Culture and Leadership Connections Podcast

What It Takes to Manage Well
Episode Highlights:
Delve into the three essential categories for effective management and self-regulation, differentiation, and high-level thought integrated throughout and responsive to operations.
Three Essential Categories for Effective Management
Self-Regulation:
Self-regulation is crucial for good decision-making. It involves recognizing and accepting your feelings. It means being aware of your feelings and thoughts and choosing not to act on them impulsively. Self-governance enables you to consider the impact of your actions leading to more thoughtful and beneficial outcomes.

• Self-awareness and self-governance: This results in the ability to manage and release unpleasant emotions safely, interpret reality accurately, and maintain a sense of calm and peace.
• Other awareness and empathy: With genuine self-awareness, you'll have heightened empathy and notice and understand others' feelings and experiences. Increased other awareness and empathy in the workplace is a sign of effective management.
• The ability to change and sustain one's habits for elevated thought and action: True self-regulation means not defining yourself by routines or limitations but continuously expanding your sense of self through learning and applying new insights to work habits.

Differentiation:
Differentiation is the ability to see the separate within the whole and the whole within separate and to bring them together. It's the ability to do analysis and synthesis.

• Separation of identity from in-group and out-group bias: The ability to separate your identity from the groups you belong to is crucial in management. A strong in-group and out-group identity is necessary for a sense of belonging and security. However, it's essential to maintain a balance and not let these identities define you entirely.
• Being able to hold multiple points of view without attaching yourself to them: This is a sign of effective management, allowing you to make decisions based on what's best for the collective rather than your personal biases.
• Capacity to inspire others and be inspired: If you are inspired by others, you're likely to be more inspiring yourself.
• Ability to balance encouragement and challenge: It means when people are not feeling strong, you can encourage them and build them up. When they're feeling strong but not showing their best selves, you can challenge them to step up to the plate.
• Being able to read reality without becoming hopeless in the face of difficulty: There are a lot of challenging realities in the workplace, and people go through many difficulties. If you can read and understand these difficulties without losing hope, it's a sign of great leadership.

High-level Thought Integrated Throughout and Responsive to Operations:
It's not enough to have great ideas if no one can act on them. Frequent conflicts between departments occur when high-level thought is not integrated, usually due to lack of consultation.

• Have principle-based discussions that respect individual inputs: Listen with interest without getting defensive or allowing anyone to dominate.
• Collective decision-making that promotes honest and kind participation: Making decisions as a group where everyone is both honest and kind leads to agreed-upon solutions benefiting the whole without excluding individuals or groups.
• Ability to translate thought into action, reflect on the outcomes, and make adjustments: Changing your mind isn't a sign of weakness, but constantly changing it is. Making a decision and sticking to it despite negative outcomes is not a sign of strength.

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Bio for Andy Knight

W. Andy Knight is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. He serves as Advisory Board Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Welfare of Children.

Episode highlight

Andy Knight comes from a family of religious preachers, politicians and musicians. He brings his multi-dimensional personality into his work as a political science researcher and humanitarian. Listen in on how he is unravelling all the world’s problems, one heart at a time.

Links

Email: [email protected]

Skype: andyknight54

Twitter: WAndyKnight1

About: https://www.ualberta.ca/arts/about/people-collection/andy-knight

Quotes

“We are all one people, we are all from the same source, we all need to be concerned about each other’s well-being regardless of what culture, what background we’re from.”

“We ought to be able to find ways to build sustainable peace and one way to do that is to be able to accept differences of culture, differences of religion and realizing that we are all really from the same source.”

“There’s still some good in all of us, I think, and we need to be able to find that good.”

Takeaways

Childhood incidents:

Andy grew up in Barbados in a family with religious and political influences. His childhood exposure to music instilled discipline in him while he turned to fine arts as an adult.

Wanting to do good for others, he became a member then President of his university’s student union, the Secretary of the Canadian Federation Of Students and the Vice President of its Ontario wing.

Groups you were born into and belonged to:

Being a part of a large family taught Andy about conflict resolutions, morals, and gender and racial equality. Marrying a Persian reinforced his father’s lessons of acceptance of different people and their cultures, religions and personal choices.

Temperament and personality influences

Andy claims that he has always been pensive and inquisitive, but has learned to be gregarious.

