Significance Of Cultural Intelligence

Cultural Intelligence and How it is Applied

Discuss about the Significance of Cultural Intelligence.

Intelligence is defined to be that construct of which researchers use to explore misunderstandings between individuals because of cultural differences. Over the years tried socio-scientists as John Berry and Robert Sternberg amongst others have tried to properly elaborate the school of thought behind Intelligence. However, they have been able to point out the main approaches through which the idea can be studied. The approaches include social or cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence, artistic intelligence amongst other approaches have been very vital in understanding the whole idea of interactions between people from different cultural backgrounds. In our case, cultural intelligence can be used to show the ability of an individual to adapt into a new cultural environment where the behaviors and interpretations are so much different from what the individual knows. A person with such an attribute is said to be culturally intelligent.

On the other hand, emotional intelligence is the ability to assess behaviors of other people and one self so as to distinguish between different emotions and either deem them worthy or not. The idea behind emotional Intelligence incorporates the whole idea of personality of an individual as the main reference point. It isolates the society from a person in question to understand his or her way of interacting with other people. However, we should note that it is the influence of the general society that will influence the behavior of an individual. Therefore, the school of thought behind emotional intelligence is very important for an individual developing cultural intelligence. Simply because the person studying can understand as to why an individual will have particular reactions when a certain aspect is done. Hence making him or her have, an upper hand in knowing why some certain aspects are done within his own are not accepted within the new environment. Therefore, for the said reason, making the process of his or her acquisition of cultural intelligence easier.

It is with such idea in mind that the paper tries to shade more light on the idea and adequately compare it to other approaches of emotional intelligence. In particularly, the paper will discuss the in-depth analysis of how the cultural can be improved within a working place and how it is important to our day to day interactions within the hallways and offices of our working spaces. Moreover, the paper is also showing how the aspect of emotional intelligence has an impact to a person studying the concept of cultural intelligence and the instances that the two approaches can work hand in hand with one another.

How Individuals can Improve on their Cultural Intelligence

In environments such as school or the office, there are often people who come from different cultural backgrounds. This means that they may speak a totally different language from what the majority population speaks. Cultural intelligence induces the ability to work effectively in areas with people from different cultures (Ang, S. and Van Dyne, L. 2015). However, cultural intelligence is not a skill that one is born with it is a mental construct that an individual can acquire by simply learning about the different cultures of people they are likely to interact with (Charmey, L. and Martin, J. 2013).

Individuals can improve their cultural intelligence by simply learning about the different ethnicities that exist, through personal interactions with the communities practicing the cultures or by reading documented facts about the same. Such interactions with the communities can be enhanced better when you actually learn it in its original place of origin, since; an individual might not give you the exact picture about the practices that happen. An important aspect of culture that the approach looks at is language other than the social restrictions acquired in a people’s beliefs. The most important aspect of learning the cultural intelligence is that one has to appreciate the culture at hand to understand it better. Other aspects as ethnocentrism that can be developed by an individual are as a result of lack of appreciation of cultures that are not your own hence the feeling that your culture is more superior while others are backward in nature.  

Emotional intelligence involves recognizing that each has emotions that should be respected and considered. It involves being aware of self and others (Crowne, K. 2013). Therefore, emotional intelligence enables a person to manage himself and his relationship with others properly. When interacting with people, emotions will be involved at one point or another. The reactions in individuals can be either positive or negative simply depending on a person’s socialization. Some individuals are naturally warm people and interacting with them gives one a sense of comfort. Moreover, people would love to be in their company. Other people have nothing positive to say and staying around them will belittle the person and largely create a bad mood. Understanding the emotions of others is important for there to be successful interaction. Again, Erez, M. et al are of the opinion that an individual who consider other people’s feelings is a good listener. S/he can listen to the needs of others and not only focus on himself. As such, a leader who can relate to people in this manner is likely to be respected, (Keung, E. and Rockinson-Szapkiw, A. 2013, 836-854).

Significance of Cultural Intelligence

The cultural intelligence idea helps promote proper communication between individuals in a workplace. While communicating, it is possible to say one thing and appear to be saying something different because of body language. Each needs to be aware of the posture and facial expressions and how they can be interpreted by others. Humans often communicate subconsciously or consciously. For this reason, it is important for one to send the exact intended message. Once one is aware of his emotions, the person can focus on positively directing his behavior (Li, M. er al., 2014, 32-50). One way of doing this is ensuring that what is communicated verbally is in sync with the body language. Subsequently, emotional intelligence is helpful in the workplace where there are numerous employees from different places: as it serves as a tool for self-evaluation regarding social interaction (Erez, M. et al., 2013). Notably, through the skill, people can develop other skills such as teamwork and communication; where working with different personalities is difficult but tolerance is easily developed in such situations. Additionally, social skills necessary for proper customer service can also be gained. Further, all these skills will enable employees to work effectively and within a good timeframe to realize an institution’s set goals. The benefits of cultural intelligence in a business environment cannot go unnoticed since an individual with the knowledge can pass it on to others to bridge the knowledge gap that was in the organization. Through the socialization process, interpersonal relationships can be developed between multicultural groups.

