How do you effectively support executives and managers when borders are disappearing and cultures are crossing? International coaching is an essential resource to help them adapt, because each culture brings its own codes, and coaching reveals how to decode them. However, it is not without its pitfalls, as I have experienced in recent years when coaching people with ties to France: either foreigners working in France, or French people going abroad or returning to France after an expatriation.
In this article, I'm going to explore the unique challenges of international coaching and show you how to avoid the mistakes that hold executives back in a multicultural environment. And you'll see that when it comes to international business, professional coaching isn't a luxury, it's a compass.
Contents
- The challenges of working internationally for coachees
- The challenges of international coaching for coaches
- The main challenges facing international coaching over the next 10 years
The challenges of working internationally for coachees
The origins of international coaching and the specific work of international coaches lie in the globalised world of work. With managers and leaders exposed to different cultures and new ways of working, between invisible pressures and implicit expectations. But navigating between cultures without losing your bearings is far from easy, as you will see from the 6 major challenges faced every day by all those who work internationally.
1. Managers' cultural blind spots: an often unsuspected obstacle
When a senior manager moves into a new environment, the cultural differences often create unexpected misunderstandings. A few years ago, I came across a French manager who had already travelled a lot and who had been appointed to head up a subsidiary in the Philippines. He retained the direct style of communication to which he was accustomed. The result? An uneasy team and growing tensions.
But it didn't stop there. He failed to take into account the particular power dynamics within his multicultural team. In some cultures, age or seniority play a predominant role in interactions, which can be at odds with the expectations of managers from more egalitarian cultures. He has definitely lost the support of his team by questioning the opinion of a senior member of staff in public.
If he had been able to benefit from professional coaching before leaving or when taking up his new post, to work on points of multicultural managementIn his case, for example, it would have been better if he had presented his criticisms more indirectly. In his case, for example, it would have been preferable for him to present his criticisms more indirectly. Adapting his behaviour would have helped him to remain aligned with the strategic objectives he had been given.
Another example of a blind spot: each organisational culture has a different relationship with hierarchy, and international coaches need to be aware of this. In France, hierarchy is often perceived as formal and structured. In an international context, the relationship with hierarchy can be more flexible, particularly in Nordic countries where decisions are taken more collegially. If you're not prepared, you may find that your relationship with hierarchy is a painful experience...
2. The implicit diversity of professional expectations
Performance standards vary from region to region. In Europe, the emphasis is often on collaboration and team well-being, while in North America, the focus is on rapid results. But performance standards are not always made explicit in an international context. And that's something you need to be aware of! How would you react if you were faced with a culture where the need for discretion made expectations implicit? For example, if rapid results were valued but you weren't told?
A coaching programme can help to ask the right questions and adjust methods to understand the often tacit intentions and expectations in new environments. This also implies flexibility: I too have to adapt my methods to meet these varied expectations, without abandoning my professional values.
3. Unconscious bias: a subtle pitfall
Unconscious bias is another invisible saboteur of the multicultural teams. A manager may, without realising it, favour certain members of his team because they share his mother tongue or cultural habits. I'm thinking, for example, of an Indian manager working in France who was inclined to trust her perfectly English-speaking colleagues more. This led to a climate of mistrust and a drop in motivation in her team.
I helped her to identify these biases and neutralise them through practical exercises and structured feedback, so that she could create a more equitable and inclusive environment.
4. Remote working: a new reality
With the rise of hybrid working, more and more managers and executives are supervising remote teams. And this can quickly become a headache. A New York-based manager I worked with was finding it hard to keep her team in France engaged. Meetings were poorly planned, and she did a poor job of communicating her expectations. To avoid these organisational learning problems, I guided this manager towards concrete solutions adapted to her professional culture, linked to the implementation of collaborative tools and greater clarity in the deadlines she imposed.
Managing multi-site and multi-country teams also means having to travel frequently to visit teams. Having to commute once or twice a month between different time zones, suffering chronic jet lag and accumulated stress - all this affects the ability to make strategic decisions. With this American manager, we also worked on developing her empathy for herself and her team, to better overcome the frustrations associated with different time zones and virtual modes of communication. Because managing remote teams means reinventing human engagement behind a screen!
5. The pressures of the pace of work and isolation during an expatriation
All the expatriate managers I've met have high expectations: to achieve ambitious goals while adapting to a new country (I've experienced this too!).
La international mobility affects workloads and working hours. The French and English cultures value work-life balance more than others, with expectations around the right to disconnect. In other countries, these notions may vary. I've seen French managers find it difficult to manage the expectations of American companies, where flexible working hours are often synonymous with long working days.
On top of this intense workload, being an expatriate can lead to a feeling of disconnection and social and professional isolation. I remember a French marketing manager based in Latin America who felt isolated because she struggled to establish solid links with her local peers, due to linguistic and cultural differences. These emotions were affecting her decision-making and effectiveness. In one-to-one coaching, we worked on targeted networking strategies, adapted to local sensitivities, to help her develop her professional network, forge solid links and return to a more comfortable work rhythm. What a learning experience!
