Gigi de Groot
How do you enable leaders to develop their leadership peace building skills? What drives individuals to develop and grow when working in a complex, unpredictable, and stressful environment? How do you manage and lead subject matter experts from diverse national and professional cultural backgrounds?
Gigi de Groot's personal purpose is to use her passion for differences between people to create mutual understanding, connection, and open-mindedness. Since the mid-90s creating cultural competence has been her way of working with leaders in an international setting.
My story
I have been working in the field of culture and management since 1996. I continue to pick up the impact of culture on a daily base when working internationally and interculturally. Prior to coming to Brussels I lived for over 20 years in Sweden. I worked as a leadership consultant for multinationals such as Ericsson, IKEA and Electrolux. As the CEO for a boutique consulting company specialised on intercultural management and organisational culture in 25 countries and with around 60 consultants worldwide I learned all about remote teams and online facilitating. This extensive experience took me to the Swedish governmental agency for peace, security and development, the Folke Bernadotte Academy where I supported leaders of the United Nations and the EU to contribute to peace. In 2021 they sent me to Brussels to enable leaders of the civilian missions of the EU to be the vehicles for peace. In countries such as Georgia, Mali, Iraq, Libya, Kosovo I develop the leadership peace building skills of senior leaders in the field. Below you can dive a little deeper into the areas of expertise I apply on a daily base.
Leadership
For me leadership is not only about what I do but also about who I am. My leadership philosophy is one of inclusion as you might have guessed from the video above. It is about creating an environment where everyone feels respected, valued, and able to contribute their best work. A leader should be open-minded and therefore willing to accept a diverse range of people and ideas. It is also about cooperation, cultural competence, and promoting psychological safety. I try to be to be a leader who is compassionate, caring, and willing to lend a helping hand. Simon Sinek said it beautifully "Leadership is not about being in charge but taking care of those that are in our charge". It is with this mindset I guide the leaders I meet and have received the trust to support.
Intercultural Management
What may be an effective and efficient way of working for people of one particular culture may prove to be ineffective, inefficient or actually counter-productive for another. The effectiveness of different approaches to such crucial issues as leadership, communication, motivation, appraisal, selection and reward can be shown to be highly culture-dependent. As the lack of insight into national cultural differences can reduce the effectiveness of people working in an international context, I believe developing managers to become more culturally competent is key. I help people to recognize and understand their own strengths and weaknesses in relation to the various cultures they are working with, and guide them in making more use of their own strengths and those of their colleagues to create cultural synergies. My knowledge and expertise come from the years I worked with prof Geert Hofstede and other highly skillful interculturally savvy people who dedicate their professional life to creating cultural competence and building understanding between cultures.
Facilitation
Text on the way... :-)
Areas of expertise
Inspiration & Educational
Below I have gathered a few links that can inspire further inspiration;
>> Can better leadership contribute to solving the world's conflicts?
Gender-responsive leadership is not only relevant in peacebuilding. Watch this and reflect for a moment on how it is in your organization.
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