Leading with Cultural Intelligence
The New Secret to Success
By: David A. Livermore, Ph.D.
Published: October 2009
Format: Hardcover, 220 pages
ISBN: 9780814414873
Publisher: AMACOM/American Management Association
"Leadership today is a multicultural challenge", writes Executive Director of the Global Learning Center, David Livermore, in his groundbreaking and very useful book Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The New Secret to Success. The author teaches the essential new leadership skill of cultural intelligence (CQ) for both individual leaders and organizations.
David Livermore recognizes that the world is rapidly becoming a much smaller place, with inter-cultural business relationships increasing at a rapid rate. While conducting global transactions may be done in an instant, the author believes that many business people are lacking in the crucial cultural intelligence skill. Putting his vast store of experience, accumulated from working in the global marketplace, David Livermore shares the skills necessary for effective management and leadership in a world wide business arena. At the same time, the author points out the perils and pitfalls, that can cause massive losses both personally and financially, for any companies and business people who fail to grasp the importance of cultural intelligence for their success.
David Livermore (photo left) brings a fresh approach to understanding leadership across many widely different global cultures. The author's holistic approach, with readily transferable skill applications, is different from many cross-cultural business books that are country, customs, and taboo specific. In their place, David Livermore provides the framework for adapting readily to any cultural setting, and becoming a successful leader regardless of location. The author stresses keeping an open mind, and observing nuances, as well how to learn basic survival skills to cope with different economies and customs. By adopting a cultural intelligence attitude, David Livermore gives business people the tools to recognize if their current management and leadership practices will succeed or fail in a given environment. Cultural intelligence builds the foundation necessary for successful multicultural business relationships.
For me, the power of the book is its combination of a strong theoretical framework, with practical hands on applications of the essential tools. David Livermore builds a cultural intelligence foundation based on four key concepts. By learning and fully understanding the importance of those four critical components, a business person is well on the way to becoming much more richly grounded in cultural intelligence. The approach combines developing one's drive to understand, with learning more about other cultures and countries, and developing a positive strategy for working in another cross-culture setting. After that planning is completed, an action plan can be put into place. The approach doesn't require the leader to become an expert in every culture, but helps to change a person's perspective on the many different cultures encountered every day at home, and around the world.
I highly recommend the essential and must read book Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The New Secret to Success by David Livermore, to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of working, managing, and leadership in a multicultural world. Whether the business person owns a small business, is an executive or CEO of a large corporation, or a business student, the book teaches the critical skills for success in a global marketplace, or in one's own increasingly multicultural local community.
Read the important book Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The New Secret to Success by David Livermore, and develop the business and outlook transformational skill of cultural intelligence. As the century goes on, the ability to lead and work in cross-cultural situations, both at home and around the world, will become an essential business and leadership skill. This valuable book gives the culturally aware business person, the crucial skills needed to succeed, in a multicultural business world.
