Essay Sample on Exploring Cultural Diversity: The Iceberg Model

Introduction

An iceberg is a huge mass of ocean floating ice which has broken off glaciers or ice shelf. In this case, we use the iceberg to describe the different cultural diversities that exist in our communities today. This normally includes the parts of the iceberg, i.e., the parts that we can see, those we are aware of, and the parts that we do not know about.

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The first level is the external or the conscious part, which is what we can see from the iceberg, and it's the tip. When we come to culture it represents what we normally see, and this includes the people's behavior and beliefs, for example, their language, religion, and methods of cooking. The second level is the internal or the subconscious, which represents the part that is normally submerged in the water and can be explained as the values and thoughts pattern that underlies behavior, for example, social etiquette, and modesty. The third one is the part that we are unaware of its existence in the iceberg when it comes to culture. This describes the things deep within it, and it is very hard to notice yet they are said to be very crucial in any community (Schmiedel, vom Brocke, & Recker, 2015).

Many leaders have been challenged to pay attention to these dimensions in different ways, and some of these ways include the following. When making decisions most leaders are forced to attend to these dimensions to ensure the decision does not favor anyone.

For effective communication to take place, the leaders must consider these dimensions to cover the values and principles in each dimension as well as to relate well with the co-workers. The leaders are also forced to know the type of information to share with different people in workplaces.

Some leaders may end up ignoring these dimensions, and these lead to some problems such as poor communication in the workplace, misinterpretation of information, loss of respect between the workers and the leaders, rejection from the employees as well an unconducive working environment for the people among others.

Different leaders have different ways of dealing with a cross-cultural team that has both monochromic which means the people who like doing one thing at a time following a certain order or they can be said to be fixed and rigid and the polychromic who can do many things at a time also said to be flexible. These leaders set aside special working places for each category to avoid distractions. Giving instructions on what is expected for each category as well as learning to incorporate all these groups (Akbari, & Shahnazari, 2016).

There are also different ways through which leaders deal with team members who come from a different time-based culture as himself/herself some of these ways include; embracing diversity this is where the leaders learn to love and respect the different culture of their employees, fostering a strong relationship among the workers to ensure they relate well with one another and this can be achieved through methods such as team building as well as promoting open communication between the leaders and the employees among others.

Conclusion

In summary, the leaders should learn how to relate with their employees and colleagues concerning culture on different levels and dimensions to ensure the existence of good working conditions and leader-subject relationship.

References

Schmiedel, T., vom Brocke, J., & Recker, J. (2015). Culture in business process management: how cultural values determine BPM success. In Handbook on Business Process Management 2 (pp. 649-663). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Akbari, A., & Shahnazari, M. (2016). Spider-Web Lattice vs. Iceberg Theory: Which One Holds Sway over in Cultural Translation?. International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies (IJHCS) ISSN 2356-5926, 2(4), 54-72.