Cultural Humility Primer: Connecting Knowledge with Authentic Engagement

March 5, 2025 – Diversity is a cornerstone of the American experience. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that the United States will become a majority-minority nation by 2045. A diverse population creates both opportunities and challenges, especially in fields like business, government, education, and social services, where understanding difference is critical for successful communication and productive workplaces, according to a recent report from TI Verbatim Consulting’s Sarah Prince. To work effectively in cross-cultural situations, cultural competence emerged in the 1980s as a framework to develop and assess practitioners’ cultural awareness, knowledge, attitudes, and skills.

“However, while cultural competence expands collective cultural knowledge, on its own, it often falls short in addressing power imbalances, intrapersonal biases, individual dimensions of diversity, and the dynamic nature of culture, which makes true competence unattainable,” Dr. Prince said. “Cultural humility, first created in 1998, complements cultural competence by focusing on self-reflection, openness, and a commitment to lifelong learning. It encourages practitioners to examine their own biases and approach clients, partners, employees, and colleagues with curiosity and a willingness to listen and understand. By fostering cultural safety and authentic engagement, cultural humility creates space for equitable, meaningful interactions that support growth and progress, leading to more productive communication, better outcomes, and increased psychological safety.”

As globalization and diversity initiatives gained momentum in the 1990s—2000s, the TIVC report noted that businesses began adopting cultural competence frameworks to navigate cross-cultural communication, workforce diversity, and global markets. While there is no single agreed-upon definition of cultural competence, it is typically defined as teaching four key elements—cultural awareness, knowledge, attitudes, and skills—that can be “learned, trained, and achieved.” In other words, cultural competence is a finite body of knowledge that is achieved when the professional (i.e., the coach or leader) understands enough about a unique cultural context to provide effective support, guidance, or empowerment, the TIVC report explained.

While understanding the cultural intersections of an organization’s customers, employees, and partners is a valuable first step, cultural competence remains limited when treated as a standalone approach, according to Dr. Prince. “The term competence implies an endpoint—the idea that one can fully grasp everything of relevance about another culture,” she said. Yancu et al. challenge this notion, arguing that cultural knowledge is not fixed or finite: “In practice, cultural diversity is manifested in a broad range of ever-changing behaviors, beliefs, rituals, restrictions, traditions, norms, institutions, and relationships that form the basis of cultural knowledge. This makes cultural mastery something akin to trying to grab onto a cloud.” The goal of competency, then, is an impossibility, as culture is fluid and constantly intersecting and changing, there is always something more to know.

Sarah Prince has extensive experience in developing strategic, data-driven learning solutions as a curriculum developer and instructional designer. Known for her ability to integrate curriculum strategy with multimodal learning experiences, she has designed and led comprehensive training ecosystems that support over 50,000 adult learners, ranging from interactive webinars to in-depth professional courses and tutorials.

“Additionally, cultural competence, especially at the collective level, often causes conflation of individuals with their collective culture, overlooking individuals’ unique characteristics and identities,” said Dr. Prince. “This can reinforce stereotypes and assumptions, leading to strained relationships, miscommunication, and ineffective communication and support in the workplace. Without self-reflection, professionals using cultural competence may also unintentionally perpetuate power imbalances, as traditional models often preserve the roles of expert and recipient. Instead of fostering partnerships, in certain situations, these roles can undermine trust, diminish engagement, and limit the effectiveness of support, empowerment, and growth.”

Cultural Humility: The Process of Growth

Cultural humility addresses the limitations of cultural competence by shifting organizational leaders’ focus from achieving mastery (a product) to cultivating an ongoing mindset of openness and learning (a lifelong process), according to the TIVC report.

Related: Psychological Safety; The Bedrock of Organizational Culture

First introduced by Tervalon and Murray-Garcia in the healthcare field, cultural humility is a “lifelong commitment to self-evaluation and self-critique, to redressing power imbalances.” It has since been adopted more broadly in fields like education, social work, and counseling, and defined more generally as “an orientation toward caring for others through self-reflexivity and assessment, appreciating an individual’s lived experiences, sharing power, and lifelong dedication to learning.”

TIVC extends this cultural humility approach to coaching and leadership practices in organizations. Instead of detached mastery of a finite body of knowledge, cultural humility encourages coaches and leaders to challenge their own biases and assumptions as the foundation for building authentic connections, fostering mutual respect, and creating spaces where individuals feel valued, understood, and empowered.

