A Research Paper By Michal Antczak, Leadership Coach, FRANCE
High-Tech Leadership Coaching in a Multicultural Environment
This paper analyzes the opportunities and challenges related to coaching leaders in technology companies that either operate at an international scale, are about to start doing that, or, in general, need to address the matters of collaborating with multicultural customers or employees. It thus focuses predominantly on enterprises that have grown out of the start-up phase and have addressed the challenges typical to the launch period.
The paper aims to come up with a coaching framework that could be applied to facilitate structuring and conducting leadership coaching conversations in the multicultural, technology company context, as described above.
Leadership Principles
A sound business plan, efficient operations, good products, and customer satisfaction have traditionally been considered critical to commercial success. Over the last decades however principle-based leadership has increasingly been highlighted as the key competitive advantage, regardless of company scale. Stephen Covey, a recognized leadership expert, argues1 that the key to dealing with the challenges of today’s fast-paced environment is to “develop a principle-centered core within both ourselves and our organization.”
Lou Gerstner Jr., the former CEO of IBM, claims “Vision, strategy, marketing, financial management […] can set you on the right path and can carry you for a while. But no enterprise […] will succeed over the long haul if those elements aren’t part of its DNA.”2
In short, the notion that a set of central leadership principles (or values) deeply engrained in the company culture is essential to long-term success has become an essential part of mainstream leadership knowledge.
Modern leadership principles seem to be closely aligned across the companies covered by this research paper, regardless of their country of origin. The figure below shows the relative frequency of key notions used to describe leadership principles across a sample of medium-sized companies from Europe, North & South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia.3 The bigger the font size, the more often these enterprises refer to the given notion in their set of leadership principles or company values.
Multicultural Dimension Frameworks
While core leadership values remain closely aligned between technology companies across the world, research has shown that the ways in which these values manifest themselves in individual behaviors and business practices of the most successful companies are tailored, among others, to local cultural norms.4 Erin Meyer, a professor at the INSEAD Business School, specializing in cross-cultural management, argues that “differences in communication patterns and […] in what is considered good business or common sense from one country to another have a tremendous impact on how we understand one another, and ultimately on how we get the job done.”5 Her Culture Map model (shown below, reworded for conciseness) organizes the differences in culture-related behaviors into 8 key areas.
The relative position of culture on each of these scales determines the challenges that people coming from them may face when working together.
While Meyer’s framework applies mostly to business practices, it can also be applied to intercultural interaction nuances in general. It can thus play a vital role for leadership coaches, helping them better understand the context of the change the client is seeking and adapt their coaching practices to engage in a more meaningful dialogue.
A similar, but more extensive approach is described by Philippe Rosinski.6 He proposes a Cultural Orientation Framework that, unlike Meyer’s Culture Map, is built specifically with coaching in mind. It covers 17 dimensions grouped into 7 categories that matter to everyone regardless of their cultural background. It is presented below (reworded for conciseness.)
Rosinski points out that, unlike individual psychological predispositions, people’s cultural orientations greatly depend on the context in which they are applied (e.g. different communication patterns used within your own team vs. when dealing with company leadership.) We may thus need to consider different cultural profiles for the same person for each situation explored in a coaching session. Conversely, we need to acknowledge that the cultural profile does not determine nor limit the coachee’s personal or professional potential and that the awareness of its existence may help them discover new possibilities.
Additionally, Rosinski emphasizes that the notion of culture is not connected to such factors as nationality or ethnicity only. He proposes the following definition for coaching purposes:
A group’s culture is the set of unique characteristics that distinguishes its members from another group.
This has significant practical consequences, implying that the differences in people’s orientation and default behaviors should also be considered in the context of their education, profession, industry, function, etc.
Over two decades of my own leadership practice in international high-tech companies, I have worked closely with professionals from over 40 countries across all continents. I have regularly observed a correlation between their leadership behaviors and the organizational cultures in which they gained their expertise. The existence of such a correlation, attributed to multiple factors, has also been confirmed by numerous studies.7 That essentially means that any framework for multicultural leadership coaching should combine the nationality-based cultural dimensions with the values common to a particular professional field.
