STANDING IN SEVERAL WORLDS AT ONCE: A THEORY OF MULTI-FIELD CULTURAL LEADERSHIP IN PUBLIC AND DIPLOMATIC SETTINGS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35631/IJLGC.1145006Keywords:
Multi-Field Cultural Leadership, Cultural Intelligence, Cross-Cultural Code-Switching, Boundary Spanning, Biculturalism, Public Leadership, DiplomacyAbstract
Cultural intelligence explains how an individual adjusts to one other culture, and boundary-spanning explains how a leader bridges two groups; neither explains the situation of a leader who must act within several cultural fields at once, whose expectations conflict and cannot be satisfied in sequence. This conceptual paper develops multi-field cultural leadership as a concept for that situation, common in diplomatic, public-service and internationalised settings. Synthesising the literatures on cultural intelligence, cross-cultural code-switching, biculturalism, boundary-spanning leadership, the multiple-audience problem and public leadership, it identifies a gap none of them fills, defines the construct, specifies five dimensions, differentiates it from adjacent constructs, and advances seven propositions and boundary conditions. Multi-field cultural leadership is defined as leadership exercised within three or more cultural fields that are simultaneously present and make conflicting claims, where the leader must compose single acts intended to be legible and defensible across plural cultural audiences at once, rather than adapting to each in sequence. Its distinctive demand is simultaneity and reconciliation rather than adjustment. The paper moves beyond the dyadic assumption in cultural intelligence and the two-sided assumption in boundary-spanning, giving cross-cultural public leadership a construct that matches its actual complexity.
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