[00:00:00] Speaker A: In Turkey, people often find my style too soft or too democratic.
When I talk to our staff before decision, most people say, why do you ask?
Or they find it strange that I bring tea to my students when they come for a chat.
This is unacceptable.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Hello, this is Joseph Scholz, and welcome to the Deep Culture Experience, the podcast that explores the psychology of intercultural understanding.
And I am here, as I often am with Ishi Ta Rai. It is so exciting to be co hosting with you.
[00:00:49] Speaker C: Hi Joseph, from my hometown, Durgapur in eastern India. I'm so excited to be with you today.
So the title of this episode is Culture and Leadership.
And this was inspired by a conversation you had with Yvonne van der Poel, our good friend and colleague and the co founder of this podcast.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: She mentioned that we don't often focus on topics that relate to business, and we thought, why don't we talk about leadership across cultures?
And Yvonne has a lot of experience doing leadership training for people who will be working internationally and development work in countries where the culture gap is really big.
But instead of us introducing this topic, let's hear some thoughts from Yvonne.
[00:01:43] Speaker D: It can be hard to figure out cultural differences in leading and following.
I often see confusion on all sides and people immediately jumping to conclusions.
Scandinavian or Dutch leaders are often allergic to the idea that we're not all equal.
At the workplace, they tend to ask questions like, what do you think?
What works best here?
Or they say things like, please give me feedback, I don't know everything.
Or go ahead, take initiative and come up with ideas. Or yet someone used to clear authority might be thinking, well, they are all nice and friendly, but not much of a leader.
Don't they know anything?
Don't they have their own ideas?
To lead, you need to be seen as someone to follow.
But what does an ideal leader look like?
Leadership is often seen as universal.
There is a focus on types and techniques, and it often overlooks the cultural dimension.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: I totally agree with Yvonne. When people think about leadership, they often focus on techniques or types of leaders, and culture is often overlooked.
[00:03:09] Speaker C: And I really like how she frames the fundamental question, what kind of person do people want to follow?
Is it the same everywhere?
[00:03:18] Speaker B: So thanks, Ivan. And in this episode, we're going to look at cultural differences in how people think about the question, what is a good leader?
We will hear some stories from the podcast team about how they navigate cultural expectations of leadership.
[00:03:35] Speaker C: And we'll see that leadership is not just about business.
It's deeply connected to our evolutionary psychology.
And we'll give some tips for anyone who wants to dig deeper.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: And that brings us to part one.
Follow the leader.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: So let's first start with a very basic question.
Is leadership found in all cultures?
What are its evolutionary roots?
Did hunter gatherers have leaders?
[00:04:16] Speaker B: Well, and I have heard people say that hunter gatherers did not that it's only centralized power which makes for leaders and followers.
So let's look at that.
[00:04:27] Speaker C: But before that, what is leadership?
And here is a very generic definition, and this is from ChatGPT.
A leader is someone who influences others towards shared goals, not just through authority or position, but through meaning, direction, and relationships.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: And I actually like that definition a lot. I think there's an idea that leadership is fundamentally about power, but a leader is someone who influences others towards shared goals. And that could be through authority, but it could be through other means as well.
[00:05:08] Speaker C: And by that definition, leadership exists in every community.
There may be no formal titles among hunter gatherers, but there will be individuals who influence others.
You may be the best hunter or an elder, a shaman, and people will pay attention to what you say and do.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: So leadership is a deep part of our evolutionary heritage. We are collaborative, collective social primates, and working together is our fundamental survival strategy. And finding direction is part of that.
[00:05:48] Speaker C: And I have been learning a lot about this from the work of evolutionary psychologist Joseph Henry.
He talks about two aspects of leadership in humans, dominance and prestige.
One that we share with other primates, and the other unique to humans and closely related to culture.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Hendrik makes two points.
First, that the social structures of other primates, chimpanzees, apes, are mostly about dominance. You have powerful individuals or coalitions of individuals, and they expect submission. They take resources, they fight off challenges.
