Cross-cultural leadership training is not a good idea!
The one thing I’m asked to teach about in numerous places is ‘leadership’, and it’s usually the one thing I try to avoid teaching about.
The reason for my reluctance is that the longer I’ve been working cross-culturally, the more I realise that we are so different, and leadership just looks really different in our different cultures. In some cultures, a firm handshake and the ability to hold someone’s gaze is to be admired. Yet this would be seen as very rude in another culture.
I come from a culture where any leader must be willing to jump in and make their viewpoint heard. This is so foreign to the culture I now find myself in, where it’s really the most senior person in the room that will speak, and the others feel no need to add to what has been said. So this reluctance is for good reason, and yet I am currently running a leadership course made up of people from 5 different nations, with very diverse cultures! (It’s actually 6 if you count Jeremy as being from Kenya, where he works with numerous church leaders, and he’s not very British!).
Why the change of heart?
Although the outward workings of leadership will vary from culture to culture, it’s my conviction that God is at work in the inner life of anyone who is called into Christian leadership, and this journey is very similar in any culture. This journey is where the concept of ‘Heart of a Leader’ originated. We’re now almost halfway through our online course, reflecting on the leadership that Jesus demonstrated. We’re exploring together some of the deeper questions regarding our own journeys, dealing with our disappointment and failure, understanding the issues we bring around identity, handling criticism and flattery, and staying connected to the Spirit. It’s been a joy to find the group sharing openly with each other, and some are using this to mentor other leaders around them, and have those kind of conversations with them. The real benefit I see is that a group of leaders are journeying together, sharing their views and experiences from their different cultural perspectives, and enriching one another.
Wherever we are from, we have so much to learn from brothers and sisters in different cultures, that will always enrich our own journey of faith. This is undoubtedly my experience, and I trust that others are experiencing this now through this course.