From global marketplaces shipping goods between countries to fast-paced remote teams combining talent from all corners of the world, business has never been more international.
This multinational, multicultural nature of today’s companies demands more from business leaders. It’s not enough to build a global team, you need to pre-empt and mitigate the challenges that team will face, from overcoming language barriers to navigating new opportunities, and nurturing their differences while creating cohesion.
We talked to five leaders about how international experience gave them a global perspective that enhanced their leadership abilities, defined their careers, and shaped their personal lives.
Play
Leading a global business means balancing needs, trends, and opportunities across a wide range of different markets.Having experience in particular regions allows leaders to bring that first-hand perspective to key decisions, but even short periods abroad can significantly benefit team performance.
A by MIT’s Sloan School of Management on the high-pressure world of English football's Premier League found a direct link between a team manager's number of countries worked in and team performance.
For every foreign country a manager had worked in, their team won an extra 1.14 games, or 3.42 points.It’s evidence that global experiences help build some of the fundamental skills needed to lead high-performing teams.
Cultural norms and working styles differ significantly around the globe.
This process of experiencing different ways of working and communicating makes you a more open-minded leader, according to Founder and CEO, .“You’ve got that experience of knowing that there’s a spectrum of styles, all of which can be good; they’re just different,” she adds.That combination of self-awareness and an appreciation for different approaches can help leaders navigate the complexities of a global team.
Anyone who’s lived abroad knows how difficult those first few months of expat life can be.Whether it’s finding a place to live or making a doctor’s appointment, living abroad often involves throwing yourself into the “cold swimming pool” of language and culture, as app Languages CTO, , describes it.
Those types of experiences create a level of comfort with taking a risk and giving it a go. “That mindset of trying something and not being afraid to fail is just as relevant in the boardroom as it is in the classroom,” agrees , Managing Director of International Wellbeing, .
From navigating culture clashes in working styles to the everyday challenges of living abroad, international experience helps leaders develop the resilience needed to navigate the constantly changing world of business.
“If you’ve put yourself through a bunch of different, tough experiences in your 20s, you learn that it doesn’t challenge your humanity — you can live with the tension of business and still find your equanimity”, shares Carrell.
Whether it’s a global pandemic or rocky markets, the experience of living abroad teaches adaptability and resilience that’s essential for today’s leaders.
Poor communication costs businesses time and money, as well as undermining all-important relationships with co-workers and customers.Leaders estimate that teams lose to poor communication, costing U.S. businesses alone .
The risks of miscommunication are even higher in a global team with multiple languages and communication styles.
“With language, it’s not just the words you use, it’s how you phrase things”, according to , CEO and Founder of . “It’s the things you leave unsaid that can be so different between cultures,” she adds.At the leadership level, the stakes are even higher.
“Those that are able to articulate their ideas well, to express themselves, to find the right word, tone, or expression at the right time — they’re the ones that inspire confidence in the people listening to them,” says Perrucci.
Experience communicating with an international audience teaches leaders to prioritize simplicity and clarity, allowing their message to land and stick. Meanwhile, demonstrating effort can help deliver impact. The cultural awareness leaders gain from international experience and practical skills like speaking multiple languages help create strong relationships.
“My German isn’t perfect,” Groen says, “but the fact that I speak it with my German team creates so much goodwill that half the job of building a positive working relationship is already done.”
Accessing the benefits of a diverse, multicultural team depends on their ability to work as a unit. And that falls to leaders. “You can’t just put people from different backgrounds together and expect them to get along naturally”, Milanova believes.
It’s a challenge that Milanova and many of the leaders we spoke to have spent a lot of time thinking about.A common solution? Be open about your differences and the challenges the team will face.At Daye, each person on Milanova’s team has a “Working with me” guide, and there are also guides on how to work with each country.
Leaders with a breadth of global experiences can anticipate the challenges their international teams will face, take steps to mitigate them, and help their teams thrive.
International experience builds some of the fundamental skills that leaders and their businesses need in today’s world.Experiencing a range of cultures, approaches, and styles allows leaders to question their own defaults and be open to different, creative ideas.
The adaptability and resilience needed to settle in a place far from home creates a have-a-go mindset and the ability to communicate and connect with many different types of people.At a more fundamental level, international experience teaches leaders to be aware of and comfortable with differences. And only by doing that are they able to bring global teams together.
This article is part of app Languages’ series, Global Voices: Leaders on Language and Business, an exclusive exploration into the pivotal role of language in achieving international business excellence. For more in this series, check out the leaders’ full interviews on
When you’re teaching English to young learners, you might find that there are a few students in your class who are struggling. But sometimes it can be hard to tell why. Is it because their language level is low? Or are they finding classroom work difficult because of a general cognitive difference, like dyslexia?
Do you ever find it hard to keep students focused and on task? Young learners get easily distracted and it can be hard to find ways to keep them engaged.
So what can we do to get, and more importantly, keep our students’ attention? Here are our five top tips.
