Leading with Cultural Intelligence, 2012a

ecomes anxious and uncomfortable. She makes excuses for not going, and her supervisor is confused.
Karen has been an outstanding worker and her actions are puzzling and surprising.
Karen’s self-concept has contributed to her self-efficacy. The expectations of her teacher, her family,
and her relatives to learn a new language is too much for her to handle. The responses she receives
are not what she wants or needs to hear to help her improve her German language skills. As a result,
she withdraws from learning the language and culture. She develops a self-concept that may consist
of any of the following:
I will never learn the German language and the culture.
I do not have the ability or skills to learn a new language.
It is easier if I just do what is comfortable for me.
I cannot make mistakes or people will lose their confidence in me.
These beliefs and attitudes surface when her supervisor asks her to relocate to Germany. The
negative memories and experiences she had become barriers to her success and self-efficacy. She
feels anxious, and her behaviors are seen as strange.
Developing a Self-Concept
There are three general understandings about how a self-concept is developed. First, a self-concept is
learned. As Mead indicates, a self-concept gradually emerges early in one’s life and is constantly shaped
throughout life by one’s perceived experiences. This means that a self-concept is learned: it is a social
product of one’s experiences. The perception of one’s self-concept may differ from how others perceive
that person, and it is different during every life stage. When a person is presented with an experience that
differs from the self-concept he or she has developed, the person sees the experience as a threat. The more
experiences that challenge the self-concept, the more rigid the self-concept becomes. Generally, an
individual will try to overthink, overgeneralize, or rationalize the experience so as to reduce the emotional
havoc it creates.
Second, a self-concept is organized. Most scholars agree that individuals develop a self-concept that
has stable characteristics in order to maintain harmony. Our self-concept is orderly: it categorizes our
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