Global Intelligence: Awareness and Adaptability Lead to Success— Igor Poza
Previously we talked about cultural sensitivity and curiosity that plays a crucial role in our daily life. Exploring and decoding how people think, behave and interact will allow any leader to understand how to get things done around the world.
As we become more sensible about cultural differences, awareness and adaptability come along.
Awareness is a state of knowing and being informed of something, while adaptability is the quality of being able to adjust to new conditions. These 2 conditions play hand in hand when it comes to being in an unfamiliar environment.
As we open ourselves to a new situation, whether it’s moving to a foreign country, city, or starting in a new company, the ability to be aware of both our environment and ourselves is an essential element required for working successfully across the world.
We’ve heard of “being aware of our surroundings” and “being aware of our actions,” these sayings play two crucial roles in our everyday professional and personal livesfor aspiring leaders to increase their Global intelligence.
a. Environment
Demonstrating political, economic, and historical savvy is a key component to help leaders for global leadership. Leaders will be required to demonstrate geopolitical knowledge and economic agility, with the ability to remodel or disrupt at any time an organizational and profitability frame across Geographies.
It is of vital importance for Global leaders to give a thorough thought to the impact that local, national, and global economics play in our lives, public and personally wise by being customer-centric and competition conscious in whichever industry they navigate in. Thriving in this complex and unpredictable environment requires agility to get the new path to winning means captivating opportunities quickly and exploiting them decisively.
b. Self
When it comes to awareness, it takes a lot of self-reflection. But it starts with being curious about knowing yourself, strengths, weaknesses, biases, and acknowledging them. Making sure we are doing right by our principles, staying true to your values and learning from the biases we have of life perspectives.
Personally, with a French cultural background, my communication style was more direct and blunter. I came to the realization that my communication style did not fit in always well with the country in which I was residing.
To get things done and most importantly the results needed I focused on adapting my style of communication to each new environment I was in either Asia or North America. Different countries use different styles of communication just as companies have different company cultures. It is imperative that we accept the differences and respect the culture.
As we are constantly aware of our surroundings and any new context, we situate ourselves in, it is crucial to quickly adapt to the ever-changing environment. Both environment and self-awareness play a part when it comes to adaptability. Firstly it’s about the environment that you are in and how you increase your self-awareness through introspection and feedback. Then, how you, as an individual, adapt yourself to these new factors. We need to figure out a way to always balance both, then will we be able to reach maximum adaptability.
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About Igor Poza: Igor is a Global Brand and Team builder in Luxury Leather Goods and Cosmetics with 25+ years of comprehensive experience, both in headquarters and subsidiaries of Multi-billion Fortune 500, Family-owned businesses and private equity-owned startups. He has expertise in multi-channel retail and multicultural management. His cultural intelligence allows him to bring people together and transform businesses. He currently serves as the Chief Commercial Officer at Mansur Gavriel.