A time I became aware that my way of doing things was cultural and specific to my cultural experience

Andy learned to drop judgement for atrocities committed by child soldiers in Ghana when he learned they were forcibly trained to do so.

Advice to an employer to work with me

Andy says that an employer must accept that he brings many multicultural dimensions to his work.

More great insights from our guest!

Read the articles from African Security Journal co-edited by Andy and look out for his upcoming book on female suicide bombers who did not detonate their bombs.

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Every person needs a mentor for personal and career growth.

Bio:
Liz Jaluague is a Toronto-based cybersecurity engineer and Canadian Army reservist. She earned a BSc in Biochemistry and a postgraduate certificate in Computer Security and Digital Forensics, and has been a non-profit leader in seven different organizations since the age of 19, currently volunteering with a NFP cybersecurity organization.
She believes in the power of mentorship from her own experiences, Liz consistently commits her time to guiding others along their professional paths.
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/existentializm/
Quotes:
“When you're constantly learning different skills, you kind of remember that everybody is a different level, and it's a humbling experience.”
Episode Highlights:
On today’s episode, we delve into the captivating story of Liz Jaluague. From navigating cultural experiences to challenging conventional career paths, Liz shares her journey of resilience, determination, and growth. She shares insights into the ethical implications of cybersecurity, the power of mentorship, and the impact of cultural influences on leadership.
Childhood Memories:
Liz grew up in a Filipino family in Toronto. She had a great understanding of both English and Tagalog. In Tagalog, there are suffixes that one uses when addressing people older than them to show respect. At some point, Liz started questioning why she wasn’t accorded the same respect as a young person. She dropped the suffixes, and it caused her issues with her parents. A year or two down the line, her parents came to term with it. Later in her own life, she came to value the respect accorded to elders and now sees both sides of the issue.
Cultural Influences:
Growing up, Liz had a desire to learn new things and really valued the learning culture. She was able to grasp a lot of new things but learned later on that she couldn’t ace everything and became more selective with her learning and more humble in her approach to others.
Liz’s parents had her much later in life which gave her an opportunity to learn from her older cousins.
Influential Groups:
After university, Liz volunteered in several NFP organizations, currently with a cybersecurity non-profit. Looking back at her leadership journey with the NFPs, Liz realized that the people she most admired had a sense of purpose, and in every job, she connected with the mission and vision of the organization.
Liz vividly remembers a time when she was in Las Vegas for a conference and she recognized one of the sponsors. She walked up to him and thanked him for giving her the opportunity to make friends working in that organization. The simple act of gratitude gave Liz a mentor.
Personality and Temperaments:
Liz describes herself as a pessimistic optimist. By nature, she looked at things glass half empty since her family didn’t have a lot of material means. On the flip side, Liz learned to adapt and understand that things always work out in the end.
Cultural Epiphanies:
In Belgium and the Netherlands, Liz began to consider cultural differences through the experience of a glass of water in restaurants and different types of door locks in AirBNBs.
What brings out the best in Liz?:
Liz loves working with people who are authentically themselves. She is not a fan of hierarchy.
Soapbox Moment:
Do you have a question on cybersecurity? Liz invites you to send her a message on LinkedIn, and she will be more than willing to answer the question.

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How the Soul Relates to Work
Episode Highlights:
In this episode, we explore the qualities and nature of the soul from various sacred traditions and how they matter for good work. We delve into the teachings of multiple western and eastern religions and Indigenous spiritualities to understand how the soul relates to and influences our work. From the power to accommodate to the concept of respect and interconnected relationality, the insights from these sacred traditions provide a unique lens through which we can approach work and workplace dynamics.
Defining the Soul:
On page 22 of my book, “Soul in religion and philosophy, is the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being that confers individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the mind and the self. In theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the individual which partakes of divinity and is often considered to survive the death of the body.”
According to the Baha’i teachings, the soul is not a combination of elements. It is of one indivisible substance, associated with the body but not inside it, and eternal.
How Various Religions Define the Soul:
Page 21 lists simple summaries of how different religions have spoken about the soul.

• The ancient Egyptians talked about the soul as being buried in a stele, meaning the container in which the body had been buried, and that the soul was inside this container, meaning the body.
• In Christianity, Saint Augustine wrote about the nature of the soul as having 3 parts, the body, or somatics, the soul or the psyche, and the spirit or the pneuma.
• In Hinduism, there is the concept of Atman, which is the essence of life that exists in all living things and within human beings is an opportunity to achieve transcendence.
• Islam and Jainism state that the soul exists before its association with the body and must pass through the physical life to overcome bondage and become liberated from the constraints of self and desire.
• In both Judaism and Christianity, the soul is alive if it follows the commandments of God and dead if it does not.

