Tag: Leadership

Elizabeth Cogswell Baskin is president and CEO of Tribe, Inc., an internal communications firm that works with national and global brands like UPS, Coca-Cola, Target, Embassy Suites, Chick-Fil-A, Porsche, Invesco, and Elavon. She is also the author of several books, including Run Your Business Like a Girl, a study of female entrepreneurs. She has created… Read the full article

Defined as an individual’s capacity to function, interact, and manage effectively in diverse settings and backgrounds, cultural intelligence is about understanding that a person’s cultural identity has a great influence on how he or she thinks, makes, decisions, behaves, defines situations, and determines success.

Very often we entrench ourselves in the various regulations only to forget the intrinsic need of the human on the other side of the table. You are right. I am wrong. Who really cares? Sometimes conflict is not as simple as someone being right or wrong.

Intuitively, we knew that leadership was important to creating a work environment where each person is recognized and developed, and their talents are routinely tapped in to. However it was unclear which leadership competencies actually created this reality. A further challenge was identifying a way to measure these competencies.

The request for mentoring someone else can sometimes come at an “inconvenient” time—when workload, taking over a new role, dealing with organizational change seem challenging enough. However, as we celebrate National Mentoring Month, I invite you to challenge yourself and others on this conventional thinking and entertain the idea that this might be the right time for you.

The concept of ownership gets a lot of attention these days. The notion is broad, embracing such concepts as accepting responsibility, being held accountable, taking initiative, and especially using your own judgement/making independent decisions about matters that have expressly been delegated to you. This sounds straightforward enough, but taking ownership actually has a cultural dimension.

Invest in our future through education—especially in (STEM) science, technology, engineering and math, as well as through job training and economic development. This will drive growth, create jobs and contribute to building stronger communities and greater civic unity. It will foster a culture of skilled and knowledgeable people that are working together for a greater cause—that America is a nation of great opportunity.

Providing opportunities for entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups is the key to economic prosperity, whether it’s implementing policies that will increase our access to capital or ensuring that government-funded organizations follow inclusive procurement practices during the contract-bidding process.

Through this letter, my hope is that for your second term, you and your administration will be challenged to practice what you’ve preached to us to move our country forward—and that we will be inspired to follow.

The need for culturally competent leaders will be ever more urgent as the workforce becomes more and more diverse on a number of different dimensions.