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Becoming a Manager in a New Country

Andy Molinsky

September 14, 2015

Becoming a manager for the first time is no easy task. One day you re happily

doing your own work and achieving your own goals, and then, suddenly, your work

life does a 180: Instead of focusing on yourself, you have to focus your

attention on others. You have to motivate others, build relationships with your

team, and give effective feedback. You need to have empathy and understanding,

but command respect. You need to be direct and assertive, but not so much that

you crowd out others contributions. You need to take responsibility, while at

the same time giving others the autonomy to grow. The changes can be dizzying

and often require an entirely new set of skills.

Imagine now that you have to do all of this in a foreign country, not only

outside your personal comfort zone, but outside your cultural comfort zone as

well. It s doubly difficult to command authority and lead a team for the first

time in a new culture where the nuts and bolts of how to manage are completely

different.

I know a new manager in Korea, for example, who thought he was being a great

boss by singling out an employee for impressive accomplishments, but in

actuality, ended up embarrassing the employee, who felt mortified for being

praised in front of the group. This is just one instance of when something

might work in one cultural setting the United States, in this case but can

completely flop in another.

So what can new managers in foreign cultures do to ease what will inevitably be

a challenging transition?

You and Your Team

Becoming a Manager

How to step up and stand out.

The first thing to do is to get a grip on the cultural challenges you re

dealing with. This entails understanding as much as possible about the new

culture rules for communication, how meetings are run, how people typically

give and receive praise, etc. But it s equally important to learn about the

background of the particular people you re going to be working with. Are your

team members locals people who speak one language and have primarily lived

and worked in their country of origin? Or are they cosmopolitans who have

lived, studied, traveled, and worked around the globe and who may speak

multiple languages fluently? Maybe you have a mix. You should become familiar

with the cultures of the people on your team, and in doing so, develop a sense

of what might make them tick. Of course, national cultural background is just a

rough guide and will be a stronger influence for some people than for others.

You should develop a detailed understanding of personal backgrounds and

personalities as well to create a more complete picture.

Then, consider how you may need to adapt your own style of working. This might

mean acting in a way that runs counter to what you re used to or what you

imagine managers from your own culture would do in a particular situation. For

example, a new German manager I know struggled for months trying to motivate

his American employees. From this manager s perspective and frankly, from the

perspective of many Germans I know employees shouldn t be praised for simply

doing their jobs. They should only be praised for extraordinary effort and

accomplishments. But that s not what his American employees in the U.S.

expected. Instead, they craved positive feedback, even about relatively minor,

everyday accomplishments. When this German manager failed to provide it over a

series of projects, he nearly lost the team.

Fortunately, the German manager recognized this and thought about how he could

adapt his style of management. He started to offer praise to his American

employees, even for small wins. At first it felt awkward and unnecessary, but

over time he got used to it. And, most importantly, the change in his behavior

made a real difference: His American team worked harder and started to trust

him.

In other cases, adapting your style can take the form of a cultural blend.

Consider this example from India. A new manager an American, who deeply

believed in a participative style of management erroneously applied this

philosophy to a culture and a group of employees who were not at all used to

participation. In fact, when the American asked his new Indian employees to

participate in decision making, they assumed he must not know what he was

doing. Instead of building a sense of camaraderie which was his original

intention the strategy backfired, and he ended up losing the respect of his

colleagues.

But he took steps to correct the situation. He created a blend between his

participative nature and his Indian employees preference for hierarchy.

Instead of asking team members to always share their ideas (which would be

purely participative) or simply telling them what he thought (hierarchical), he

required each employee to provide him with three suggestions, which he would

then consider when making the ultimate decision. This gave him the

participation he craved but in a style that worked in the new context. New

managers need to be ready to adapt their behavior like this in order to find

ways of being effective without compromising their integrity in the process.

There s no question that becoming a new manager in a new culture is challenging

and at times even overwhelming. But it also can be a tremendous learning

opportunity. By better understanding the culture and people around you, you can

create a new style of managing that works in your unique environment, right

from the start.

Andy Molinsky is a Professor of International Management and Organizational

Behavior at the Brandeis International Business School. He is the author of the

book Global Dexterity: How to Adapt Your Behavior across Cultures without

Losing Yourself in the Process (HBR Press, 2013). Follow Andy on twitter at

@andymolinsky.