International Leadership Across Cultures
International growth changes more than your market.
It brings different assumptions about how business should work into the same room.
Across countries, the same decision, behavior or message can carry very different meanings.
I help American leadership teams make those hidden cultural differences visible before they affect trust, execution and business performance.
across the US and Europe
on transatlantic business
across the Atlantic
When does culture start to affect the business?
Culture becomes consequential when it begins changing what people expect from one another, how they understand the situation, and what happens next.
Your executives, regional leaders, board members or teams may be working toward the same goals while carrying different expectations about speed, autonomy, candor, accountability or leadership.
Those differences matter when they begin influencing trust, decisions and execution.
A strong product and a sound strategy do not automatically translate across borders.
Different assumptions about credibility, value, relationships and how business gets done can shape how customers, partners and local teams respond.
As the company grows across countries, the informal ways of working that once felt obvious become harder to leave unspoken.
Different expectations around collaboration, communication, autonomy and leadership can determine whether people actually develop a shared way of working.
The situations are different. The underlying challenge is the same: people can be looking at the same business reality through different cultural assumptions.
The facts may be shared. The meaning attached to them may not be.
Two capable leaders can hear the same words, review the same information or watch the same situation unfold and come away with different conclusions.
Not because one of them misunderstood what happened.
Because people make sense of what happens through assumptions about what is normal, credible, professional, urgent, trustworthy or effective. And many of those assumptions are culturally shaped.
A direct challenge can signal healthy debate to one leader and damaged trust to another. Autonomy can look like initiative or lack of control. Careful analysis can look like rigor or hesitation.
None of those interpretations is automatically irrational. But when the assumptions behind them remain invisible, leaders can end up making decisions about different perceived realities.
That is where culture stops being an interesting difference and starts becoming a business issue.
Free live webinar · 30 minutes
Crossing the Atlantic
What American Leaders Need to See Before Expanding Internationally
International growth introduces more than new markets, customers and teams. It brings different assumptions about leadership, trust, risk, accountability and how business gets done.
Those differences are easy to miss because the rules that feel obvious at home may not be shared across borders.
In this live webinar, Christina explores three cross-cultural dynamics American leaders commonly encounter as they expand internationally, particularly into Europe, and shows how those differences can influence interpretation, decisions and execution before anyone recognizes culture as the issue.
Different business situations call for different kinds of work.
The right format depends on what you need to accomplish.
For international situations that require deeper diagnosis before deciding what to change.
A structured executive engagement combining confidential perspectives, strategic diagnosis, facilitated leadership work and a practical roadmap.
Explore International Leadership AdvisoryFor leadership teams that need to work through a specific cross-cultural business question.
A focused working session built around the actual situation your team is facing, designed to surface assumptions, make important expectations explicit and clarify what happens next.
Discuss an Executive WorkshopFor executive audiences that need a sharper way to think about what happens when business crosses cultures.
Practical, thought-provoking sessions connecting culture to leadership, trust, decisions and international growth.
Discuss a Speaking EngagementNot sure which format fits? Contact Christina.
A disciplined way to see what may be shaping the situation beneath the surface.
The Culture Interpretation Lens helps leaders separate what happened from what they believe it means, identify the assumptions shaping those interpretations, and understand how those assumptions may be influencing decisions, trust and execution.
What objectively happened?
How did different stakeholders understand the same event?
Which cultural expectations, assumptions and mental models shaped those interpretations?
How are those interpretations influencing leadership, trust, decisions and business performance?
What needs to become explicit so people can move forward together?
The Lens does not assume culture explains every business problem.
It is a way to examine whether cross-cultural assumptions are influencing the situation before leaders act on conclusions they may not realize are culturally shaped.
What the evidence is teaching us
Across very different international business situations, three observations keep recurring.
These are recurring qualitative observations, not universal laws. My ever-growing Evidence Library tracks patterns from real international engagements. It helps us keep testing what holds across different situations across time and contexts.
I learned this from inside both cultures.
I’m American-born and France-based. For more than 20 years, I’ve built my professional life across cultures, learning to operate inside both American and European ways of doing business.
I’ve built and run businesses, led an international team across 12 countries, and worked with more than 500 companies on transatlantic business.
But the experience that matters most is what happens inside the team.
I’ve seen what one side says, what the other side hears, and often what both sides say privately about the exact same situation.
That gives me a perspective that goes beyond knowing that cultures differ. It allows me to recognize where different assumptions about leadership, trust, accountability, communication or decision-making may be shaping what people believe is happening.
That experience, combined with years of working directly with international companies and leadership teams, led me to develop the Culture Interpretation Lens: a disciplined way to make those hidden dynamics visible before they influence important decisions.
Christina Rebuffet-Broadus Founder & Executive Advisor International Leadership Across Cultures
Go deeper into international leadership across cultures.
Through Crossing the Atlantic, the newsletter and long-form articles, I explore how culture shapes leadership, trust, business relationships and decision-making across borders.
Conversations and analysis about what happens when business crosses cultures, and why the differences are often harder to see from inside the room.
Listen to the podcastPractical analysis of international leadership, cross-cultural business and the assumptions that shape what happens next.
Join the newsletterQuestions leaders ask before we start
We don’t have a “culture problem.” Is this still relevant?
Possibly.
Culture is rarely how the issue first appears. What leaders usually notice first are slower decisions, inconsistent expectations, difficulty building trust, friction between regions, or a market response they did not expect.
The question is not whether you should label the problem “cultural.”
It is whether culturally shaped assumptions are influencing how people understand the situation and what they do next.
Is this intercultural training?
Yes and no.
Yes, because intercultural differences are central to the work. Leaders develop a better understanding of how culture can shape expectations around trust, leadership, accountability, communication, risk and decision-making.
But no, because this is not generic cultural-awareness training built around national profiles, etiquette or lists of “dos and don’ts.”
We start with the business situation your organization is actually facing. The objective is to understand where culturally shaped assumptions may be influencing how people interpret that situation, and what those differences mean for leadership, decisions and execution.
So people do learn about culture. But cultural knowledge is the means, not the end.
The goal is to help leaders make better sense of complex international situations and act on them more effectively.
Our executives are already very internationally experienced. Why would they need this?
Experience helps.
It does not automatically make our own assumptions visible.
In fact, experienced leaders can become very good at operating according to the rules that have worked for them. International complexity increases when another equally experienced person is operating from a different set of expectations.
The work gives leaders a disciplined way to examine that difference without assuming either side is wrong.
Do you only work on U.S.–France situations?
No.
My deepest lived experience is between the United States and France, but I work on international leadership situations more broadly.
The Culture Interpretation Lens looks at the actual people and business context involved rather than reducing behavior to nationality.
Can you work with us before there is a problem?
Yes.
International expansion, rapid growth, a new cross-border leadership structure, an acquisition, or the integration of new countries into an organization can all be good moments to make assumptions explicit before they become embedded in working relationships and decisions.
What happens first?
A conversation about the business situation.
You do not need to arrive knowing that culture is the issue. I do not assume that it is.
We start with what is happening and determine whether a deeper advisory engagement, a focused workshop, a keynote or another format makes sense.
Expanding into a new market, integrating across borders, or leading teams across countries?
When people from different business cultures are working toward the same goals, different expectations around leadership, trust, accountability and how business gets done can influence what happens next.
If one of these situations is unfolding in your organization, we can start with what you are seeing.
Looking for a keynote, executive briefing or workshop? Contact Christina to discuss the right format for your organization.
