LEAD FPX 5210 Assessment 1 Cross-Cultural Leadership Capabilities

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Capella University

LEAD-FPX5210 Leading Global and Diverse Cultures

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Six Domains of the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale (IES)

The six domains are derived from three primary factors (Kozai, 2021), with each factor containing two specific competencies, as shown in the chart below.

Self-Awareness

This domain reflects an individual’s ability to assess honestly how their strengths, weaknesses, styles, and behavioral tendencies affect others. Healthy self-awareness involves regular self-examination from this perspective to cultivate and continuously develop relationships with a diverse range of people.

Exploration

Exploration refers to one’s openness to ideologies, norms, values, and customs from different cultures. It measures the aspirations, openness, and curiosity associated with the desire to explore diversity in experiences. It also examines the inclination to seek growth through diverse experiences and to assign value to them through personal application. Higher scores indicate individuals who are more inquisitive, explorative, and open-minded, effectively applying these experiences to their own lives.

Global Mindset

This domain assesses the interest level one assigns to different cultures and people in those regions. It can be measured through the level of interest in foreign media, books, entertainment, and other cultural experiences. Higher scores reflect individuals with a propensity to expand their global outlook and find commonalities that highlight similarities in belief, thought, and humanity. Lower scores indicate a more limited vision, making it challenging to form relationships outside one’s comfort zone.

Relationship Interest

This domain measures an individual’s ability and desire to seek commonalities across various cultures and demographics to develop lasting relationships. High scorers actively pursue relationships with people from diverse cultures and make efforts to communicate in their languages. Conversely, low scorers are less likely to engage with those different from themselves and may find the process of cross-cultural communication challenging and unnecessary.

Positive Regard

Positive regard, essentially open-mindedness, reflects one’s ability to approach relationships with individuals from different cultures without judgment or stereotypes. This domain measures the capacity to maintain a positive regard for the process and people involved while striving for personal development through emotional resilience (Kosai, 2021). High scores suggest individuals who are more open and accepting, likely to successfully develop and maintain effective relationships. Low scores indicate a more negative outlook toward anything different from oneself, leading to challenges in relating to others.

(Emotional) Resilience

This domain is crucial as it measures one’s ability to approach significant emotional events with balance, focusing on solutions rather than problems. Higher scores are associated with individuals who look beyond conflict toward resolution, maintaining composure in stressful situations. They also tend to succeed in relationships involving diverse groups. Lower scores reflect a tendency to focus excessively on conflict, leading to missed opportunities for growth and the creation of a toxic environment that hampers relationship development and task accomplishment.

Personal Global Leadership Plan

Awareness of the need to develop these skills can lead to an enhanced “cultural intelligence quotient,” or “cultural IQ” (Capella, 2021). A culturally intelligent person requires knowledge of culture and the fundamental principles of cross-cultural interactions, including understanding what culture is, how cultures vary, and how culture affects behavior (Capella, 2021). To function effectively as a global business leader, one must sincerely seek to understand others’ values, ideologies, norms, and the behaviors acceptable and unacceptable within a particular culture.

There is a distinction between intercultural awareness, intercultural sensitivity, and intercultural competence (Chen, 1996). It is not enough to be aware of these differences; one must also display competency in applying the sensitivity required to develop and maintain positive relationships with these differences in mind. Inter-culturally sensitive individuals are motivated to understand, appreciate, and accept cultural differences, producing positive outcomes from intercultural interactions.

Awareness is a key component of developing oneself as a culturally sensitive business leader. Self-awareness plays a critical role in this development. For instance, recognizing where one “fits in” on the global stage, considering factors such as age, is a great starting point. The IES Survey norm group includes undergraduate and graduate students as well as working adults across a broad range of occupations, ages, and nationalities. Specifically, 8% of the norm group is under age 20, 64% is between 20 and 29, and 28% is age 30 and above; 57% are male, and 43% are female (Kozai Group, IES Survey, 2021).

Developing a routine of casually observing obvious characteristics can help in forming patterns of behavior that lead to more critical analysis of differences. However, care should be taken not to overly focus on these differences, as they may overshadow the task at hand. Enhancing this awareness can lead to better planning and more effective conflict resolution (Hammer, 2009).

References

Bhawuk, D. P. S., & Brislin, R. (1992). The measurement of intercultural sensitivity using the concepts of individualism and collectivism. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 16(4), 413-436.

Bird and Osland (Capella). (2021). Global Leadership Competencies Pyramid Chart. Capella University Library. Retrieved from http://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/LEAD5210/Interactive_unit03/ComponentsofCulturalIntelligence_u03_wrapper.asp

Chen, G. M., & Starosta, W. J. (1996). Intercultural communication competence: A synthesis. Communication Yearbook, 19, 353-383. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED408634.pdf
Hammer, M. R. (2009). Resolving conflict across cultural boundaries: Solving problems and resolving conflict using the Intercultural

Conflict Style Model and Inventory. Retrieved from http://www.icsinventory.com/resources/mr-hammer-2009-ics-moodian-article