Young learners have relatively short attention spans. In the classroom, it is rare to have the whole class fully engaged in something for a long time, since the children will have different interests and levels, so it is essential to plan a number of activities for each lesson.
The more variety you can include in the activities and tasks you plan, the easier it is to provide something enjoyable and relevant for each child. Choose short tasks and try to have a couple of extra activities up your sleeve if something you planned doesn’t work well. However, don’t worry if you don’t have time to do them all – you can always save them for a future lesson.
Another way of keeping students engaged is to mix up the classroom dynamics, having a combination of individual heads-down work, pair work, group work, and whole class discussions or games. When planning your lesson, consider how your students might feel at each stage. After doing some reading or quiet work, students may start to become restless, and this is the ideal time to get them up and moving about.
While you are in class, pay close attention to the mood of the class. When you sense that students are becoming distracted or bored, change the dynamics of the activity.
Ever notice that students become lethargic and show a lack of interest? Why not try introducing brain breaks at strategic points in your lessons? Brain breaks are short physical activities or games designed to get the blood flowing and to re-energize students to help them get ready for learning. They range from short activities that last a couple of minutes, to longer breaks that may be suitable if your lessons last more than an hour.
We can vary different aspects of the lesson using the previous strategies, but one thing that rarely changes is the role of the teacher! One way of keeping students involved is by giving them more responsibility and allowing them to take a more active role in their learning.
Peer teaching completely changes the classroom dynamic and has students teach their peers while you take a step back. For primary classes, ask one or two students to take charge of a ready-made activity, e.g. one from your course book. They should give instructions, demonstrate, monitor as necessary, and check answers.
When students are used to doing this, you can start to have them work in pairs or small groups to plan their own activities to use in class.
Of course, nobody is perfect and there will be times when you lose students’ attention and they are not on task. For these occasions, you can use a wealth of classroom management strategies to regain the class's attention. Here are a few techniques:
Finally, if we want our students to be motivated and engaged in our lessons, we must show enthusiasm for what we are teaching. The more lively and animated you are about the lesson, the more the students will want to join you and learn.
There is a strong link between well-being and friendship, which is just as accurate for children as it is for adults. that children with stable friendships are happier, more able to cope with stress, and have higher self-esteem. Moreover, too, and children who experience friendship adjust more easily to school and perform better academically. School friendships are also a valuable way of learning social skills like sharing, resolving conflict, and engaging with peers positively.
Having friends is an important part of school life, and teachers can play a significant role in creating a positive classroom culture and helping children and young people to form friendships. How can you promote friendships between your students? Here are some ideas:
If there is an example of a good friendship in a book you are reading with students or in your lesson materials, draw your students’ attention to it. For instance, The Jungle Book is an excellent example of a story about friendship. Encourage your students to think critically about the friendships that they read about. You can ask questions like:
By discussing friendship regularly in the classroom, your students will learn about the behavior and characteristics of being a good friend.
You can create lots of opportunities for students to build friendships with one another during class time. Design activities that call for pair or group work, and include at least one or two in every lesson. Focusing on a common goal or problem is a great way to encourage your students to bond with one another.As a bonus, this collaborative way of working promotes important 21st century skills like communication and problem-solving.
Another way of promoting friendships between different groups of students is moving them around. Adjust your seating plan regularly to ensure that all your students interact with and work alongside different classmates, to promote positive, friendly classroom vibes.
Friendship is a social skill that children need to learn – and you can help by teaching them. Be explicit about exactly what you expect from them. Saying, “Be kind” is an abstract, vague concept that children might struggle to put into practice. Instead, give them concrete examples of behavior, such as:
When you see a student engaging in these behaviors, draw attention to them and praise them.
But to really convey the importance of school friendships and kind behavior, it’s not enough to tell them. As the teacher, you must model the behavior you’d like to see in your students. Be consistently positive and upbeat in your interactions with students, thank your learners when they offer help with something, and try to refrain from sounding impatient (even when you are!). All these steps will help to build a positive classroom culture where students feel secure, supported and happy.
Conflict is an inevitable part of school life, but you can help students to navigate arguments and other difficult situations in the classroom. If two students argue, you can help them to resolve it with the following steps:
Following these simple steps teaches children a framework for resolving conflict and gives them the tools to process strong emotions.
An excellent way to promote a positive classroom culture is to do friendship-focused activities with your students:
You could do a Venn diagram activity, where students work in pairs to discuss and write down things they have in common and areas of difference. It’s good to pair students who don’t spend much time together for this activity.
Another positive activity is a 'Honey Roast'. Give students enough squares of paper to have one for each of their classmates. Get them to write their classmates’ names on the paper, and then, on the other side, write down a compliment or something they like about that person, for example, “I like your handwriting”, or “You always use kind words”. Collect the pieces of paper and read out some nice examples to the class. Alternatively, give them directly to the students to read to themselves.