[00:06:33] Speaker C: And for sure, humans do sometimes rule by fear or coercion, like mafia bosses or dictators.
But ultimately, humans don't like to be dominated. They naturally prefer to be led by someone with prestige.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: Okay, so define prestige.
[00:06:55] Speaker C: It's a form of status.
People pay special attention to you. People follow you not because they're afraid of you, but because they admire you in some way. They want to be like you, and that gives you influence.
And so back to the hunter gatherer example. If you are the best hunter, people pay attention to how you hunt. You are admired. People want to be close to you.
Prestige means people want to follow you.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: I love that distinction, because the bosses that we love, that we admire, we are happy to follow them. And the bosses we hate are the ones that we fear.
[00:07:37] Speaker C: It's why dictators invest so much energy on projecting a positive image of themselves. They Want to be admired. So people do not need to be coerced.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Well, I really like the idea that human nature is more oriented towards prestige. But the question is why?
[00:08:04] Speaker C: So let's get geeky about the evolutionary purpose of prestige. Prestige evolved together with social learning, with culture.
It's the mechanism that encourages us to learn from the most successful individuals. It's what allows groups of humans to accumulate knowledge.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: So it's like the original attention economy.
We pay attention to and we imitate successful individuals. And prestige gives you influence.
So if you love Taylor Swift and you learn that she drinks matcha lattes, then maybe you try one too.
[00:08:44] Speaker C: Leadership lesson one from evolutionary psychology is that human beings are naturally wired to follow, admire, and imitate certain people, those with qualities that people value.
But if you are a boss and people don't admire you, then you have to rely on dominance, which people resent.
And that's a super important point for people working across cultures.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: And that leads us to the key question that cultural bridge people face.
What do people value and what do they expect from a leader?
[00:09:23] Speaker C: To begin with, we have this image of a leader, especially a business leader, as a rational person who carefully weighs the pros and cons, makes decisions to maximize gains and minimize costs.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: But in reality, human beings are fundamentally intuitive.
We jump to conclusions. We follow our gut about right and wrong. So leaders do not operate simply as calm and collected decision makers, always focused on best practices.
We have intuitive expectations for what is normal in a given situation. We are guided by our interpretations and our judgments, by our feelings of right and wrong, wrong, our moral frameworks.
[00:10:07] Speaker C: And that reminds us of a story that Liu Liu told in episode 49 about a misunderstanding between a Dutch manager and her Jordanian team member because of different expectations about leadership. Let's listen back.
[00:10:26] Speaker E: I have seen how small things can hint at deep cultural difference.
There was an international conference to be held in Amman, Jordan, with a female Dutch manager in charge of organizing it.
She asked an administrator, a Jordanian woman, to take care of booking the venue at a local hotel.
The administrator paid a visit to the hotel and make the arrangements.
When she came back, the Dutch manager asked her many detailed questions about the hotel and its facilities, down to the number of toilets.
The administrator was annoyed.
She felt distrusted personally and guessed that her Dutch boss must have a very low opinion of her country.
Later she told me, of course the hotel will have all these things.
[00:11:38] Speaker C: I can totally relate to this story. What seems like a small detail can create a lot of bad feelings.
In episode 49, we call it a Cognitive cascade.
And a leader is equally susceptible to a cognitive cascade as a team member.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: And we react in the moment, but then we may miss those cultural assumptions underneath.
[00:12:03] Speaker C: So in the case of the Dutch manager and the Jordanian administrator, what were the different cultural expectations?
Let's listen to how Liu Liu explains it.
[00:12:19] Speaker E: From a high context relational Jordanian perspective, much goes without saying.
A professional takes care of details so the boss doesn't have to.
Trust is key.
From the low context task based Dutch perspective, a professional makes sure all the boxes are ticked.
Transparency is key.
It's not hard to imagine that the Dutch manager was also annoyed.
It's deeply unfortunate how seemingly small things can start us off on the wrong foot and send us in the wrong direction.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: So that's the tragedy of this kind of conflict, isn't it? Both sides doing their best, but with different expectations.
