Posts

Essential criticism: Leadership

My experience as a bartender Bartending is difficult position which usually comes with unusual schedules and a lot of demands from the employers. I've been working myself as a bartender for the bigger part of my adult life and these years will probably be my last as I am nearing the end of my studies. I wanted to share in this post about my experience with the countless leaders I've worked with and give my point of view of good leading in the catering industry using an example of the X and Y theory of McGregor (1960). This  theory regards the X manager, which is results driven, demands rather than asks, has little interests in human issues, does not listen to suggestions for improvement, sees criticism as threatening, holds responsibility but holds subordinates accountable for failures and believes the pessimistic assumption that people have a dislike of work and will do a lot to avoid it. On the other side, the theory Y manager, which is based on the optimistic approach that p...

Intercultural Encounters and Cultural Shock

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Since two people from different cultures first interacted, intercultural or cross-cultural interactions have existed. While multiculturalism refers to the presence of several cultural identities in an already established cultural context, intercultural communication is simply the exchange of information and ideas between members of different cultural groups (Curtin-Gaither, 2008). The cultural identity is not determined by the geographical origin, according to Curtin and Gaither. Numerous writers discuss the benefits of cultural variety and multiculturalism, which promote intercultural harmony.  Hofstede contends that despite language and discourse playing a significant part in these exchanges, intercultural encounters do not always result in mutual understanding (Browaeys, 2022). Lewis created many discourse models for various cultures and explained how the people in each of these cultures think and speak, particularly in business meetings. Due to the presence of multinationa...

Working Culture: Israel vs The Netherlands

Work culture is a concept that studies the beliefs, thought processes, attitude of employees, ideologies and principles of an organisation. The way employees interact with each other and the way the organisation functions like a clockwork relies on the work culture. Think of the ambience and the mentality of the employees and the workspace. A healthy work culture leads to satisfied employees and an increased productivity. Some of the characteristics of a healthy work culture are employees must be cordial with each other, each employee should be treated as one, appreciating the top performers is important, encouraging discussions at the workplace, organisation must have employee friendly policies and practical  guidelines, promote team building activities to bind the employees together (Work Culture - Meaning, Importance & Characterics of a Healthy Culture, n.d.). Growing up in Israel, moving to the Netherlands at age 15 and working in both countries continuously, showed me...