President Obama is in the news a lot. Actually, more than a lot. This fact, coupled with close media analysis of the things he’s doing, makes him a fascinating study in leadership. I mean, in this country, the President is really the Leader, capital “L”; when he struggles or, conversely, handles something well, we can all learn from it, especially compared to the comments of his critics. Right now President Obama is traveling through Asia, and I want to look at two of his stops through the lens of culturally proficient leadership.
In China, the President spoke to an audience of college students in Shanghai. He pushed for greater uncensored access to the Internet, saying that a little criticism wouldn’t harm their leaders. Now stop for a second: does that opinion make sense to you? If it does, and you’re American, that’s not surprising. The open challenging of authority is a baseline of our culture---it’s what the Declaration of Independence is all about! However, it’s not the norm in Chinese culture. To openly challenge someone in authority is to cause them to lose face or, putting it another way, cause them to suffer public humiliation. From a general American point of view, well, if someone deserves to be publically humiliated then they should be. Case closed. It’d be considered a normal action to take, and if you were the target of the humiliation, you’d be expected to either vigorously defend yourself or apologize, whatever your status. In China, though, if you’re in authority, you don’t normally openly admit to wrongdoing, and you don’t usually get called out in a public forum. Note that this doesn’t mean that Chinese officials aren’t ever censured or punished---they are. It just doesn’t often happen in public.
When the President pushes for open criticism of Chinese leaders, he’s actually asking for something quite foreign to the Chinese way of thinking. In a culture used to indirect communication, criticism is often best handled through an intermediary, or by analogy, rather than straight confrontation. So here the President is acting out of a cultural assumption---projecting his culture onto another. A message framed this way, while possibly embraced by some of the college crowd to whom he spoke, is likely to be summarily dismissed by Chinese leaders. This is a tough place to be in as a leader---Obama has a message to deliver, a message he believes in, but it’s going to be ignored by those for whom it’s intended because of cultural confusion around how to deliver it.
Even more interesting, at least in terms of the furious response, was the President’s bow to the current Emperor of Japan. Many of those who commented on the bow found it to be demeaning---they didn’t think America’s President should be bowing to anyone. They saw the bow as submissive. Now, I think it’s fairly common knowledge that in Japanese culture, bows are seen as a sign of respect; not to bow would be insulting. What’s fascinating is that I don’t doubt many of those who criticized the bow knew that fact---they just didn’t care. To them, the point was that America’s leader-in-chief shouldn’t bow to anyone, no matter who they are. The American value-norm of a firm handshake and straight-on eye contact are viewed as superior, and somehow the President should expect the Emperor to conform to American culture, even though the meeting took place in Japan.
So, once again, here’s a leader in a tough place. He’s trying to convey a message to a colleague in a culturally appropriate manner, and voices are raised because of cultural confusion about just what message he was delivering.
Around deepSEE, we’d say that in the first example the President is acting out of an orientation of Minimization---he’s assuming that everyone understands and appreciates criticism in the same way he does. In the second example he’s acting more out of an orientation of Acceptance---recognizing the difference at hand and attempting to frame his response through the perspective of the other culture. His critics, however, are tending to react more out of an orientation of Defense---uncritically viewing their own cultural practice as superior, with no regard for context.
If this seems a little complicated, well, it is! Building cultural proficiency is a developmental process, like any sort of growth, and there’s no skipping over the messy parts. The President, like any leader, is only human and subject to both success and failure---the thing to watch is how he builds on those cultural successes, and learns from the failures. Oh, and the terms I used above: Minimization, Acceptance, and Defense, are three parts of an assessment tool we use a lot around here: The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). Check it out!