6. The clash of personal and global values
Some people also encounter conflicts between their own values and those of their environment. I'm thinking of the French Director in China who found herself confronted with local human resources management practices that she considered unethical by her own standards. How could she resolve this ethical dilemma while respecting her professional obligations?
The transition to global values is a growing challenge. When they arrive in France, many non-European / Anglo-Saxon managers have to integrate global concerns such as diversity and sustainable development into their management. However, these values are sometimes perceived differently in their cultures of origin, requiring support to find a balance between local expectations and global imperatives.
The challenges of international coaching for coaches
For the managers and leaders being coached, we have seen that certain international challenges are underestimated. And what are the challenges for international coaches themselves? International coaching has some unique characteristics compared to Franco-French coaching. The techniques are the same, but international coaches are juggling several layers of complexity on top of each other.
Adjusting the cultural style and practices of coaches
In classic Franco-French coaching, as in any other culture, coaches and coachees share common cultural references. Internationally, it is necessary to adapt to a variety of cultural sensitivities. For example, in some countries such as France, a collaborative and maieutic approach to coaching is preferred, whereas elsewhere, for example in the United States, a more transactional and solution-oriented approach to coaching is the norm.
As a professional coach, an important part of my work involves adapting to the cultural sensitivities of the people I coach. For example, a more direct approach using humour, which is often well accepted by the French, may be badly perceived in an Asian context where restraint and patience are valued. On the rare occasions when I have accompanied Japanese or Chinese expatriates in France, I have adapted my approach, adopting a more indirect stance and emphasising active listening to establish a relationship of trust.
In the same way, it is important to strike a balance between standardisation and personalisation when coaching managers and executives who are geographically dispersed but belong to the same company. This raises the question of the coaching intervention that will enable the right balance to be found between a global, standardised approach to business coaching and solutions adapted to each local culture.
International coaches therefore need to cultivate their intercultural mastery, i.e. their ability to understand and adapt to diverse cultural environments. And they need to be able to stand back from their own cultural markers.
Coaches take their unconscious biases into account
Of course, no one is immune to cultural bias, neither the coachee nor the coach. I think back to a few years ago, when I coached a South Korean expatriate who gave no feedback on the feedback I gave her. Nothing, no reaction. I ended up telling myself that this meant she saw little value in the individual coaching work we were doing together. So I took this case to supervision, and I realised that it was probably a question of her respecting her culture, which values reflection before responding. Thanks to my supervision group who helped me identify and correct my bias!
Logistical, linguistic and emotional complexity
Franco-French coaching usually benefits from homogeneous conditions, such as a common language and shared working hours. Internationally, we work with a multiplicity of time zones and languages. Here's an example: I once worked with a manager based in San Francisco, for whom the only common time slot was early in the morning for her and late in the day for me. The coaching was in English, and she herself had to juggle meetings in English with American teams and in Mandarin with her partners. Flexibility in terms of language and time became essential.
I also remember one of my coach friends coaching an Indian manager who spoke English with a very strong accent, and whom she found very difficult to understand. And she found that very hard to understand. And that was what was bothering her: how can you coach someone whose answers you can't understand? The coachee gave her positive feedback on the support she felt during the sessions, despite the language barrier. My friend's emotional discomfort and her mental fatigue during the sessions when she was trying to decode the words spoken by the coachee were an important lesson for me about the mystery of how to access coachees and work effectively with them.
The main challenges facing international coaching over the next 10 years
Over the next decade, professional coaches will be faced with some major international developments.
Firstly, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) will transform the way coaches interact with managers and executives. This is as true for French coaching as it is for international coaching. Tools based on artificial intelligence will offer real-time analyses of performance, but they also run the risk of reducing the human aspect of coaching. Coaches will have to adapt to integrate these technologies while maintaining a personalised relationship.
Secondly, the growing emphasis on inclusiveness in Anglo-Saxon and European cultures will require coaches to become experts in equity and inclusion. Because their clients will increasingly include managers overseeing teams of diverse genders, backgrounds and abilities, they will need targeted support to create inclusive, high-performance work environments that foster collective intelligence.
Thirdly, in the future, hybrid working models will continue to develop, with ever greater geographical flexibility and totally decentralised teams. International coaches will have to continue to help managers and leaders maintain commitment and effectiveness in these environments with no fixed points of reference. For example, by answering the following question: how can virtual rituals be put in place to maintain a sense of belonging when your team is spread across several countries?
Finally, the need for coach certification and ongoing training will continue to grow, in both individual and group coaching. Companies are right to demand a high level of commitment from their coaches through internationally recognised training and certification, for example through the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
In conclusion
International Human Resources departments will increasingly need coaches capable of operating on a global scale, who know how to tailor their approach to local realities. To help managers and executives strengthen their ability to adapt in the face of global uncertainties, and to nurture managerial skills so that they can lead inclusive, multicultural teams more effectively.
International coaching requires a deep understanding of cultural, organisational and personal challenges. It is a tool for boosting performance in a global environment and limiting costly missteps. Taking the time to invest in business coaching adapted to international challenges is a decision that can make all the difference!