Having cultural intelligence helps get rid of the bias one may have towards a certain community hence reducing cases of ethnocentrism (Lucke, G. et al., 2014, 169-190). For instance, it may be assumed that certain individuals have a hot temper and working with them is considered tricky. Such an ideology should not be held against anyone especially if one person is to be blamed for that. Developing a level of cultural intelligence will need some bit of training. In other cases, the experience will serve as the best teacher. An individual who takes an interest in the cultures of others is more likely to learn about them. In addition, an employee can choose to observe them and ask questions where necessary. Some individuals are known to have traveled to different countries either for holiday or business reasons. If such people only keep to themselves and do not bother interacting with others, the trip will not be worthwhile. In most cases, one has to get out of his comfort zone to relate with others. For instance, a less talkative person will be required to start a conversation with a stranger and keeps it going to get relevant information.

An individual who only sticks to a particular group of friends may have to leave them for some time and interact with different people. Most of the time, the way people react is according to how they were brought up. Certain ideologies were taught from a young age, and for that reason, they are engraved in mind. It is necessary to look into how culture and background affect relationships with those from multicultural backgrounds. While learning about other cultures, one should keep an open mind. Failure to this one will not learn much as the interested party may develop biases towards certain people hence being ethnocentric. The fact that people do things differently does not mean that they are wrong. Each person should make an effort to find out why a community does things in a particular way and not in the common way, everyone is used to seeing. Those who want to develop cultural intelligence must first be motivated. As such, they need to be curious about what is going on in the other team and integrate it into their current system.

Having an understanding of different cultures bears its advantages. These advantages should be enough to drive one team to learn about another with different cultures. Later on, a strategy to understand this different information should be developed. After learning this new information, learning to adapt is another skill that will need to be mastered (Matsumoto, D. and Juang, L. 2016). Training can be held in offices by employees who want their staff to do better. For this to happen a certain time in the day needs to be set aside for workers to learn. During this time, they will be relieved of their duties and engage in an interactive session geared towards boosting their interpersonal skills. Workshops can also be organized by professionals who can handle the topic. During the seminars, individuals can receive tips on how to develop cultural intelligence. Moreover, employees learn the different ways in which it is related to emotional intelligence. In such workshops, there is often a time for question sessions where attendees can have their queries aired and addressed (Siegling, A. et al., 2014, 65-68). Holding dialogs or conversations with a diverse group of people is rendered beneficial as it serves as a tool for socialization and enculturation. Nonetheless, the topic of discussion can be the different ways individuals can grasp these skills.

Cultural intelligence promotes innovation or creativity within a work place. Cultural intelligence can be applied in schools, offices and any place where there is human interaction. In an office set up, a multicultural group is more advantageous than a homogenous group when it comes to performance. The ideas of the latter group cannot match those of people from different regions of the world. In situations that require creativity and innovation, the group with diverse members will do well. The same conclusion can also be derived when studying students in a certain school. Individuals from the same area are likely to come up with common ideas during group assignments that are familiar to them. Those from different regions may have surprises up their sleeves and obviously do better than the earlier team. Having conflicts between people is normal. Solving them becomes tricky when the people in conflict do not know how to relate to each other due to differences in culture.

Cultural intelligence reduces misunderstanding within a work place. In case there was a language barrier, and a misunderstanding was developed, a person who properly understands the language can come in and explain what each team meant by what they said. At the end of it all, learning the foreign language may be a necessity to prevent such disagreements from happening again. When an attempt is made to understand a different culture, cohesiveness will develop among people. Each person will strive to do their best knowing that every other person wants the best for them. In times of conflict, there should be no bias against any team. In the long run, individuals develop respect towards each other. This is helpful in stressful situations whereby finding a solution is not easy. In areas where cultural intelligence is developed, there will be an increase in productive relationships. This is because people understand the needs of others.

Therefore, it is important to develop cultural intelligence within a workplace since it has more of benefits into the company. It will not be a waste of a company’s resources in terms of time and expenses but will add more gains into the outcome. Since it motivates unity in workplace other than other aspects of innovativeness and proper communication that makes the business have a very motivating environment to work.

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