Leading with Cultural Intelligence, 2012a

When Jacob was presented with another perspective, he let his guard down. Over time, he was able
to focus on the real issue, which was that no matter what your status, creed, ethnicity, or reason for
moving to the United States, as a public sector employee it was his role to provide the appropriate
services that would meet the residents’ needs.
As leaders, we must make strong efforts to see a different perspective than what we believe and hold
to be true. We must challenge ourselves, as Byron Katie [2] says, by asking whether we know what we
see to be true is really, in fact, true. And if it is, how do we know that? What stories have we told
ourselves? To understand this, we need to look at the “roots of culture” and how our cultural systems
have shaped our realities of the world.
[1] Langer (1990).
[2] Katie (2002).
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