Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. This year, there is a shadow hanging over the summit as I outlined here, but I’m still trusting that it will have some incredibly helpful content, just like in past years. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The first session of the second day featured a talk by David Livermore. He’s the President of the Cultural Intelligence Center and a Best-selling Author. He shared research on how leaders can relate effectively to diverse situations. It was fascinating.

The following are some takeaways:

1. It is our mistakes that help us improve as leaders far more than our successes.
2. Cultural intelligence is the ability to work effectively together when people are from different cultural backgrounds.
3. The number one characteristic of a culturally intelligent leader is their curiosity.
4. Culturally intelligent leaders understand what makes people different.
5. Leaders should fight against the fear to learn from others.
6. Leaders need to channel their curiosity and what they’re learning and turn that into a strategy.
7. Leaders need to understand the culture they’re from and how adaptable their culture at their company is to people outside of their culture.
8. Diversity has the potential to lead to innovation and growth, but only if the leaders have a high cultural intelligence.