CROSS-CULTURAL VALUES & ETHICS
During the program, students identify and examine how their personal values influence the way they make decisions and interact with others on a daily basis, while also considering SLC's five values:
1.) Honesty
2.) Integrity
3.) Diversity
4.) Social Responsibility
5.) Compassion
As students consider their values and personal ethics, they are expected to analyze and articulate how they intend to incorporate these concepts on a global and cross-cultural perspective in the future.
1.) Honesty
2.) Integrity
3.) Diversity
4.) Social Responsibility
5.) Compassion
As students consider their values and personal ethics, they are expected to analyze and articulate how they intend to incorporate these concepts on a global and cross-cultural perspective in the future.
LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY
It’s important to have a thorough understanding of your own leadership philosophy because in order to live a successful and fulfilled life, you have to make decisions that align with your ethics and values. Without a leadership philosophy, you’re hoping to be a leader rather than planning to become one.
At the start of our two weeks in London, I spent some time reflecting in order to gain a better grasp at what my core values were as a leader and articulating them into personal philosophies. I had decided on:
1.) Appreciating mistakes for the sake of learning
2.) Cultivating teams that are diverse in culture & skill
3.) To be a paradigm of company values
It’s interesting that these were my top three at the start of this course, because I can confidently say now that I have a value in mind that tops all three of these. The quality I’m referring to is authentic leadership. I started to have this realization while in Prague, however I really began to feel like I understood it after we had our meeting with Sally Webb Berry. Growing up, I’ve never thought of leadership as a very versatile concept, and I definitely never considered that introvertedness could be a strong quality to have in such a position. When we met with Sally, she put emphasis on the importance of having confidence in your own personal style of leading. She also said that leadership is 50% taught, but that the remaining 50% has to be an internal drive to want to lead.
These two ideas stood out because for me, this meant that my personality type as an introvert didn’t have to be something holding me back from leading, or something that I needed to work on changing. The fact that successful leadership has so much versatility and ability to be personalized has been an eye-opener for me on this trip, and has switched my focus from trying to be more open and extroverted, to simply having more confidence in myself, abilities, and ideas. This will also make me a more authentic leader, which is a value of mine that I’ve found to be shared among many other leaders. In the future, I hope to be able to develop confidence in my capabilities as a leader, and inspire other introverts to take a path similar to mine.
KNOW YOUR VALUES
A preconceived notion I had developed prior to my experience abroad was that “it’s important for global leaders to be capable of placing the values of others before their own when interacting with a culturally different nation”. I don’t completely disagree with this statement; when it comes to interacting with a culture different from my own, it’s incredibly important that you’re able to take their values into consideration when making decisions. However, after my time in London, I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to not take your own values into consideration as well. Nearly every business leader we met with, including Allison Dervis of EY, Simon Smith of ETOA, and Sally Berry of the Special Events Company, mentioned the significance of making sure you place yourself within a company or environment who’s core values align with your own.