Leadership and culture at the United Nations

communication — By Bob Riel on October 3, 2006 at 11:09 am

It looks as though Ban Ki Moon, the foreign minister of South Korea, is in line to become the next secretary-general of the United Nations, but apparently not without another lesson in cross-cultural differences.

The current UN leader, Kofi Annan of Ghana, is stepping down when his term expires at the end of the year and Ban is all but certain to be endorsed by the Security Council within the next week. Interestingly, though, even among the world’s top diplomats, there seem to be ongoing battles to understand one another’s cultures.

This article in the International Herald Tribune notes that Ban’s humility and soft-spokeness is interpreted by some as a weakness and by others as a natural byproduct of his Asian culture that has nothing to do with his leadership abilities.

Ban, 62, is gentle and soft-spoken and values relations with other people. Some call him a natural-born diplomat who can avoid making enemies. He rarely gets into arguments with hawkish lawmakers in parliament as many other Cabinet members are prone to do.

Ban has acknowledged criticism that he doesn’t seem strong enough for the job, but noted that as South Korea’s top diplomat he has dealt with such weighty issues as the international talks aimed at ending the nuclear standoff with neighboring North Korea.

“This has not been an easy job,” Ban told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “Sometimes I may look like a weak, soft leadership. You may look at me as a soft person, but I have inner strength. This is what normally people from the outside world would have some difficulty in seeing – people from Asia particularly, when we regard humility, a humbleness, as a very important virtue.”