Key Characteristics of Cultural Humility

Openness to Individual Perspectives & Self-Reflection

“Cultural humility begins with self-reflection, requiring coaches and leaders to uncover biases and assumptions while fostering openness to others’ perspectives,” Dr. Prince said. “Unlike cultural competence, which emphasizes generalized knowledge about cultural groups, cultural humility focuses on understanding an individual’s unique narrative, fostering authentic relationships, improving communication through bias-aware engagement, promoting equity by valuing individual experiences, enhancing adaptability to diverse needs, and ultimately leading to more effective and meaningful outcomes and results.”

Related: Navigating Multigenerational Workplaces Across Cultures

Dr. Prince explains that cultural humility begins with self-reflection, requiring coaches and leaders to uncover biases and assumptions while fostering openness to others’ perspectives. “Unlike cultural competence, which emphasizes generalized knowledge about cultural groups, cultural humility focuses on understanding an individual’s unique narrative, fostering authentic relationships, improving communication through bias-aware engagement, promoting equity by valuing individual experiences, enhancing adaptability to diverse needs, and ultimately leading to more effective and meaningful outcomes and results,” she said.

Address Power Imbalances

Cultural humility emphasizes partnership over hierarchy. Coaches and leaders acknowledge the limits of their cultural knowledge and embrace opportunities to learn from the individual they are serving. By creating a safe, inclusive space, they foster mutual trust and understanding.

Other-Centric: Fosters Intrapersonal Cultural Comfort & Safety

Creating a safe environment where individuals feel comfortable sharing their unique cultural contexts is central to cultural humility. Ramsden describes “cultural safety” as fostering a workforce that is self-reflective, open-minded, and nonjudgmental. When coaches and leaders use this approach, the TIVC report says that they not only build trust but also ensures that individuals they engage with feel valued and respected.

Lifelong Commitment to Learning

“Cultural humility recognizes that learning is never complete,” said Dr. Prince. “Coaches and leaders continually seek to expand their understanding of cultural differences, both at the group level and the individual level, while challenging their own unconscious biases. This ongoing commitment ensures that growth remains at the center of their practice.”

Why Cultural Humility Matters

Cultural humility addresses both intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions of engagement, Dr. Prince explains. “Internally, it challenges individuals to confront their own assumptions and biases, cultivating a mindset of continuous learning,” she said. “Externally, it prioritizes relationships between two individuals, ensuring that interactions are characterized by respect, empathy, feelings of safety, and shared power. This dual focus makes cultural humility a more holistic and adaptive framework than cultural competence alone. This approach transforms the coaches and leaders’ engagement with employees, ensuring they are set up to hear, understand, and support employees.”

To help coaches and leaders adopt this mindset, TIVC has crafted the following questions to serve as a guide for cultivating cultural humility in daily interactions.

• Am I aware of my own cultural background and biases, and how they influence my perceptions and interpretations of others?
• Do I actively seek to learn about and understand different cultural perspectives, values, and experiences without making assumptions?
• Am I willing to suspend hasty judgment, instead being open-minded and considering alternative viewpoints and interpretations?
• Do I validate and appreciate the strengths and contributions of diverse cultural backgrounds in my interactions with others?
• Do I engage in active listening and empathetic communication, allowing space for others to share their unique experiences and perspectives?
• Am I self-aware of my reactions and emotions in diverse situations or with people from different cultural contexts?
• Am I willing to challenge and unlearn stereotypes or preconceived notions that may influence my perceptions of others?
• When appropriate, do I seek feedback from others to understand how my actions and words may impact them based on their cultural contexts?

Competence & Humility: Knowledge & Growth

Cultural humility offers a transformative approach for engaging across difference, moving beyond acquiring knowledge of cultural competence to embracing a dynamic, lifelong process of self-reflection, learning, and connection, according to Dr. Prince. “By adopting cultural humility, organizational coaches and leaders can prioritize individual narratives, address power imbalances, and foster cultural safety, creating the conditions for genuine relationships, mutual respect, and meaningful outcomes,” she said. “By building on cultural competence and embracing cultural humility, the next generation of culturally responsive leaders can foster environments of inclusion, respect, and mutual understanding, bridging the gap between cultural knowledge and authentic connection.”

Related: CHROs and Future Thinking: Shaping a Positive Culture

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media