[00:13:19] Speaker C: And so Leadership lesson 2 from cultural psychology is that leaders are not immune from the cultural logics and moral frameworks that shape them.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: And here's the catch. When you misjudge like the Dutch manager did, you lose prestige.
And I bet the administrator lost confidence in her boss.
And that's going to make the manager's job even more difficult going forward.
[00:13:47] Speaker C: So all of this leads us to the next big question.
How can cultural bridge people navigate these differences?
Fortunately, we have a lot of experience on the podcast team, so let's hear what they have to say.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: And that brings us to part two. Leadership is cultural.
[00:14:19] Speaker C: So how do different cultures answer the question, what is a good leader? For example, Joseph, how about Japan?
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Well, there's a lot of consensus building. There's an expression, ne mawashi, literally root binding, which refers to the need to get agreement in private before discussing things publicly.
I can remember being frustrated because it seemed that there was no debate in meetings. And these are the kinds of things that you often hear about doing business in Japan. But how about leadership in India?
[00:14:54] Speaker C: You know, I'm reminded of my father's elder brother, my Jetu, the patriarch of the family, but also a highly respected leader at work.
I remember him saying that a leader was like a large banyan tree, not very flexible, but one that engulfs people in its shade.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: Oh, I love that metaphor. Although, you know, that's not the picture that I would have had in my mind about leadership.
[00:15:24] Speaker F: Right.
[00:15:25] Speaker C: So again, that's just a reminder of how cultural leadership is.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: Well, I know that if you pick up a book about leadership in the U.S.
the ideas there are often more American than I think a lot of Americans realize.
[00:15:40] Speaker C: Can you think of an example?
[00:15:43] Speaker B: Well, one of the best selling leadership books ever, something like 40 million copies sold, is the seven habits of highly Effective People.
And many Americans would think those habits will make you effective anywhere, but they are pretty American.
[00:15:59] Speaker C: So give us the seven habits they are.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Be proactive. Begin with the end in mind. Put first things first. Think win, win.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Synergize.
Sharpen the saw.
[00:16:18] Speaker C: But talk us through how those can be seen as culturally American.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: For example, the first one, be proactive. The individual takes action to make things happen in a more collective context. You do a lot of consensus building to get things moving, and it can be risky to move too quickly.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: That's true in India. Relationships are key to getting things done. So maybe number one for India would be build relationships.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Then there's numbers two and three. Begin with the end in mind. Put first things first. These are very task oriented, very goal oriented, and they assume linear planning.
[00:17:02] Speaker C: Okay, what about number four? Think win, win.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: Well, that's like leadership is a game or a competition, and you want everyone to be a winner. That's very American.
[00:17:21] Speaker C: Okay, so the question is, would an American know that these leadership tips sound American?
[00:17:29] Speaker B: I think a lot of times no, because they're so unconscious.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: And that's why it's hard to teach about leadership across cultures. And that's something podcast team member Saneh Bozma has experience with.
[00:17:49] Speaker G: At my international business school, we teach our students that leadership is not just one thing.
There are many ways to lead people.
And of course, culture plays a role in this.
What people see as good leadership depends on context, where you come from, what you're used to, and also what a team expects from a leader.
There is a hard truth behind this. Leading diverse teams takes more effort. It requires listening, adapting, and questioning assumptions. But when it works well, diversity can lead to great rewards.
Our teachers come from many countries and lead very differently. One emphasizes hierarchy, where titles and roles matter and expertise is not questioned.
Another focuses on relationships and asks students about their personal interests.
A third actively asks for feedback. All of this becomes part of the learning.
Leadership is not something you study. It is something you experience.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Well, I like the idea that leadership is something you experience, not something you.
[00:19:10] Speaker C: Study in real life.
Leadership across cultures, though, can be super stressful.
Sometimes it's because you don't understand how things work, but also you can feel caught between different ways of doing things.
