On Cultivating Cultural Intelligence
In the final chapter we introduced the idea of “cultural intelligence,” which we defined as an emerging perspective that can sympathetically harmonize and integrate a wide range of conflicting values. This new kind of intelligence gives conscious leaders the ability to skillfully navigate the culture war that currently afflicts much of the developed world. Cultural intelligence, however, does not seek an impossible neutrality, nor is it inevitably politically centrist. The expanded perspective that is the basis for cultural intelligence is effectively positioned “outside and above” the warring factions that are attempting to use the world of business as their battleground.
The leadership ability of cultural intelligence is founded on a clear recognition of the three main worldviews, or cultural value frames, that are now vying for dominance in the developed world. These three worldviews, either singularly or in some combination, provide the values for the vast majority of the population in North America, Europe, and Australia. However, to keep this discussion from becoming unwieldy, we will confine our analysis to American culture, where we obviously have the most knowledge and experience.
Worldviews, as we understand them, are coherent sets of values and ideals that persist across multiple generations. These large-scale value agreements give meaning to reality and provide people with a sense of identity. Worldviews are arguably the basic units of culture, so the cultural intelligence that conscious leaders need in today’s complex social milieu requires knowledge of these dynamic systems of values. The cultural significance of worldviews is readily apparent in the well-recognized difference between the worldview of modernity and the traditional religious worldview that preceded modernity in history, and which continues to prevail in large segments of American culture.
The values of modernity (or “modernism”) include progress, prosperity, individual liberty, and scientific rationality. By contrast, the values of the traditional worldview include faith, family, duty, honor, and patriotism. There is, of course, considerable overlap between these sets of values, but the cultural distinction between the worldview of modernity and the contrasting worldview of traditionalism is generally accepted within mainstream discourse. However, America’s third major cultural block—the progressive worldview—remains inadequately understood. While progressive concerns such as environmentalism and social justice are plainly obvious to the mainstream, the fact that progressivism now represents a third major worldview in its own right is often lost on establishment commentators. Figure A.1 shows some examples of America’s three major worldviews, which we generally refer to as modernism, traditionalism, and progressivism.
In terms of demographic size, modernism remains the majority worldview in America today, holding the allegiance of approximately 50 percent of the population, followed by traditionalism, with approximately 30 percent, and then by the progressive worldview, with perhaps as much as 20 percent.1 But even though the progressive worldview is the smallest, it dominates academia and most of America’s media and entertainment industries, so its growing influence cannot be discounted or ignored. For the next few decades at least, the ongoing contest between these three major worldviews will continue to define the contours of American culture as a whole, and organizational culture in particular.
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Examples of the Traditional Worldview |
Examples of the Modernist Worldview |
Examples of the Progressive Worldview |
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The Good |
Faith, family, and country Self-sacrifice for the good of the whole Duty and honor Law and order God’s will |
Economic and scientific progress Liberty and the rule of law Personal achievement, prosperity and wealth Social status and higher education |
Social and environmental justice Diversity and multiculturalism Natural lifestyle and localism Planetary healing |
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The True |
Scripture Rules and norms of the religious community Directives of rightful authority |
Science Reason and objectivity Facts, evidence, and proof Literature and philosophy |
Subjective perspectives, “whatever is true for you” “Woke” sensibilities The unmasking of power structures |
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Potential Pathologies |
Bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia Religious fundamentalism and anti-science Resists moral evolution and greater inclusion Authoritarian, xenophobic |
Indifferent elitism and selfish exploitation Captured by special interests Can be scientistic and hostile to religion Crony capitalism and self-dealing |
Anti-modernism and reverse patriotism Identarian divisiveness Self-righteous scolding and authoritarian demands Magical thinking and narcissism |
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Some of Their Heroes |
Ronald Reagan Winston Churchill Edmund Burke Pope John Paul II Billy Graham William Buckley Phyllis Schlafly Antonin Scalia |
Thomas Jefferson John F. Kennedy Franklin D. Roosevelt Albert Einstein Thomas Edison Adam Smith Carl Sagan Milton Friedman Frank Lloyd Wright |
Mahatma Gandhi Nelson Mandela John Lennon John Muir Margaret Mead Betty Friedan Joan Baez Oprah Winfrey |
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Contemporary Figures |
Ross Douthat Patrick Deneen Rod Dreher Rick Warren Tucker Carlson |
Hillary Clinton Steven Pinker Thomas Friedman Bill Gates Sheryl Sandberg |
Bernie Sanders Ta-Nehisi Coates Marianne Williamson Naomi Klein Bill McKibben |
Figure A.1. Examples of America’s three major worldviews
Most businesses operate in an environment that contains stakeholders from every worldview. These stakeholders, for instance, can include progressive millennial team members, modernist investors, and a demographically diverse group of customers that encompass all three.
