Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Cultural Intelligence (CQ) are vital strengths which help us to successfully navigate diverse situations / environments.

EQ is primarily about the self: building self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management; being cognisant of how our behaviour affects others is at the heart of emotional intelligence. Though emotions are universal, the interpretations of those are culturally determined. Challenges usually arise when we detect and respond to the emotional expressiveness from people who grew up with a different set of guidelines for what is appropriate in certain situations. Hence, culturally intelligent people apply EQ to recognising, understanding the belief and value systems as well as physical expressions (emotions / body language) of people from different cultural backgrounds. 

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything” (George Bernard Shaw) or “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change” (Einstein). Life is neither static nor unchanging, it’s fluid. Nothing stays the same. 

There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world - and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples that suggest the answer is a resounding YES. "The beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is," Boroditsky says. "Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000."

The academic discipline of psychology was developed largely in North America and Europe. Some would argue it’s been remarkably successful in understanding what drives human behaviour and mental processes, which have long been thought to be universal. But in recent decades some researchers have started questioning this approach, arguing that many psychological phenomena are shaped by the culture we live in.

A critical review: "Approaches to leadership based on neuroscience are alluring. Advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have provided an exciting new window into the everyday functions of the brain. Consultants and coaches eagerly cite the latest neuroscience research as the basis for their leadership advice, focusing on how it can be applied to vital tasks such as driving a successful change initiative.