And that's something podcast team member Leah Thorhild Liana Harskarness has experienced firsthand.
[00:19:39] Speaker H: My experience leading across cultures. Includes leadership in Norway and working as a country director in the Philippines and as a regional director for Asia in the Philippines, there was a steep learning curve in Norway. A good leader gives people space, stays calm and collected, downplays their status. They are first among equals.
Leadership in the Philippines is different.
Hierarchy is clear and more paternal.
A good leader is warm and looks after their people.
They should feel respected.
They show great loyalty.
These differences create uncertainty and stress.
Once I had to let go of an employee on probation in the Philippines, I was surprised at how formal the process had to be, the level of documentation required, the fact that workers have strong rights on paper.
I had to be extremely direct, both in writing and orally.
I had to list each offence explicitly.
The notice had to be mailed by registered mail and presented in a meeting.
It felt so cruel.
But in the Philippines, this was just being correct and fair.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: So there are a couple of things that strike me about Leah's story, and one is simply that we need so much cultural knowledge to be a leader.
Leah had to learn all about the processes in the Philippines. And then on top of that, leadership styles are really different.
[00:21:36] Speaker C: I think that when the cultural distance is big, it can be hard to figure out where you stand.
Do you adapt what feels right to you personally?
And that's something that podcast team member Yuto Aki has given some thought to.
[00:21:57] Speaker I: In Japan, a good leader prioritizes group harmony.
Other things, charisma, achievements, intelligence, decision making are desired as well. But managing group level harmony is the main focus.
A good leader is someone who unifies by being a neutral presence with a watchful eye.
That's how my high school basketball coach was. He never really scolded anyone.
He wanted everyone to work together and sometimes would say something like, hey, make sure you guys get along.
But he didn't step in when something unsportsmanlike happened later. I had an American coach, he was the opposite. He didn't care about the group dynamics, but he would point out mistakes, tell us what was good or bad on the court.
I don't like a total focus on harmony. If you avoid all friction, if you don't point out right and wrong, then the so called harmony will just be on the surface.
People will get along, sure, but they will play it safe, hold back, feel frustrated and get less done.
And that's not my idea of leadership at all.
[00:23:36] Speaker C: I love how Yuto was raised in Japan, but doesn't necessarily like typical Japanese leadership.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: And it's also true that you have to be true to who you are and that is something that podcast team member Emre7 has had to struggle with in his own society.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: Somehow I often find myself as the head of something.
In primary school, I was chosen as class prefect for five years.
In my first year as a teacher, I was selected as the head of department, even though my colleagues were 5, 10, or even 15 years older than me.
And now at my university, I work as a vice coordinator to the head of international relations office.
Unfortunately, what people expect often does not feel natural to me.
In Turkey, leaders are like father figures, tough autocrat, someone who gives orders, lots of hierarchy and lots of micromanagement.
I am exactly the opposite of that.
I hate people who squeeze you into role and who must be followed exactly step by step.
I like leadership with autonomy support rather than commands.
I learned a lot about leadership in the United States.
The supervisors in the factory where I worked did not rule us. They worked with us and got involved only when there was a problem we couldn't solve on our own.
And outside the factory, you can be friends.
Authorities stop at the front gate.
Back in Turkey, a boss is a boss, even when stopping by your place for a friendly visit.
Yet what I learned in the United States feels strange to people here.
When I manage our staff or my students, I would rather convince than control.
I see my role as a fixer of problems.
But in Turkey, people often find my style too soft or too democratic.
When I talk to our staff before decision, most people say, why do you ask?
Or they find it strange that I bring tea to my students when they come for a chat.
This is unacceptable.
I must order them to bring me the tea. I must be ruthless sometimes. I mustn't hesitate to break people's heart.
But for me, that's not leadership.
[00:26:20] Speaker C: Ray's story is complicated.
He learned a lot of cultural lessons in the United States, but it's not easy for him to apply back in Turkey.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: Well, I admire the way that Emre is very clear about the leadership style he prefers, but it's not because he doesn't understand other possibilities.
