Leading from Cultural Humility
The Posture of Leadership in God's Kingdom
Yesterday's Cultural Intelligence Assessment likely revealed some gaps in your cross-cultural leadership capacity. If you're like most leaders who take it honestly, you discovered areas where good intentions haven't translated into cultural competence. That's exactly where growth begins—with the humility to acknowledge what we don't yet know.
But there's a deeper layer here that assessment scores can't capture: the posture from which we approach cross-cultural leadership. Two leaders can have identical cultural intelligence capabilities yet create vastly different experiences for the people they serve. The difference often comes down to whether they lead from cultural humility or cultural expertise.
The Cultural Expertise Trap
Marcus had been leading his urban church for eight years when I met him at a ministry conference. He'd done the work—taken courses on cultural intelligence, read books about diverse communities, and even lived overseas for two years. By any measure, he possessed significant cultural knowledge and had developed impressive cross-cultural skills.
But Marcus was struggling with something he couldn't quite name. Despite his cultural competence, people from different cultural backgrounds weren't staying at his church. They'd visit, engage for a few months, then quietly fade away. During our conversation, Marcus shared a telling phrase: "I've studied their cultures extensively, so I know what they need."
There it was—the subtle shift from humility to expertise that undermines even the most well-intentioned cross-cultural leaders. Marcus had fallen into what I call the cultural expertise trap: believing that knowledge about cultures translates into authority over cultural experiences.
Cultural humility offers a radically different approach. Instead of positioning ourselves as cultural experts who understand others, cultural humility calls us to remain perpetual learners who understand ourselves and recognize the limitations of that understanding.
Understanding Cultural Humility Through Scripture
The theological foundation for cultural humility runs deep. Consider Paul's approach in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, where he describes becoming "all things to all people." This passage isn't about cultural chameleon behavior—it's about the humble posture of adaptation that flows from secure identity in Christ.
Paul didn't study Jewish culture from the outside and then minister to Jews as an expert on Judaism. He was Jewish, yet he still adapted his approach based on his audience's specific context and needs. Even with insider knowledge, he remained teachable, flexible, and responsive to the particular dynamics of each community.
This reveals a crucial insight: cultural humility isn't just for cross-cultural situations—it's for all human relationships. Even when we share cultural backgrounds with others, we approach each person as a unique individual whose experience we can't fully understand without listening, learning, and remaining curious.
When applied to multiethnic leadership, cultural humility transforms how we engage across differences. Instead of asking, "How can I use my cultural knowledge to minister to them?" we ask, "How can I learn from their experience to become a more faithful servant of the gospel?"
The Practical Dimensions of Cultural Humility
Cultural humility manifests through three interconnected practices that fundamentally reshape cross-cultural relationships.
Intellectual Humility involves recognizing the limits of our cultural understanding. Even after extensive study and experience, we hold our cultural knowledge lightly, remaining open to correction, surprise, and new learning. This doesn't mean abandoning the insights we've gained—it means holding them as starting points for conversation rather than ending points for understanding.