In today’s globalised workforce, leaders must build and manage diverse teams with different backgrounds, cultures, and ways of working. This requires leaders to be inclusive and empathetic to the needs of all team members. That sounds simple, but practising this consistently takes a lot of inner work and self-growth in the area of Emotional Intelligence.
Having lived in three different cultures, I know it is challenging to confidently open your mind and heart to all the new experiences around you. I also faced intense challenges when there was a severely disabled person in my friends’ network.
In both areas of life, my biggest challenges were my emotions and low EQ, which caused me to display behaviour I hated about myself. For instance, I avoided the disabled friend of my friends who had difficulty speaking. I felt disgusted when I watched him move and eat and struggled to understand his unclear voice. I hated to ask him to repeat himself over and over because of my inability to understand him without the help of others.
Then I was challenged when transitioning from a communist culture to a free market one. People who grew up in free market West Germany acted strangely in my eyes (and I in theirs). Consequently, it took a lot of work to make meaningful friends.
When I moved to the UK, the contrast was even more significant. I faced a different system, language, customs and behavioural expectations. For example, what is polite in Germany still sounds direct and impolite to Brits. And keeping communication straight to the point without all the “I hope you have a great day” at the beginning of emails is not a thing here in most cases.
In the old days, we would say, you have to integrate and become accustomed to the way of life of the culture you live in and basically get on with it. This approach in management, however, has a significant drawback – you are missing out on the value that a person with a different background can bring to the table because of their experience. And my disabled friend can add value as an experienced DEI ambassador.
How do you manage all those differences?
As mentioned, the biggest challenge is handling our unpleasant emotions when facing strange environments and people. The biggest mistake you can make is fitting in to avoid stepping on anyone’s feet. While that might work somehow when you face just one strange culture, I can tell you it becomes impossible when you enter a space of diversity because fitting in means you have to reject yourself. And sacrificing yourself to please others is not sustainable and will backfire.
Learning who I am made a real difference in opening my heart to diverse people. Clarity about my values enabled me to see that the culture I grew up in was more of a comfort blanket that did not necessarily align with my values. In all the cultures I lived in and visited, some things aligned with my values, and others did not. As I engaged with people from different backgrounds, I adopted behaviours from different cultures and abandoned others that used to be my common sense. For instance, I learned from a student from Cameroon that my guests could use my bed, and I would use the sofa, not the other way around. Why? I just loved that way of showing hospitality. In Britain, I learned of the importance of a cuppa that profoundly brings people together and lowers defensive boundaries. Putting a cuppa in someone’s hands opens people’s hearts and stories. It works with non-Brits too.
What all those situations have in common are my emotions. Therefore Emotional Intelligence is vital in overcoming my challenges. My emotions are the gauges of my values that alarm me whenever something is or feels misaligned or make me feel good to show me something is aligned. Because they are like gauges, they are also mighty in helping me find the clarity about me that I need to embrace diversity without feeling on edge all the time. That clarity about myself also provides the emotional capacity to be empathetic and inclusive. As a result, I became naturally able to help others identify their values so they can relate better to a diverse environment. Over time, people started asking me how I could embrace so many different people from so many different backgrounds.
The key to managing a diverse team empathetically and inclusively lies within yourself. Empathy and inclusiveness are not behaviours you learn; they result from knowing who you are. And learning who you really are is a journey of stripping away all your cultural baggage and the comfort blanket of defensiveness that never served you well in the first place.
And if you want to learn how to use your emotions to find yourself, let’s chat and make it happen.