Do you understand Korean?

I don’t speak Korean.
Not a single word of it makes any sense to me.

Jwe-song-ha-ji-mahn apparently means please. I can’t see it.

I understand other languages besides English – and can recognise words in many languages I don’t speak. You don’t need to understand Spanish to know hamburguesa translates to hamburger.

But Korean? It just doesn’t compute with me. It might as well be a made-up language. You can appreciate why it might seem alien, strange and gibberish to some.

That’s obviously not true. Around 85-million people in the world speak Korean natively. It’s the fifteenth most spoken native language – more than German (76m), French (74m) and Italian (64m). Four times as many people speak Korean as there are native Thai speakers.

But, for me, I just cannot comprehend it.

Unlike Spanish – which shares many Proto-Indo-European language roots with English – the Korean language developed from northern Asian Altaic, and has been heavily influenced by Chinese. However, it has separated from most of these influences in the 16^th Century when it introduced its own writing style. Whereas an English, French or Italian speaker might recognise words in Spanish, non-Korean speakers might struggle to find recognisable words from their language reflected in modern Korean.

Why does this matter? What does the history of Korean linguistics have to do with personality psychology, culture or leadership?

It all comes down to comprehension.

Comprehension

In psychology, comprehension can be defined as “the cognitive process of understanding and interpreting information to extract meaning.” It’s a fundamental part of cognition and is essential for higher-level cognitive activities like learning, reasoning, and problem solving.

The process isn’t limited to language. Comprehension also applies to a variety of topics, including mathematics, social interactions, and music.

“I just don’t get this bang bang music”, someone once said when hearing Hip Hop music. “Sounds like a one-man band falling down the stairs whilst he talks about how he mistreats women.”

They just don’t get it. They don’t comprehend the music.

There are many factors that can affect comprehension. Age (which might be a factor in the above example), language skills, prior knowledge or experience, and our individual cognitive abilities can all influence our own comprehension of a subject, context or situation.

The complexity of the material, task, situation or goal, or even our own levels of motivation also impact. How much harder is it to make sense of a task or assessment when you’re tired? There’s a reason roadside sobriety tests for alcohol and drugs are still routinely used in many countries. Our ability to understand road conditions, anticipate other drivers’ behaviour or operate our own vehicle safely are drastically reduced when under the influence of substances that impact our comprehension of stimuli that would, in other circumstances, be completely normal.

Comprehension as a process involves three main stages:

• Perception: The brain receives and processes sensory information, such as visual, auditory, or tactile stimuli
• Attention: The brain focuses on relevant information while filtering out distractions
• Integrating new information: New information is integrated with existing knowledge to form a coherent understanding

If we think of culture as being the unwritten rules of a group’s behaviour, we can appreciate how reading cues and norms from individuals both in and outside of the group can influence those rules.

The same could be argued is true in leadership. A leader’s ability to appreciate different individuals’ motivations, needs, goals, values and more, and to be self-aware enough to modify their approaches, behaviours and decision making requires being perceptive, paying attention and utilising that new information appropriately.

But self-awareness is only a small part of the equation.

If we recognise that our own ability to comprehend can be affected by the factors listed above (i.e., age, complexity, prior knowledge etc.), then we must also recognise the potential impacts of a failure to perceive, pay attention to, and integrate that information on our ability to lead.

Impacts on Leadership and Culture

The person that commented on Hip-Hop music heard performers using language in a way that they didn’t understand over incomprehensible (to them) music, which they had no previous experience or exposure to. With no frame of reference – no stimuli experience or knowledge – a coherent understanding is difficult to form.

When this happens, it’s simpler to say that we don’t get it. It’s easier to revert to stereotypes or innuendo. To an experienced ear, it doesn’t sound like a calamity.

In leadership, the same is applicable. For example, when a young Gen-Z employee requests a flexible working location – something that the leader might not have had experience of when they were a similar age – we might not comprehend.

“These youngsters are just entitled”, might be the stereotype. A more diplomatic approach might be to feel that there are generational differences; that age, somehow, plays a role in motivation and psychological differences. However, multiple studies have found almost no differences between personality, motivation or other psychological factors between generations. More variation has been found within generations than between them.

Being aware of these studies and their findings could offer some mitigation towards our lack of comprehension in this scenario. Similarly, having the self-awareness to recognise that our own attitudes, experiences, beliefs and thought processes could be limiting our comprehension or allowing unconsidered biases into our decision making could also improve our comprehension.

Perceiving the stimuli (in this case, a request), paying cognitive attention to those stimuli (i.e., actively listening), and recognising our own potential processing issues in integrating that new information (i.e., our experiences, knowledge, current condition, complexity of the context etc.), is vital.

Catching ourselves in the moment and recognising our own blind spots – the gaps in our own comprehension – before our chosen reaction occurs is the key to building stronger relationships, diverse and inclusive cultures, and leading effectively.

Just because we don’t (yet) understand something, doesn’t mean it should be dismissed out of hand.

I don’t understand Korean. But I would be wrong to assume that this means it’s an incomprehensible, gibberish set of sounds, devoid of meaning.
85-million people might well disagree. And they’d be right.