Chris Edwards, Senior Advisor
“You’d think I’d know how to spell my name, wouldn’t you?”
I offered this mildly inane pleasantry as I returned the clipboard to the university-educated senior member of the Administration team. The pen had slipped as I’d been scribbling my signature at the bottom of a page that had been resting on an unsteady arm. But instead of the polite, indulgent smile I’d been expecting, I received a matter-of-fact response which could not completely mask the trace element of disappointment:
“Yes. You have a degree in English from the University of Oxford.”
But then it was my first week as Head of a school in Singapore, and I had yet to learn that the self-deprecation that had served me so well in the UK and in an earlier international role would not land as successfully in my new surroundings. Now, many years on, and having interviewed and exchanged views with hundreds of sitting and aspiring international Heads, I am more convinced than ever that technical competence can get you hired, but cultural intelligence may well determine whether you last.
In 2003, scholars Christopher Earley (London Business School) and Soon Ang (Nanyang Technological University) published Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures. Sadly, I didn’t read the book until twelve years later, by which time, despite my good intentions, I had unwittingly misread, domesticated, coloured, overlooked, transposed and caricatured interactions that deserved far more from me.
Your Cultural Intelligence Quotient, or CQ, is about more than not flaunting the soles of your shoes in the Middle East. Typically, it is described across four dimensions: the cognitive (knowing about other cultures), the motivational (wanting to engage with cultural difference), the metacognitive (thinking about how you think across cultures), and the behavioural (actually adapting your communication and conduct).
I would suggest most school leaders get to grips pretty quickly with the cognitive (after all, much of that can be learnt through reading). Things become trickier once we reach the metacognitive and behavioural elements. Retaining your authentic self while navigating unfamiliar social and even moral environments requires some of the unlearning discussed in an earlier article. We all know that overlaying those successful years in Buenos Aries onto the new post in Abu Dhabi and expecting the same result is only going to end one way; but for a veteran Principal especially, it can still be a difficult trap to avoid. Unless one is sensitive to the danger, confidence tends to calcify into assumption.
An obvious example of where a high CQ is advantageous is in establishing whether your relationship with a board or owner exists in a low context environment where communication is usually explicit, direct and literal, or a high context environment in which implicit and indirect communication (including non-verbal cues) are standard. Given the international make up of some boards, a Principal may face a hybrid of the two. One must be careful when generalising about particular regions not to employ the very stereotypes a high CQ teaches you to avoid, but I think most Principals would recognise that there is a difference between, say a North European or North American governance model and a Gulf or South Asian context. In the case of the former, a Principal will often feel that the reservoir of trust will deepen if she is direct, transparent, quick to surface problems and keen to generate debate. Little if any thought will be given to concepts like “face”, preserving collective dignity, deferring (in public at least) to hierarchy and patiently cultivating relationships before task focussed interactions commence. But the calculus is markedly different as one moves East and South, and these concepts – alien to many Principals – may become increasingly crucial to success.
An example may be helpful. Challenging an individual board member in a group setting may be the sign of a strong leader in a North European/American context, but it might lead to shame and embarrassment for both parties in the Middle East and Asia. Essentially, you might lose trust when you apply the wrong model. The Principal who is too circumspect in a low-context culture should not be surprised if they are viewed as secretive or even incompetent. Conversely, the Western principal who demands “radical transparency” in a high-context culture could be seen as embarrassingly naive or dangerously indiscreet. Elsewhere, CQ is just as important. A Brazilian international school Principal will want to get to grips with the special nature of jeitinho relationship, which help get things done in difficult bureaucratic circumstances. In many parts of Africa, Heads might be dealing with collectivist cultures in which community alignment trumps any positional authority. And so on. There is no workable global template.
Approaching every new position with cultural curiosity (as opposed to cultural certainty) is vital. Leadership does not work the same everywhere. Building as much foundational knowledge as possible around social norms, communication styles, political landscape etc. is self-evidently important, but understanding the logic of a culture is crucial: how do people interpret authority, trust, conflict, collaboration? On arrival at a new school, a Principal should take time to listen for what is unsaid, and notice who speaks, who defers and who influences. How direct or indirect is communication, and why? Will you need to be more patient with decision timelines? Are you comfortable with the levels of deference required to get things done? Are you still bringing assumptions to meetings rather than curiosity and humility (neither of which preclude strength)? And do you have a cultural mentor: somebody who can help you reflect on and be flexible within a new cultural paradigm without compromising your core values?
So CQ is an ongoing discipline. I’d like to think my mistakes became fewer as I immersed myself more into a host culture, but I continued to make them. Just before Covid struck, I went from Singapore to New Zealand where, as a coda to my career as a school leader, I was tasked with setting up Green School New Zealand. This involved downsizing initially by a factor of 100 (from nearly 6,000 to 60 students), and appointing the Head and the Board. But it also necessitated working very closely with the Māori community, on whose sacred land the school lay. I had worked on four continents beforehand and run one of the biggest international schools in the world, but, frankly, it counted for almost nought: all at once I was an ingénu again. Whanaungatanga, the slow building of genuine personal connection, was foundational; nothing could happen without correct approaches to Iwi (tribe) and Hapu (sub tribe); I learnt and respected the seminal status of Tikanga (protocols) and Kawa (customs); and I grew to understand the almost transcendent nature of Manu and Tapu which shaped how people related to land, to space, and to each other. Here, as in all new cultural environments, success would only follow if one approached every interaction with humility, curiosity, and adaptability. Had I employed the same modus operandi in Taranaki as I had in Sao Paulo, or Buckinghamshire, or Singapore, the lights would have gone out very quickly.
CQ involves the ability to understand how cultural expectations shape leadership, authority, communication, and trust. I would suggest that it is not an optional attribute of an international Principal; it is a defining competency.