Framework for High-Tech Leadership Coaching in a Multicultural Environment
Meyer’s and Rosinski’s models complement each other, so combining them should give us a comprehensive theoretical structure for coaching leaders in a multicultural environment. A focus filter that prioritizes analyzing the discussed topics with technology company leadership values in mind should also be applied. The resulting framework should be used to the extent that it does not limit the client insofar as setting the session intention, identifying the goals, and bringing forward any blockages or challenges concerned. It should not be used in a prescriptive fashion but rather as a tech company-focused set of concepts for the coachee to explore.
The steps I took to arrive at that framework were as follows:
- Combined Meyer’s and Rosinski’s models for a uniform set of cultural dimensions.
- Conducted a survey to assess to what extent the awareness of the existence of each of these dimensions was seen as impacting behaviors consistent with tech company leadership principles.
- Summarized the results and prioritized the cultural dimensions within the set mentioned in (1) above in accordance with their total impact assessment score calculated in (2) above.
I have provided the details of these activities and their outcomes below.
Uniform Set of Cultural Dimensions
After combining the two models and removing redundancies, I have arrived at the following set of 22 cultural dimensions grouped into 6 areas.
Area Cultural Dimension
Communication |
Affective vs. neutral Confrontational vs. avoiding confrontation Direct vs. indirect Formal vs. informal Low vs. high context |
Life Philosophy | Being vs. doing Control vs. harmony vs. humility Individualistic vs. collectivistic Protective vs. sharing |
Models of Thinking | Analytical vs. systemic Deductive vs. inductive Principles vs. applications first |
Organization | Competitive vs. Collaborative Consensual vs. top-down Egalitarian vs. hierarchical Stability vs. change Universalist vs. particularist |
Time Management | Linear vs. flexible time Monochronic vs. polychronic Past vs. present vs. future Scarce vs. plentiful |
Trust Building | Task- vs. relationship-based |
Detailed descriptions of these dimensions are provided in the two individual models above.
Assessing the Impact on Leadership Behaviours
To assess the degree to which the awareness of the existence of each dimension of the framework may drive behaviors related to company leadership principles, I resorted to a survey. It was sent to 173 technology professionals and consisted of 22 questions, presented one at a time, in random order. Each question presented briefly one of the cultural dimensions and asked the respondent to rate the following statement:
If a new person joins your company, can their awareness of the existence of this cultural dimension help them demonstrate your company’s leadership principles pertaining to:
- Driving collaboration
- Customer focus
- Embracing inclusion
- Demonstrating agility
- Fostering diversity
- Driving innovation
- Demonstrating integrity
- Displaying a sense of ownership
- Building trust
The respondents provided one of the following answers next to each of the 9 company principles above (note they are the ones that have been identified at the beginning of this paper):
- No
- Probably
- Definitely
52 responses were received.
For response aggregation purposes each “No” got 0 points, each “Probably” got 1 point, and each “Definitely” got 3 points. The points were aggregated for each of the 22 cultural dimensions as totals of arithmetic mean from all the responses per each of the 9 company leadership principles listed above and then sorted from the highest to the lowest total to arrive at the prioritized framework for high-tech leadership coaching in a multicultural environment (presented in the next section.)
Aggregating the Survey Results: The Cultural Dimensions / Leadership Values Matrix
The matrix below shows each leadership principle prioritized (from left to right) by the degree to which being aware of each of the 22 cultural dimensions positively impacts behaviors aligned with that leadership principle (measured as described in “Assessing the Impact on Leadership Behaviours” above.) The bigger the blue bar and the number at the intersection of a given leadership principle column and cultural dimension row, the more the awareness of that cultural dimension influences the behaviors specific to that leadership principle (as perceived by the survey respondents.) For example:
- The behaviors that represent “Driving collaboration” are seen as being heavily influenced by 19 cultural dimensions. Their scores oscillate between 3.00 (“Time management: Linear vs. flexible time”) and 2.58 (“Communication: Formal vs. informal”), which puts them high on the scale from 3 (meaning the influence definitely exists) to 1 (meaning the influence probably exists.)
