Cultural understanding can mean many different things. Leaders of organizations will need to be the cultural role model for those in their organizational unit no matter what cultural understanding means. One aspect of this cultural understanding is an appreciation of people from other countries. As a leader you will be doing business in other countries. You will be hosts for people who visit our country.
Cultural understanding is something you can and should start developing while in college. Here are some things you can do:
- Reach out to students from other countries. Ask them to join you for study sessions. Start identifying how they think through assignments and preparing for tests. You will begin to learn how different cultures approach a challenge.
- Become a language partner for a student who needs help in understanding the language being used in your classes. Ask your language partner to teach you key phrases and fundamentals of his/her language.
- Pursue a language minor. Learning a language in college can be a huge benefit in your future job search. Any language is ok because what you are really learning is how to acquire a new language ability. If you are assigned to an overseas placement in your career, you will have a better sense of how to acquire the language skills you will need.
- Begin to watch TV shows from other countries on Netflix, Amazon, or other streaming video. Use the closed caption feature to reinforce the language skills you are developing.
- Join an international student organization. In most cases you will be welcomed, and you can add a lot to the organization by sharing your cultural background with them.
- Develop friends from other countries. You can learn a lot by hanging out with them and just talking about things as you would with any classmate from your own country.
- Start maintaining a list of friends you have from other countries. Link to them on social media. Make a point to connect with your friends on a regular basis.
- Start developing a notebook of cultural insights from your friends from other countries. Your list may consider insights on religion, food, personal interactions, social practices, etc. This notebook is something you will want to keep adding to during your entire career.
If you talk to a senior leader in almost any organization, you will find them light up when they start sharing their international experiences. Many will keep a count of the countries they have worked in. And they will tell you if they had to do college again, they would do the things listed above.