[00:26:43] Speaker C: But there's something that's missing here.
Emre and Yuto have negative impressions of more hierarchical styles of leadership, and they speak from experience.
But I have worked with wonderful bosses who were clearly the boss, more like a parent.
And in many places in the world, the leader is expected not only to help get things done, but to also really be a role model as a human being.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: And this is something that podcast team member Albert Mangami has experience with growing up in Zimbabwe, about having lived in the United States, China The Netherlands and experiencing many different leadership styles. Let's hear what he has to say.
[00:27:36] Speaker F: When I was living in the United States, I played on a field hockey team at a pretty competitive level.
Once our best player disagreed with the captain and the situation escalated, another teammate stepped in to mediate. But the coach ultimately intervened, saying the captain's word was final.
Later, the coach pulled the best player aside along with me for moral support and told him that as someone playing a leadership role, he needed to set a better example.
He asked me to help keep him accountable.
I was struck by the different ways leadership could be interpreted in that moment.
The mediator, the best player, the captain, the coach, or even me.
All of us might be seen as showing leadership, but for me at the time, the captain was clearly the leader.
I felt confused when others were seen as leaders because they were talented or because they mediated as though leadership was a toolkit to be pulled out at any time.
That's not how I was raised to understand leadership.
Leadership was a position, not a set of traits.
The eldest child, the manager, the prefect, the governor, they are all leaders because of the seat they occupy.
Leadership should be embodied in them.
This perspective is deeply cultural in Zimbabwean contexts. Hunu is a founding principle of our society that is expected of our leaders.
It relates to personhood, moral character, responsibility to the community rather than personal concerns.
Because of all this, I tend to prefer hierarchical leadership that has this quality.
It's also why when I notice the failings of leaders, I don't see them as lacking skills. I see failings of them as a person.
In the past, I struggled with corporate leadership styles, especially the stereotypical middle management American leadership style.
It felt like transactional efficiency covered in affirmations and coercion.
Like, I believe in you champ, but I'm sorry you're getting laid off.
Over time though, I have learned to adapt to and appreciate different leadership styles.
Who I follow and how I lead is very fluid.
Like many cultural bridge people, I understand that leadership depends on context. And yet, at some deep level, I am still guided by hunu, which teaches me that anyone can become a leader.
What matters most is being a good person.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: I really liked Albert's example of the field hockey team.
This is really the way that Americans think about leadership as something anyone can do, like a skill.
[00:31:20] Speaker C: I was not familiar with the idea of Hunhu, but it resonated with me as an Indian In India, a leader is a caretaker, which doesn't always mean that they are benevolent.
A lot of authority can also lead to a lot of abuse.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: Well, all of this is getting pretty deep. Which also raises the more practical question, given all of this cultural difference, unconscious expectations, what should we be keeping in mind when working across cultures?
[00:31:54] Speaker C: And that brings us to part three.
So what do I do?
[00:32:08] Speaker B: So we've been saying that leadership is not a set of techniques, but. But let's say I'm going to be working abroad or with a diverse team, and I understand this will be a big challenge. Where do I go from here? What does this mean for leadership training?
[00:32:24] Speaker C: I think the starting point is to recognize reality gaps.
The same action can be interpreted in different ways and people misjudge the other's intentions.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: So the goal is to highlight the reality gaps and to try and understand the cultural differences that are behind them.
[00:32:46] Speaker C: And we are really fortunate because Leah has a lot of experience doing cross cultural leadership training and she shared a story that she uses.
So take a listen and think about the cultural differences involved.
[00:33:05] Speaker H: Imagine a workplace cafeteria where workers eat lunch.
According to common rules, each employee should place their used dishes in a trolley.
However, many people are in a rush and forget.
One day, the CEO passes by after lunch and sees a cleaner cleaning up.
She greets the cleaner, stops and starts gathering some of the dishes.
The cleaner is a foreigner and feels terrible.
So here is your question.
