Cross-Cultural Communication 30-Day Challenge – Build Trust
This is the next one of 5 tips on showing respect to build trust in cross-cultural communication. Here are the other 4 tips:
- Adopt a respectful attitude
- Listen with respect
- Do not be self-centered
- Understand what to say and when to say it
Show Respect
In cross-cultural communication there are many areas where you need to spend some time on developing your personal skills. This is such an important key to developing strong skills that there is whole challenge specifically on personal development for better cross-cultural communication – 31 tips on areas where you need to spend time.
Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Tip 24
Show yourself respect
Now, because you need to spend time on personal development to strengthen your cross-cultural communication skills, there are times when it is easy for others to see parts of yourself that you would not normally notice. Self respect is one of these areas.
Self Respect And Lack Of Self Respect
As usual, there are cultures which are used to asserting their own self respect and other cultures where this is not considered a good thing to do. And of course, when you get two people together with different cultural backgrounds, this can leave impressions a little off balance.
When A Lack Of Self Respect Is Bad
There are some cultures where you need to show a certain level of self respect to be respected in return. There are usually very subtle cultural differences and this communication happens on different levels. The difficulty here may not be in an actual lack of self respect, but rather a perceived lack of self respect simply because of different cultural practices.
These are usually cultures with high context cultural behaviors where most businesses rely on natives to help them through the communication process.
There are other areas where an actual lack of self respect can lead to problems…
Lack Of Self Respect In A Mix
Bigger cultural pitfalls can happen quite easily when someone has a lack of self respect and when this is mixed with other negative issues.
When this is your first time dealing with different cultures, and your self respect is not as strong as it needs to be, things can get a bit jumbled up with other reactions you are not used to dealing with. There can just be too much to deal with at once.
The trouble starts when you add several little negative issues together in a cross-cultural encounter – communication can easily get off track. Here are a two nasty elements to avoid mixing with a lack of self respect:
- Any feeling of aggression because things are foreign
- Any feeling of needing to accept the other person’s beliefs or opinions before communicating with them
As you can imagine when you add a lack of self respect here, the reactions will not help cross-cultural communication.
Self Respect Commanding Respect Accross Cultures
There is one other aspect of showing yourself respect that I would like to bring up. There is something most people recognize with seasoned international professionals. It is a certain self respect that commands respect from others across a wide range of cultures. When you become comfortable navigating amidst strange cultures your own self respect finds the right place to settle.
Should You Try To Improve Your Self Respect?
For most people I would say no. There are not many big issues due to a lack of self respect and this is part of our own identities.
But keep self-respect in mind… Become aware of how others perceive how you show respect for yourself
When conversations start to go haywire and you don’t understand why, analyze the communication and look for a lack of self respect. There are many reasons why cross-cultural communication can go wrong, and there may be other factors involved than a lack of self respect, but in an international business situation this is one area where you can usually take action on.
When you meet seasoned international professionals watch how they portray their respect for themselves and how this influences the cross-cultural communication.
Questions for you…
- How do you think your self respect influences your international business encounters?
- When is self respect important in cross-cultural communication?
- Have you ever noticed a lack of self respect involved in cross-cultural blunders?
Please share your stories in the comments below.
Get All Cross-Cultural Communication Tips:
- Read more about all of the 2009 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges
- Cross Cultural Communication Challenge 1 – Expand Your Mindset
- Cross Cultural Communication Challenge 2 – Get Extreme With Clarity
- Cross Cultural Communication Challenge 3 – Build Trust
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