There is no love lost between these worldviews. But we don’t have to get caught in the crossfire. We can learn to rise above and integrate these otherwise conflicting sets of values. This practice of integrating values begins in the recognition that each of these worldviews has healthy upsides and unhealthy downsides. They all contain constructive and enduring values, along with negative shortcomings and pathologies. How do we affirm the good and discard the bad? That is the work of cultural intelligence. (Figure A.1 lists some of the potential pathologies that are closely associated with the positive values of each major worldview.)
Cultural intelligence clearly distinguishes each worldview’s positives from its accompanying negatives. Separating the “dignities” from the “disasters” of each worldview allows us to affirm and use the positive and enduring values that each worldview continues to bring to our larger culture. For example, conscious leaders can use traditional values to invoke the defiant spirit of Winston Churchill to steel their backbones in the face of villainy. And in situations where they need to be more inclusive, conscious leaders can use Mahatma Gandhi’s progressive spirit of nonviolent resistance to overcome opposition. It is by learning to appreciate and integrate the positive values of all three major worldviews that conscious leaders can expand the scope of what they are able to personally value, and thereby evolve their own consciousness in the process.
To use cultural intelligence, however, we don’t have to disregard our loyalties to the specific worldview that informs our own identity. Culturally intelligent conscious leadership can be practiced from within the purview of each of these major worldviews. In the field of business books, for example, we can see conscious leadership expressed from a socially conservative traditional perspective in the book Everybody Matters, by Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia. Conversely, conscious leadership from a progressive, postmodern perspective can be seen in Paul Hawken’s Natural Capitalism. And conscious leadership from a mainstream modernist perspective can be recognized in Ray Dalio’s influential book Principles. Each author expresses an authentic version of conscious leadership. Yet while conscious leadership can be effectively practiced from within the value frame of each major worldview, the increasing intensity of the culture war puts a premium on those leaders who can sympathetically integrate the full range of positive American values.
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Emerging Characteristics of the Integral Worldview |
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The Good |
The True |
Potential Pathologies |
Some of Their Heroes |
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Worldcentric morality The evolution of consciousness and culture The positive values of all major worldviews Taking personal responsibility for problem-solving |
Dialectical development Inclusive evaluation Harmonization of science and spirituality |
Can be insensitive or impatient Can seem elitist or aloof |
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Alfred North Whitehead Sri Aurobindo Jean Gebser Clare Graves |
Figure A.2. Characteristics of the emerging integral worldview
Yet even though leaders from each of these existing worldviews can effectively use cultural intelligence, the perspective of cultural intelligence itself is grounded in a fourth worldview—a newly emerging cultural perspective that is essentially post-progressive. This post-progressive, or “integral,” worldview honors and includes many progressive values, but it is post-progressive in the sense that it is able to do what the progressive worldview cannot: it fully recognizes the legitimacy and ongoing necessity of the positive values of all previous worldviews. This integral worldview thus grows up by reaching down.2
The integral worldview also has its own relatively unique values, such as the aspiration to harmonize science and spirituality, an enhanced sense of personal responsibility for the problems of the world, an enlarged appreciation of conflicting truths and dialectic reasoning, and a new appreciation of the significance of evolution in general and cultural evolution in particular. Figure A.2 shows some of the characteristics of this emerging integral worldview, which is the ultimate source of the new leadership skill of cultural intelligence.
Cultural intelligence is not yet fully appreciated as a needed leadership skill set. But as increasing cultural strife impacts American business, the demand for highly effective leaders who can negotiate these three conflicting worldviews grows more and more urgent.
Inglehart, Ronald. Cultural Evolution: People’s Motivations Are Changing, and Reshaping the World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
McIntosh, Steve. Developmental Politics: How America Can Grow into a Better Version of Itself. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2020.
Phipps, Carter. Evolutionaries: Unlocking the Spiritual and Cultural Potential of Science’s Greatest Idea. New York: Harper Perennial, 2012.
Wade, Jenny. Changes of Mind: A Holonomic Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.
Welzel, Christian. Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Wilber, Ken. Trump and a Post-Truth World. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2017.