reserved approach. Team members from different regions or cultures may have to make an effort to adapt to each other’s style and expectations.

Time is another major issue that often causes rifts in multicultural teams. While some cultures plan their day according to the clock, other cultures are often much more relaxed. Employees from such backgrounds may believe it’s perfectly acceptable to let a meeting run over the scheduled time period or show up late if they were in the middle of an important conversation ─ which is bound to upset those who prefer to stick to a strict timetable.

The phrase “time is money” translates well for most cultures, since money is a universal priority in the business world. If everyone on the team respects each other’s time as they would respect each other’s money, that can go a long way.

And when team members are also geographically dispersed and working remotely, leading a multicultural team can feel even more difficult. (Learn our best practices for managing virtual teams and meetings.)

Management should talk to employees ─ creating focus groups if necessary ─ to learn more about similar problems faced by workers. If there isn’t one obvious solution to these issues, it’s a great idea to ask for input on the best way to manage them, so everyone feels like they’re being heard. This is a key part of cultivating a climate of respect in your organization.

Build Your Cultural Intelligence to Lead Multicultural Teams More Effectively

To provide more insights to those leading multicultural teams, we interviewed Soon Ang, author of several books on Cultural Intelligence (CQ) and an alumna of our Leadership Development Program (LDP)®. She was also a former recipient of our Walter F. Ulmer, Jr. Applied Research Award. Here are some insights we learned from our conversation with her.

Key Questions to Ask About Cultural Intelligence

What Is Cultural Intelligence? Why Is It Important?

Cultural intelligence is a person’s capability to function effectively in situations characterized by cultural differences. “By culture,” she notes, “we do mean national culture, but also other types of diversity like age, gender, ethnicity, profession, organization, religion, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, and others.”

Today, almost everyone needs to work on a multicultural team sometimes. And that matters, Ang adds, because “accumulating evidence shows that cultural intelligence predicts key outcomes in the real world.”

“People with higher cultural intelligence make better decisions in intercultural situations, have better job performance, are more effective global leaders, achieve better results in cross-cultural negotiations and sales, build better rapport with people from around the world, are more creative and innovative, tend to build more culturally diverse social networks, and experience less burnout when working globally. Notably, the benefits of cultural intelligence accrue even beyond the effects of experience, cognitive ability, and personality.”

What’s the Difference Between Cultural Intelligence & Emotional Intelligence?

They are related but clearly distinct. Both cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence include capabilities that facilitate effective interpersonal interactions. Emotional intelligence is critical for leadership effectiveness, and “focuses on detecting and regulating emotions,” she adds, while “cultural intelligence focuses more broadly on cognition, emotion, and intentions of self and others, and explicitly on intercultural interactions.”

“Importantly, research shows that cultural intelligence is a key predictor of performance when the work context is culturally diverse, as with multicultural teams, whereas emotional intelligence is more important when the work context is more homogeneous.”

How Can You Develop Cultural Intelligence?

Ang responds, “This is an important question. I’ve always been a strong proponent of what CCL has done, which is a behavioral-based approach to leadership development. Similarly, we focus a lot of attention in the development of cultural intelligence on creating developmental experiences that stretch one’s behavioral repertoire.” Organizations can certainly develop strong leaders with on-the-job learning.

For western leaders of multicultural global teams, Ang offers one key tip in particular: Be aware of how time pressure affects you as a leader.

Everyone knows how to get along with others and most people can pay attention, communicate, and build harmonious interpersonal relationships even across cultures so long as we have time. But as Ang notes, “With time pressure, cultural imprints take over and all things go awry. So, create situations or leadership development moments when the time pressure is really strong and see how you behave. Learn how you cope and work on it.”

At CCL, we help organizations develop leaders through heat experiences to simulate high-pressure situations, which can stretch leaders in just the way Ang describes.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

We can partner with you to develop your managers so they’re ready to lead multicultural teams successfully, and we can help you build an organization with a high level of multicultural intelligence, with a customized learning journey for your leaders using our research-based modules. Available leadership topics include Boundary Spanning, Conflict Resolution, Emotional Intelligence, Listening to Understand, Psychological Safety, Team Collaboration, Virtual & Remote Team Leadership, and more.

The post Leading a Multicultural Team appeared first on CCL.

The Kenneth E. Clark Student Research Award recognizes outstanding unpublished papers by undergraduate and graduate students. Named in memory of Kenneth Clark, a distinguished scholar and former president of CCL, the award is co-sponsored with the International Leadership Association.

Dr. Karryna Madison received the 2024 award for her paper titled, “Rewrite the Recipe: A Gendered Examination of Social Exchange Theory in Leadership Research.” Dr. Madison is an Assistant Professor in Leadership from the Australian National University and her research examines how gender interacts with communal approaches to leadership.

The awarded paper challenges traditional leadership studies to consider gender dynamics within organizations. It also highlights how this oversight can limit our understanding of leadership, noting that research must acknowledge gender as a key factor to accurately capture the complexities of social exchanges between leaders and their teams.

Also sponsored by CCL, the Leadership Quarterly Best Paper Award is presented annually in recognition of the best published paper submitted during the previous year to Leadership Quarterly.

Dr. Mladen Adamovic, a Senior Lecturer in Cross-Cultural Management at King’s College London, and Dr. Andreas Leibbrandt, a Professor of Economics at Monash Business School, are the 2023 Leadership Quarterly Award winners for their paper. Their research focuses on social issues in the workplace as they relate to leadership, with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion and cross-cultural management.

This paper reveals that ethnic minorities experience significantly greater discrimination when applying for leadership roles compared to non-leadership positions. The Australia-based study involved submitting over 12,000 job applications and found that applicants with non-English names received 57.4% fewer positive response for leadership roles than those with English names, despite identical resumes.

As a pioneer of the industry with over 50 years of experience in leadership research, CCL is dedicated to stimulating and recognizing outstanding research in the field and its application to the practice of leadership at every level in organizations across the world.

“Our mission is to advance the understanding and practice of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide. To achieve this mission, we must support scholars who are conducting vital research that shines light on leadership dynamics affected by gender and ethnicity,” said Sarah Stawiski, Vice President of Leadership Research & Analytics. “By doing so we’re investing in a future where leadership is accessible to all, regardless of gender or ethnicity.”

Learn more about our leadership development research.

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