10 | Personal Leadership: Interculturalists Practicing at Our Highest and Best

Cultural differences ignite even experienced interculturalists into ways of interacting that hamper high performance or render it impossible. This workshop will provide participants with a system of practice that allows us each to step up to our highest and best in interpersonal and intercultural situations (across, for example, nationality, gender, race, ethnicity, and religion), even when our neighbors and colleagues embody significantly different degrees of intercultural sensitivity.

Designed for
Those who seek to deepen their intercultural practice and effectiveness, including those living and/or working in multicultural situations either domestically or internationally. A general familiarity with intercultural theory is helpful but not required.

Objectives
Participants will have the opportunity to:

• Apply the principles and practices of Personal Leadership to their real-life and real-time experiences
• Articulate—and align with—personal visions of what it means for them to be effective interculturalists operating at their “highest and best”
• Understand the history, theoretical foundations, and context for the development of the Personal Leadership methodology
• Consider the cultural and intercultural implications of Personal Leadership, and the relationship between Personal Leadership and other intercultural theories and models such as the DMIS, Cultural Detective, Conflict Styles, etc.
• Enjoy a deeply self-reflective process in the context of an inspiring and energizing community

Learning Activities
The group will create a “living laboratory,” with activities including:

• Short presentations on the framework of Personal Leadership
• In-depth collaborative discussion of the practices of Personal Leadership in diverse contexts
• Self-assessment and self-reflection
• Analysis of case studies drawn from participants and faculty
• Peer exchange and consultation on the application of Personal Leadership to real-life and real-time scenarios

Faculty: Barbara Schaetti and Gordon Watanabe

Dr. Barbara F. Schaetti is managing director and a founding partner of Personal Leadership Seminars, and faculty member of the ICI/University of the Pacific’s Master of Arts in Intercultural Relations. As a coach and consultant to individuals, teams, and communities around the world, she facilitates life-practices and interaction strategies that engender intercultural competence. Her background includes multicultural community mediation, corporate diversity training, and expatriate and repatriate family services. Barbara is a dual national of the U.S. and Switzerland; she lived in ten countries on five continents during the first twenty-two years of her life.

Dr. Gordon C. Watanabe is a founding partner of Personal Leadership Seminars, consults in corporate and state organizational settings on diversity and intercultural competence, and is professor emeritus and former special assistant to the president for intercultural relations at Whitworth University. He focuses on the role of deep self-understanding in successful cross-cultural negotiations and intercultural team-building. Gordon was initiated as a meditation teacher in 2000, and now offers energy meditation seminars. He has taught middle school biology and teacher education, and advised and counseled college-level international, study abroad, and minority students.

Barbara and Gordon are co-authors, along with Sheila Ramsey, of Making a World of Difference, Personal Leadership: A Methodology of Two Principles and Six Practices.