Leadership Cultural Competencies: Team Psychological Safety in Iraqi Apparel Market

Abstract

Improving the team's psychological safety in multicultural situations requires attention to the cultural competence of leaders. This is despite the fact that prosperous industries and businesses related to the clothing field that experience multicultural and diverse environments in terms of diversity of human resources in Iraq have paid less attention to this issue. Based on this, the aim of this study is to recognize the cultural competence of leaders for psychological safety.The research method is exploratory and qualitative content analysis. The research community was experts and owners of clothing industries at the high and middle levels of companies and factories of clothing production, from which the purposeful sampling method dependent on the criterion with 22 people reached the data saturation. The data collection tool was a semi-structured interview. After implementing open and axial coding, the data were analyzed through MAXQDA software. Validation of data was done through external auditors and member checking. Finding showed that the cultural competencies of leaders for the development of psychological safety in work teams include team safety competencies, safe leadership competencies, and safety cultural competencies.

Keywords

• apparel market
• cultural competencies
• leadership
• psychological safety