The awareness of the two remaining dimensions, with scores of 1.21 (“Communication: confrontational vs. avoiding confrontation”) and 0.94 (“Models of thinking: Analytical vs. systemic”), is perceived as less likely to influence behaviors typical for “Driving collaboration” – their scores are very close to 1 (meaning the influence probably exists.)
- The behaviors that represent “Fostering diversity” are seen as being heavily influenced by 2 cultural dimensions only: “Organization: Consensual vs. top-down” (score 2.92) and “Time management: scarce vs. plentiful” (2.75).
The awareness of five other dimensions is perceived as probably influencing behaviors typical for “Fostering diversity.” These dimensions are: “Organization: Universalist vs. particularist” (score 1.00), “Life philosophy: Individualistic vs. collectivistic” (1.00), “Models of thinking: Principles vs. applications first” (0.98), “Communication: Low context vs. high context” (0.77), and “Organization: Competitive vs. collaborative” (0.71).
The remaining 15 dimensions are not seen as influencing the behaviors typical for “Fostering diversity” to a substantial degree.
Applying the Matrix in Coaching Practice
The cultural dimensions/leadership values matrix described above forms a framework that is primarily applicable in blended coaching scenarios where technology company professionals of all levels, either people managers or individual contributors, face challenges related to demonstrating leadership principles or driving their adoption in highly multicultural environments. It can be applied throughout the session, whenever a need to find a common language to describe behavioral phenomena or to clarify the concepts related to company principles arises. However, it will likely be especially useful for:
- Structuring the discussion when partnering with the client to identify what they want to accomplish, to ensure that the conversation is grounded in (but not limited to) technology company principles and related behaviors.
- Customizing observations and questions about the client or the situation by taking into account tech company principles and related behaviors.
- Exploring the words that the client uses in the context of both the tech company principles and the cultural dimensions that affect the associated behaviors, and which may apply either to the client, to the organization they are part of, or both.
- Exploring the client’s perception of themselves or of the people they collaborate with through the lens of the cultural dimensions applicable to specific technology company values.
- Grounding the questions about the client’s current way of thinking, beliefs, and behaviors, or about their situation, in tech company principles and the most relevant cultural dimensions to help them explore beyond the now.
- Formulating observations, comments, and thoughts that would be relevant to technology company values and the relevant cultural dimensions, in order to share them with the client.
- Using a language that applies to the client’s technology company context.
High-Tech Leadership Coaching: Different Takes on Universal Cultural Dimensions
This paper has demonstrated one of the possible ways of building a coaching framework that combines different takes on universal cultural dimensions with leadership principles specific to a particular industry (multinational high-tech enterprises.) That framework makes extensive use of quantitative data collected directly from industry practitioners, which further increases its usefulness for real-life leadership coaching scenarios. It can be applied at multiple stages of the session, for structuring the discussion, customizing observations, exploring perceptions, values, beliefs, and wording, and establishing a common language with the client.
References
“Principle-Centered Leadership,” Stephen R. Covey, RosettaBooks, 2009
“Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? Leading a Great Enterprise Through Dramatic Change,” Louis V. Gerstner Jr., HarperCollins, 2009
Source: Own compilation based on leadership principles & value statements published on company websites
“Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies,” Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras, Harper Collins, 2002
“The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business,” Erin Meyer, PublicAffairs, International edition, 2015
“Coaching Across Cultures: New Tools for Leveraging National, Corporate and Professional Differences,” Philippe Rosinski, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2003
Publications and studies where this topic is covered in detail from multiple perspectives:
“Organizational Culture and Leadership,” Edgar H. Schein, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2017
“Relationship Between Organizational Culture, Leadership Behavior and Job Satisfaction,” Yafang Tsai, BMC Health Services Research, 2011
“The Relevance of Kahneman and Tversky’s Concept of Framing to Organizational Behavior,” Max H. Bazerman, MIT Journal of Management, 1984, vol. 10, No. 3.