Culture and Leadership 

Since World War II, globalization has been advancing throughout the world. Globalization is the increased interdependence (economic, social, technical, and political) between nations. There is more international trade, cultural exchange, and use of worldwide telecommunication systems.
People are becoming more interconnected, and in the age of the Internet and apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, they can communicate across cultures at the push of a button. Increased globalization has created many challenges, including the need to design effective multinational organizations, to identify and select appropriate leaders for these entities, and to manage and communicate within organizations with culturally diverse employees.
Anthropologists, sociologists, and many others have debated the meaning of the word culture. Because it is an abstract term, it is hard to define, and different people often define it in dissimilar ways. For our purposes, culture is defined as the learned beliefs, values, rules, norms, symbols, and traditions that are common to a group of people.
Related to culture are the terms multicultural and diversity. Multicultural implies an approach or a system that takes more than one culture into account. It refers to the existence of multiple cultures such as African, American, Asian, European, and Middle Eastern. Multicultural can also refer to a set of subcultures defined by race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age.
Diversity refers to the existence of different cultures or ethnicities within a group or an organization. As the word suggests, ethnocentrism is the tendency for individuals to place their own group (ethnic, racial, or cultural) at the center of their observations of others and the world. People tend to give priority and value to their own beliefs, attitudes, and values, over and above those of other groups. Ethnocentrism is the perception that one’s own culture is better or more natural than the culture of others. It may include the failure to recognize the unique perspectives of others. Ethnocentrism is a universal tendency, and each of us is ethnocentric to some degree.
Ethnocentrism can be a major obstacle to effective leadership because it prevents people from fully understanding or respecting the viewpoints of others. Skilled leaders are able to negotiate the fine line between trying to overcome ethnocentrism and knowing when to remain grounded in their own cultural values.