In my years working in organisational psychology, I’ve seen first hand how cultural competence becomes a defining capability for thriving teams and organisations. When leaders and teams deepen their understanding and skills around culture, they unlock more innovation, psychological safety, inclusivity, and sustainable performance.
Below, I summarise and expand on key insights from a recent article by The Culture Factor (linked below) on cultural competence, and reflect on how my practice with organisations has helped leaders embed culture work into their strategic agenda.
What Is Cultural Competence and Why It Matters
Cultural competence is the ability to understand, relate to, and effectively engage across different cultures, perspectives and identities. In organisational life, it means:
- Recognising that your workforce, clients or partners come from diverse backgrounds
- Being curious, open, and humble about what you don’t yet know
- Adapting behaviours, communication, systems and structures so that all people feel respected and included
- Managing the tensions and misunderstandings that arise when multiple worldviews interact
Here are the key elements of cultural competence, both from the article and my practice:
- Awareness and Reflexivity: Uncover assumptions, biases and blind spots through tools like cultural audits or assessments. I often start coaching with a “culture map” exercise; leaders frequently discover they’ve underestimated the gaps between espoused values and lived norms.
- Knowledge and Learning: Invest in learning about different cultural perspectives and experiences. In my practice I often bring cross-cultural case studies and stories to enrich reflection.
- Skill Building: Develop practical skills for inclusive communication, conflict resolution, and adapting leadership styles. In workshops, I lead role-plays and simulations of “culture collisions” to build confidence in navigating tough conversations.
- Continuous Reflection: Regularly revisit and adapt culture practices, using feedback, surveys and storytelling. I coach leadership teams to schedule quarterly “culture reviews” where they look not only at metrics but stories, tensions, and signals of culture drift.
- Structural Embedding: Integrate cultural competence into policies, recruitment, performance management and promotion systems. I encourage leaders to see this as part of doing leadership, rather than a HR problem.
If you want to embed cultural competence in your organisation, here’s a roadmap I often guide clients through:
- Sponsor and signal cultural competence as a leadership priority
- Use diagnostics to understand your current cultural strengths and gaps
- Develop tailored training, coaching and experiential learning programs
- Integrate cultural competence into talent and leadership systems
- Create safe forums for dialogue and feedback
- Define meaningful metrics and review them regularly
- Commit to continuous learning and adaptation.
Even with the best intentions, many organisations face challenges such as superficial, tick-box approaches; resistance or defensiveness from leaders and team; a lack of sustained commitment; and siloed or inconsistent efforts.
The key is to move from aspiration to action, making cultural competence a genuine strategic differentiator.
I encourage you to read the original article (linked below) and use it to spark dialogue in your leadership team, culture audit or people strategy review.
Curious to learn more?
Book a no obligation call with Josephine to discuss your business growth needs
