The role of the cultural intelligence from the perspective of a leader

Abstract

The aim of the research is to identify the role of the cultural intelligence from the point of view of a leader and to examine the impact of culture on leadership. The purpose of the research is to compare findings from a practical research conducted as a set of interviews with established leaders of different companies based in Finland, against the theoretical observations on cultural intelligence, leadership, attributes of the effective leadership within a culturally diverse environment. The findings explore and prove the hypothesis that cultural intelligence is an important skill of the effective leadership within the intercultural environment. The theoretical part of the research on CI was based on the theory of cultural intelligence introduced by P. Christopher Early and Soon Ang in their monograph ”Cultural Intelligence; Individual Interactions across cultures “(2003).