Many North American Indigenous spiritualities have references to life as emanating from the Great Spirit who imbues all living things with the spirit of life.
Qualities and Powers of the Soul:
On pages 23 to 32 in my book, The Spirit of Work: Timeless Wisdom, Current Realities, I highlight the qualities and powers of the soul. Interestingly, these qualities are the same across all sacred traditions. The qualities include purity, peace, love, joy, bliss, and knowledge. The powers of the soul include the power to accommodate, be flexible, consider the other person, and act based on both your needs and the other person's needs, power to back up, and the ability to bring things to closure and move on.
Understanding the soul and its characteristics can inform and improve workplace dynamics, including addressing issues like bullying and toxicity. When work is only a struggle for existence, it feels hopeless. If work is only a search for purpose and meaning, then we may not develop the necessary practical tools required to be able to deal with the struggle of existence. I propose work that is meaningful because it is related to the qualities and characteristics of the soul. It combines the struggle for existence with purpose.
If you are finding these episodes insightful, you can purchase the book The Spirit of Work: Timeless Wisdom, Current Realities online on Amazon and Barnes & Noble or directly from my website shiftworkplace.com. Feel free to send me your insights and stories at [email protected].

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Using the Language of Virtues for Building Soul-Sustaining Work Decisions
Episode Highlights:
By practicing virtues and utilizing the “virtues progression,” we discover practical tools for creating happier and healthier workplaces.
Importance of Virtues in the Workplace:
I've seen the impact of practicing virtue at work across four careers and over 500 managerial students, coaching clients, and 100+ companies. One of the companies I worked with asked me to help a dysfunctional site improve communication. After introducing the concept of virtues with a personal story, and asking them to share stories about an obstacle they had overcome or something they were proud of, I coached them to identify the virtues in each other's stories. This exercise led to open, non-defensive discussions. A few months later, the workplace atmosphere had improved significantly, increasing customer satisfaction and prompting the company to replicate the approach.
Learning the Language of Virtues:
Virtues are developed through learning and through practice. Virtues are habits of character. Once practiced, they become characteristic of the person’s character. At the heart of the virtue approach is the idea of community. A person's character traits are not developed in isolation, but within and by the communities to which he or she belongs. What philosophers call “the moral life” becomes a matter of determining the kind of people we should be and attending to the development of character within our communities and ourselves. (The Spirit of Work: Timeless Wisdom, Current Realities, p. 35).
To develop my own practice of virtues, I have a virtues card deck. Every morning I pick a card from the deck, and focus on that virtue throughout day. At the end of the day, I reflect on how I applied the virtue to my work. To benefit from this idea, consider getting “The Virtues Project” card deck or “Virtues Cards” app.
Virtues Progression:
From my study of the Sacred Writings of the world religions, I discovered a virtues progression which has specific virtues as benchmarks and a guideline to solve problems. The progression is Love – Truth – Justice – Unity – Peace – Abundance. Every human relations rupture starts from a gap in one of these places in the virtues progression.
For a workplace issue, identify which virtue is missing and look backward in the progression to see what foundational virtue is required to experience it, then forward to know the next step. For example, if someone refuses to communicate, it might be due to a lack of safety (not feeling loved) or fear of repercussions (truth).
To ensure a decision is just, consider that these three justice quotients must be present during the decision-making process for all to benefit:

1. Seek diverse perspectives
2. Consult those most affected
3. Involve all stakeholders

How Virtues Affect People:
A story from Chapter 2 illustrates the power of recognizing virtues. In a high-security prison where my husband once worked as a psychologist, he was assigned to help a large, tattooed, explosive inmate with anger management. As an emotions management tool, my husband introduced the "sparkle technique," a reminder to defuse anger by looking right, smiling, and then looking left, and smiling again (physiologically creating conditions for virtue by calming the nervous system). The technique reduces anger by changing eye position and engaging the muscles used for smiling. Although skeptical, the inmate tried it, found it effective, and even taught it to others, reducing fights in the prison and improving interpersonal relationships. He returned to his program with my husband saying enthusiastically, “This sparkle sh** really works!”

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