When International Experience Doesn't Fit the Way We Do Things
Written by Lindy Lelij, Founder of Mpowerme Coaching
Lindy Lelij is the founder of Mpowerme Coaching. With more than 30 years of leadership and international experience, she helps people navigate migration, cultural transitions, and identity to thrive personally and professionally.
What happens when people from different cultural backgrounds bring their familiar ways of thinking, communicating, and contributing into the same workplace? I remember a director once referring to what she called my ‘Dutch dilemma’. She used an expression I hadn't heard before: “You ain't much if you ain't Dutch.”
I was quite taken aback. Was that really how my behaviour was being interpreted? Did she think that because I was Dutch, I considered myself somehow better than others?
Having grown up and worked in the Netherlands, I was accustomed to professional environments where questioning an idea, sharing a different perspective, or respectfully challenging someone's assumptions were considered constructive ways of contributing. Hierarchy existed, of course, but someone's position didn't necessarily mean their ideas couldn't be questioned.
I had never considered my directness to be an expression of superiority. I believed that speaking openly and exploring different perspectives was part of being a committed professional.
My director made quite an effort to explain how things were done in our New Zealand workplace. I appreciated that guidance, even when it was difficult to hear. After all, I had chosen to live and work in another country, and learning how to navigate its professional environment was part of that decision. But something was missing from those conversations.
Nobody asked me how I was experiencing the situation, what I had intended to communicate, or why I approached certain situations the way I did.
There was considerable effort to help me understand their expectations, but very little curiosity about mine. I have thought about that experience many times since, particularly as my work has increasingly focused on the experiences of immigrants navigating unfamiliar professional environments. It has left me wondering about something much bigger.
You hired my experience, my professional culture came with it
When an organisation recruits an experienced professional from another country, it does so on the assumption that that person brings specialist knowledge, valuable qualifications, leadership experience, or expertise that may be difficult to find locally. But how often do we consider everything that comes with that experience?
During our working lives, we develop much more than technical knowledge. We learn how to contribute, communicate with colleagues, approach managers, and demonstrate that we are capable and committed. These ways of working become part of our professional identity. We rarely question them because, in the environments where we developed them, they made perfect sense.
Then we move to another country and discover that some of the behaviours we have always associated with being a good professional are interpreted differently.
Someone who readily questions an idea may be perceived as argumentative. Someone who waits for direction may be seen as lacking initiative. A person who speaks confidently about their achievements may be considered arrogant, while someone more reserved may struggle to demonstrate their expertise.
Of course, these differences aren't simply determined by nationality. Every organisation has its own culture, and individuals within the same country can have very different expectations.
But cultural familiarity can influence how we interpret someone's behaviour, often without us realising it. I wonder whether, sometimes, cultural familiarity risks being confused with professional capability.
When being yourself starts to feel professionally risky
Imagine having spent twenty years building a successful career. You know your profession, have earned the respect of colleagues, and developed confidence in your judgement. Then you begin working in another country.
Your qualifications haven't disappeared. Neither has your experience. Yet you may find yourself hesitating before speaking in meetings, questioning whether your suggestions will be welcomed, or wondering why colleagues interpret your intentions differently.
At first, you may put it down to being new. You tell yourself that you simply need more time to settle in. But when these experiences continue, you may become increasingly cautious, less willing to contribute, or uncertain about the professional qualities you once considered your strengths.
I recognise aspects of this journey from my own experiences and from similar questions that I have heard in conversations with immigrants about their professional lives.
Meanwhile, a manager may notice that an employee isn't contributing as confidently as expected or seems reluctant to take initiative. Yet that employee may be trying very hard to understand expectations that everyone else appears to know instinctively. Both may be making assumptions about what is happening without fully understanding the other's experience.
Should only the newcomer be expected to do all the learning?
Many organisations make genuine efforts to help internationally recruited employees settle into their roles. They provide induction programmes, explain their values and procedures, introduce colleagues, and offer guidance on workplace expectations.
All of this is valuable. Yet I wonder how often the learning travels in the opposite direction. How much do managers know about the professional environments in which their internationally recruited employees developed their expertise? Do they understand how those employees previously approached leadership, teamwork, disagreement, or decision-making?
When something feels unfamiliar, do they ask what the employee intended, or interpret the behaviour according to what is considered normal within their own workplace?
I think back to that conversation about my Dutch dilemma. My director wanted me to understand how my communication was being perceived, and that was important. But what might have happened if she had also asked me why I communicated that way?
Perhaps she would have understood that questioning an idea was, for me, a way of demonstrating professional engagement rather than challenging someone's authority. Perhaps I would have gained a better understanding of why my approach sometimes created discomfort.
We might still have concluded that I needed to communicate differently. Understanding someone's intentions doesn't mean that every behaviour is appropriate in every environment.
But at least we would have understood each other and recognised that cultural understanding is a two-way learning process. When integration becomes primarily about helping internationally recruited employees fit into existing practices, organisations may miss the opportunity to understand the very expertise and perspectives they recruited.
Could different cultural perspectives broaden our understanding?
I sometimes wonder what would happen if organisations approached cultural integration with the same curiosity they bring to identifying international talent in the first place.
Imagine a manager sitting down with a recently recruited professional and asking what has surprised them most about working in the organisation, or whether there are aspects of their previous working environment that they miss.
Perhaps the employee would describe something the manager had never considered unusual. Perhaps the manager would discover that a behaviour interpreted as reluctance was actually intended as respect, or that an employee's repeated questions reflected engagement rather than disagreement.
There may also be opportunities for the organisation to learn something about its own practices. After all, the people who have always worked within a particular culture may be the least likely to notice its unwritten rules.
Someone arriving from another professional environment can sometimes see things that have become almost invisible to those already there.
That doesn't mean every suggestion needs to be adopted or that organisations should abandon the processes that serve them well. However, wouldn’t it be worth asking whether some of the ways we've always done things are genuinely important to how well we work together?
Adapting without leaving ourselves behind
Over the years, I've learned to communicate differently when circumstances require it, but my Dutch professional upbringing remains part of who I am. It has shaped how I think, question, and contribute. Adapting to a different workplace culture shouldn't require me to leave that part of myself behind. Perhaps that is what I would most like organisations to consider.
When you recruit an experienced professional from another country, you are welcoming someone whose knowledge and capabilities have developed within a different professional environment.
You have already recognised the value of what they bring. But how much of that value might remain undiscovered if the focus is primarily on helping them become familiar with your way of working?
If this question resonates with experiences in your organisation, I would welcome a conversation. Through MPowerMe Coaching, I explore the relationship between cultural understanding, professional identity, and belonging, and how greater awareness can help internationally experienced professionals and the organisations employing them benefit from what each brings to the relationship.
Read more from Lindy Lelij
Lindy Lelij, Founder of Mpowerme Coaching
With Māori and European heritage, Lindy knows firsthand what it means to live between cultures. She spent over four decades abroad before returning “home” to Aotearoa New Zealand. Today, as founder of Mpowerme Coaching, Lindy helps people navigate migration, cultural transition, and identity. Through positive psychology, deep journaling, energetic tuning, and narrative reframing, Lindy offers clients practical tools for growth and resilience. Backed by more than 30 years of leadership, governance, and business experience across Health, governance, and international trade, she brings both professional expertise and lived wisdom to her work.
