Angela has taught middle and high school English, Business English and Speech for nine years. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology and has earned her teaching license.
What are some adjectives you think of when you hear the term 'a great leader'? Strong? Courageous? Honorable? Have you ever described a great leader as agile?
Most likely your answer is no. But in our constantly shifting modern world, it would be extremely difficult to be an ideal leader without being agile. Furthermore, with the internet making international business the norm, agile leaders also have to consider cultural perspectives to their business. A culturally agile leader is one who can effectively adapt to new cultures and perspectives.
In the lesson Characteristics of Culturally Agile Leaders, you will see that culturally agile leaders possess the following traits:
Culturally agile leaders are able to do this by embracing change and innovation, fostering teamwork and collaboration, and encouraging emotional intelligence. Let's look at a fictional scenario and analyze the leader's agility in the business.
Michael Johnson owns Mike's Family Restaurant, a restaurant franchise centered on American style foods like burgers, pizza, and sandwiches. He has grown successful by focusing on family dinners, encouraging children's menus and developing a strong dinner menu. He also has a policy of no alcohol served until 5 pm each day. His business has gained the reputation for excellent service, and he attributes this to his 8 minute rule. This rule states that each server must visit each of his or her tables every 8 minutes. In addition, the meal must be served within 8 minutes of ordering. This allows his restaurants to have a greater turnaround and more customers to be served each night. His business has flourished across all the 50 states in the USA. Now Michael makes plans to spread out to Europe.
His first two international franchises open in France and Germany. He realizes that customer tastes will be different in these two countries, so he takes the time to research the types of foods preferred in both France and Germany. Michael takes that research and makes adjustments to his menu as he sees fit.
Other than that, he maintains his other policies, including the 8 minute rule and the 5 pm alcohol rule.
Let's take a look at how Mike's Family Restaurant fares in Europe. Within the first month, Michael breaks even. After 3 months, he sees a major dip in revenue. He collects customer feedback and reads reviews online. To his surprise, the most common complaints are about the service. Here are some of the reviews.
Think about the following questions. Write down your responses.
Michael's only attempt to be culturally agile was researching common food tastes in France and Germany. Overall, he did not prove to be culturally agile in his business.
In Europe, meals are much different from those in the USA. First of all, Americans devalue lunch. In fact, most adults work through lunch, making it perhaps the least important meal of the day. Europeans take the opposite view. Lunch is considered the most important meal, often consisting of at least two courses. It's not uncommon to take several hours from work to go out and have lunch.
In addition, Europeans, in general, take more time with meals; more time to prepare food and to enjoy the meal. Once they have their food, they want to be left alone by the servers for the most part. The 8 minute rule of Mike's Family Restaurant would definitely seem like nagging in Europe. The alcohol rule is also one not considered necessary in Europe, where drinking ages and judgments are not as harsh as in the USA. Lastly, portion sizes are also much smaller in Europe. In the USA taking home a doggie bag is pretty much expected in most restaurants, it happens very rarely in Europe.
Looking at these cultural differences in approaches to mealtimes, Michael was very limited in his cultural agility when expanding beyond the USA.
Now that you have had a chance to identify and analyze some weaknesses in cultural agility, what does this mean for your business?
If your business deals internationally already, take a look at some strong and/or weak sectors from other countries. Identify how your business was culturally agile in the strong areas or culturally limited in the weak ones.
If your business does not deal internationally, look at different areas your business does cover. Are there any cultural differences between those areas? What can you do to address any differences to be more successful in that location?
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