Why does the CEO start cleaning?
How does she feel?
How does the cleaner feel?
In the Philippines, many people say that the CEO must be unhappy with the cleaner.
Clearly, she's upset that the cafeteria is not clean. Yet she's bothered that she must show the cleaner what needs to be done.
The cleaner feels ashamed. She thinks she might lose her job.
Norwegians imagine things differently.
Obviously, the CEO has noticed that the staff hasn't cleaned up as required.
They've left it to the cleaner. And this isn't fair.
The CEO feels embarrassed and wants to give the cleaner a hand.
And the cleaner feels grateful.
In the trainings I do, this story provokes strong reactions.
It's hard for participants to step back from their judgments.
Other interpretations can feel strange, unfair, morally wrong.
And if that's true with an imagined story, how much more in real life, when you are the CEO or the cleaner?
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Wow. The differences are really striking and kind of heartbreaking too. The Filipino participants say that the cleaner might worry about losing her job.
But the Norwegian participants think that the cleaner will feel grateful and it's the boss. So it's like a misunderstanding on steroids.
[00:35:38] Speaker C: And all of this can turn toxic.
The cleaner feels threatened, the boss feels unappreciated.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: And this story does relate to some of the cultural differences. We've been talking about hierarchical leadership versus more egalitarian leadership.
But that raises another question related to training.
What other cultural differences should people be aware of?
[00:36:04] Speaker C: And that's a big question, of course. But let's share a few resources and talk about how it relates to cultural psychology.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: So let's start with the work of Erin Meyer. She's a professor at insead, that's the Institut European des Administration des Affaires, that's a leading graduate school in France.
[00:36:27] Speaker C: And her story is interesting. She interviews top executives in international businesses to find out their pain points and how they succeed.
She wrote a book, the Culture Map. It's super popular.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: And her main point is that misunderstandings in international business come from different cultural logics.
So the same behavior, like silence in meetings, can mean very different things in different cultures.
[00:36:59] Speaker C: She breaks those differences down to eight dimensions.
Communicating, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing, and scheduling.
I think of her work as a kind of handbook to spot cultural differences in behavior.
For example, communication, is it high context or low context?
Scheduling, linear time versus flexible time.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: And cognitively speaking, this is about pattern recognition. By learning about cultural categories, the mental models we use to make sense of the world, they become more sensitive to those cultural patterns. So you notice things you might not.
[00:37:48] Speaker C: Otherwise, and it gives you a vocabulary to talk about cultural difference. Although some. Some people criticize her work for being simplistic, that it can be stereotypical, well, I don't disagree.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: Although anything that helps us recognize cultural patterns is a plus.
I'm actually a big fan of the work of Franz Trompenhauers and Charles Hampton Turner. They were influential in the 1990s. That was before Ehren Meyer. But their work tries to understand the why behind different cultural patterns.
So Meier helps you anticipate friction to spot the cultural pain points, but Trompen Hours and Hampton Turner help you understand the deeper cultural logics behind those values.
[00:38:38] Speaker C: Their big book was Riding the Waves of Culture.
Very accessible, but the thinking behind it is much more geeky.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Well, it comes from PhD research that Fons Trumpenauers did at the Wharton School, one of the top business schools in the world.
And Charles Hampton Turner was a philosopher and a management theorist.
[00:39:02] Speaker C: And you can feel the philosophical approach in their work grounded in systems theory.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: And that's way too much to go into here. But we should talk about their seven dimensions of cultural difference. There's universalism versus particularism, individualism versus communitarianism, neutral versus emotional, specific versus diffuse, achievement versus Ascription, sequential versus synchronic time, and internal versus external control.
[00:39:37] Speaker C: And each of those represents a universal human dilemma.
Should emotion be controlled or expressed openly?
And cultural communities find different answers to these questions. In some societies, emotion is seen as healthy. It connects people.
But in others, it's seen as rather risky and damaging.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: And these are called dilemmas because both are true. We do need to express emotion, but we also need to control emotion.
