Leading a cross-cultural team may be an experience worthy of sharing among your friends at a party. But today it is the need of the corporate hour and leaders may find a number of difficulties in dealing with a multicultural team. There are a number of issues that can disturb the smooth functioning of a team and in order to take that forward, a leader has to make certain moves. Here is a list of all the things that you should do as a leader of a cross-cultural team.

Over the past decades, we have seen businesses change from West to East bringing a number of cultural differences. One of the major challenges that the leaders today are facing is are directly related to cross-cultures. Cultural differences can remain real and if not dealt properly can come into the way of effective leadership.

An effective leadership can bare you with difficulties like missed opportunities, frail relationships, poor performance and weak teams. Also, a successful leader engages in a diversity of perspectives, foster effective teamwork and is always keen to learn new processes.
How should a cross-cultural team handled? Here is how you can go about successfully managing a team:
 
Create a Mutual Awareness of Differences that Obstruct Development
In order to deal with cultural differences that may hinder the performance of your team, you should not be afraid to start a conversation. This discussion should be on the differences that that your team perceives and ways of managing these differences. The open discussion also stimulates commitment and mutual trust.

Understand the Background Differences
Successful leaders will go beyond just knowing the cultural differences, they will work towards understanding the differences and thinking about methods to solve them. As a leader you should be able to understand that dealing with cultural differences requires extra openness and mutual discussion.

Turn off your Leadership Autopilot
This one of the most effective ways of being a successful leader especially when managing a team with people of different cultures is the ability to be out of your frame of reference. You should be open to other ideas, viewpoints, assumptions and needs and have the ability to entertain different perspectives.
Concentrate on Communication
The most important key of leading a cross-cultural team is definitely effective communication. A leader managing a cross-cultural team needs much more effective ways of communication than someone normal leading a team. Friendly ways of communication are more effective than just sitting rigidly inside a cabin and talking over e-mails.

 
Reconcile the Best of Every World
Successful leaders will see a team of people with many cultures as an opportunity and try to merge the best of every world around it. This is one of the most effective ways that barricade the problems of cultural difference. Meaning, that a successful manager will not comprise with the problems but will definitely come out with a solution that increases the productivity of the team.

Keep Learning
As a leader, there is no end to learning. You need to keep growing and grasp all the new knowledge available to you. Time to time you should refresh your knowledge and add that to your qualifications. Short e learning material are best suited for leaders. While managing a cross-cultural team you may need hand in some of the languages. Add some language courses to your qualifications with time so that in the end managing the team is not that difficult for you.

Building the Right Strategy
A leader is responsible for building the right strategy for managing a group of people that belong to different cultures. According to a Business Review by Harvard the most common strategies that the leaders identify in order to deal with cultural differences are:
Adaptation
Structural Intervention
Managerial Intervention
Exit


Focus on Similarities
There is no doubt that the having a multicultural team would have large number of differences, but as a leader your job must be to focus on the similarities. Appreciate the similarities and this will definitely grow as a leader and help soften the burden of differences.

Walk in Their Shoes
Thinking like one of the team members can further help you become a great leader as you will relate to their problems and try to find effective solutions. Listening and knowing what is up with them on a regular basis is a healthy exercise to follow. 

Concluding on the Note
Managing a cross-cultural team is one of the competencies that the leaders today need to have in them. The skills can only come by practicing some of the norms and developing them into habits. Leaders are required to deal with challenges, misunderstandings and frictions that may affect the productivity of the team. Communicating face to face as much as possible is one of the easiest and most effective ways of managing.

Author Bio
Akansha Arora is a professional writer and blogger who loves to pen down her views on a number of topics that interest a reader. She writes keeping in mind the current scenarios and wishes to keep her readers well informed. You can follow her on google.com/+AkanshaArora2112