And their insight is that learning to reconcile these opposing truths is the key to working across cultures.
[00:40:19] Speaker C: Okay, so now we've overloaded everyone already.
But we do have to mention the work of Geerto Hofstader, who's probably the most influential intercultural management guru. And his work was earlier than either Mayer or Trump and ours. And Hampton Turner.
His breakout book was called Cultures and Software of the Mind.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: And we don't draw on his work very much for reasons that are too complicated to go into here. But you can check out episode 26, the Trouble with Cultural Difference, and also episode 61, Is Culture Real, which talks about his work and it really geeks out.
[00:41:01] Speaker C: So let's summarize a bit.
Leading across cultures is hard.
It's not just a set of techniques. It's deeply cultural.
Also, being seen as a leader is important because prestige makes people want to follow you.
And it's easy to jump to wrong conclusions when people don't act like we expect.
So we need to understand cultural patterns.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: And as you know, Yvonne has a lot of experience training leaders and working with multicultural teams. So let's give her the final word.
[00:41:41] Speaker D: It takes time, effort, and deep cultural insight to get multicultural teams to flourish.
Teams need a shared understanding of leadership and teamwork.
They need to find hybrid solutions.
In the end, what feels like leadership to me might not to you.
[00:42:14] Speaker C: That sums it up, doesn't it? What feels like leadership to me might not to you.
And that's a great thing to keep in mind.
So, Joseph, what sticks with you from today's episode?
[00:42:27] Speaker B: Well, I loved learning about the evolutionary psychology of prestige. That people want to follow someone they admire but resist being dominated. And that means that how people perceive you is important, like the story of the cafeteria.
[00:42:40] Speaker C: And these are high stakes situations and we are not always calm and collected. Things affect us, we react.
It can be frustrating.
But that is also why there is always something to learn.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: And I think that's a good place to end. Let's share some of our sources. We talked about the evolutionary psychology of prestige and dominance. Definitely. Check out Joseph Henrik's book, the Secret of Our How Culture is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species and Making Us smart.
The Deep Culture Experience podcast is sponsored by the Japan Intercultural Institute, an NPO dedicated to intercultural education and research. I am the director of jii and.
[00:43:27] Speaker C: Speaking of jii, I think we don't talk about it enough. You're a bit too modest.
These days it's hard to find a podcast that doesn't have ads that's not monetized. But this podcast is totally non commercial. No one gets paid, no ads.
We share a vision and we have a team of more than 10 people all contributing to these episodes. It's really an amazing community that has developed as part of the work of the Japan Intercultural Institute.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: Well, thank you for that. It is an amazing community and JII has a huge announcement. We are launching a new masterclass. In addition to our foundation Masterclass where you learn about the psychology of intercultural understanding, we now have three advanced masterclass modules. There's Culture, Body and Mind where we focus on insights related to the evolutionary roots of culture.
Also the Psychology of Cultural Difference, which explores cultural variation around the world, and Deep Culture Learning and Adjustment, which explores how we can learn and grow from foreign experiences.
[00:44:37] Speaker C: The masterclasses have had a great online learning community.
It's really a way to connect to other cultural bridge people who are into the stuff.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: You can also support this work by doing a web search for the Japan Intercultural Institute and clicking on the membership button. It's a really reasonable way to support us. And as always you can get in
[email protected] A special thanks to Yvonne Van.
[00:45:04] Speaker C: Der Pal for joining us for this episode and sharing her insight insights. Great to hear your voice Yvonne.
And Also thanks to Emre7, Yuto Aki, Albert Mangami, Sane Bozma and Leah Torhild, Liana Hars Karnas for sharing their stories with us.
Thanks also to team members Vanessa Eisenberg, Hashini Madrasinghe Sound engineer Robinson Fritz and jiis administrator Ikum Me Fritz and everyone at jii.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: And thanks to you Ishita. I learned a lot. As always.
[00:45:41] Speaker C: Thank you Joseph. As always it was fun sharing this time with.
