Speaking the Same Language Is Not Enough

Culture, humility, and inclusive leadership in practice

Diversity is often discussed in terms of representation.

• Who is present in the room.
• Who has access to opportunity.
• Who is promoted.
• Whose voice is heard.

All of that matters. However, the greater challenge often arises after diversity has been achieved.

People may speak the same language yet still feel as if they are speaking entirely different languages.

I do not mean language in the literal sense, but the cultural frameworks through which people interpret authority, disagreement, trust, respect, recognition, and belonging.

I have become increasingly aware of this dynamic while working across countries, professions, and institutional cultures. My experience as a Gender Focal Point has also prompted deeper reflection on what inclusion means in daily leadership.

Inclusion is rarely achieved through a single grand gesture.

More often, it is reflected in who receives context before decisions are made, who feels empowered to disagree, whose communication style is considered credible, and who is expected to adapt the most.

The Door, the Cold Room, and the Cat

I remember an example from a leadership course I took years ago.

The professor described communication styles as sitting along a spectrum. At one end, if someone wants the door closed, they simply say:

“Could you close the door?”

Somewhere in the middle, the same request might sound like:

“Isn’t it a little cold in here?”

At the more indirect end, the person might say:

“I would rather my cat did not leave the room.”

The listener is expected to infer the intended action from the context.

I do not know where the professor’s precise wording came from, and the cat example was likely a teaching illustration rather than a direct quotation. However, I have remembered it for years because it highlights an important point.

What one person experiences as clear and efficient, another may experience as abrupt. What one person considers tactful, another may consider vague. One speaker believes the request was obvious. The other wonders why no request was made at all.

Both may be speaking English. The meaning, however, can still be lost.

The broader idea draws on Edward T. Hall’s distinction between high- and low-context communication, which Erin Meyer later adapted for global workplaces in The Culture Map.

In lower-context cultures, more of the intended meaning tends to be expressed directly in the words themselves. In higher-context cultures, more meaning may be carried through relationships, tone, hierarchy, shared expectations, and what is left unsaid.

These concepts are valuable, but only when applied thoughtfully.

They are not rules for predicting individual behaviour based on nationality. People differ within every country, and communication styles also vary by profession, generation, organisation, personality, and power dynamics.

The point is not to classify people.

It is to recognise that our own way of communicating is not culturally neutral.

When Our Own Style Feels Like the Normal One

This is where leadership becomes challenging.

Most people perceive their own communication style as standard and often overlook the interpretation it requires from others.

A direct communicator may believe that an indirect colleague lacks confidence or clarity. An indirect communicator may believe that the direct colleague is insensitive or unnecessarily confrontational.

One person may see interruption as energetic engagement. Another may experience it as disrespect.

One may view immediate disagreement as intellectual honesty. Another may believe disagreement should first be signalled more carefully, particularly in front of a senior person.

Silence may mean agreement. It may also mean discomfort, reflection, respect, uncertainty, or a belief that the setting is not safe enough for dissent.

The visible behaviour is the same, but its meaning may be entirely different.

And yet leaders often evaluate people through apparently objective descriptions:

Too quiet.

Too aggressive.

Not assertive enough.

Too emotional.

Not polished enough.

Not ready for leadership.

Difficult to work with.

Sometimes those assessments are accurate.

However, at times we are not assessing the quality of a person’s judgment or contribution, but rather how closely their communication style aligns with our own preferences.

This is where cultural differences can subtly lead to bias.

Bias Often Feels Like Ordinary Judgment

Bias is difficult precisely because it often feels like ordinary judgment to the person making it.

We may believe we are assessing confidence, clarity, professionalism, or leadership potential. But those judgments can be shaped by familiarity: by the styles we already recognise, the behaviours we have learned to reward, and the kinds of people who have historically been treated as credible.

This does not mean every negative assessment is biased. Nor does it mean that cultural difference excuses poor performance or harmful behaviour.

It means leaders must invest more effort before determining what a behaviour truly signifies.

Is the person unclear, or are they communicating in a less direct register?

Are they disengaged, or do they come from a culture where speaking over senior colleagues is discouraged?

Are they lacking confidence, or are they taking more time to form a considered view?

Are they being aggressive, or is their normal style simply more direct than ours?

Are we applying the same standard to everyone, or rewarding familiarity while calling it merit?

These questions can be uncomfortable because they require leaders to examine their own assumptions.

Breaking Bias Requires Humility

This is why I do not think unconscious bias can be addressed through awareness alone.

It requires humility.

By humility, I do not mean lowering standards, avoiding judgment, or becoming uncertain about every decision. I rather mean accepting that our first interpretation may be incomplete.

Cultural humility starts with recognising that there is always more to learn. It requires us to continually examine our own assumptions, rather than assuming we can fully master another person’s culture. This is important because authority can make humility more difficult to practice.

As individuals become more senior, fewer people may be willing to inform them when they have misunderstood a situation. Power can cause personal communication preferences to be perceived as the organisational norm.

Over time, a leader may stop distinguishing between:

“This is how effective communication works.”

and

“This is how communication works for me.”

Humility challenges that sense of certainty.

It asks:

What else might explain what I am seeing?

What part of the context am I missing?

Am I assessing performance, or am I assessing familiarity?

Have I made my expectations explicit, or am I asking others to infer them from a cultural code they may not share?

Would I interpret the same behaviour differently if it came from someone who looked or sounded more like the leaders I already know?

These questions do not weaken leadership. Rather, they improve the quality of judgment.

Inclusion Is Not the Absence of Standards

There is sometimes a fear that adapting to different people means applying different standards.

I do not think that follows.

Inclusion does not require a leader to avoid difficult feedback. It does not mean accepting poor performance, tolerating destructive behaviour, or making every interaction comfortable.

The standard can remain the same.

However, everyone should have a fair opportunity to understand the standard, meet it, and demonstrate their achievement.

That may require more context for one person and more direct feedback for another. It may require giving someone space to prepare rather than rewarding only those who think aloud fastest. It may mean actively inviting a view from someone who is unlikely to compete for airtime. It may mean checking whether apparent agreement is genuine, rather than assuming silence means consent.

This is not lowering the bar. It is about removing unnecessary ambiguity around expectations.

Leadership as Translation

The best leaders I have observed do not communicate in only one register. They adapt their approach while remaining authentic. They know when to be direct and when to leave space. They understand that some people need the full context before they can engage, while others want the conclusion first. They recognise that trust may be built through debate in one relationship and through consistency over time in another.

In that sense, leadership is partly an act of translation.

A leader translates strategy into meaning. They translate disagreement into productive debate. They translate institutional expectations across cultural and professional boundaries. They translate what one person intends into something another person can hear.

In practice, people are more likely to speak when they believe their contributions will be taken seriously. They are more willing to challenge assumptions when disagreement is not mistaken for disloyalty. Individuals are more likely to take interpersonal risks when it is clear that diverse styles of contribution are genuinely valued.

But translation should not become a one-way burden.

In many diverse organisations, those furthest from the dominant culture are often expected to do most of the adapting. They must learn how decisions are actually made, how disagreement is safely expressed, what confidence is supposed to look like, and which forms of communication are recognised.

The dominant group often does not recognise that it has its own cultural language.

Real inclusion requires leaders to carry part of that translation burden.

This is not because every cultural preference must be accommodated indefinitely, but because individuals cannot contribute fully when only one style is considered intelligent, credible, or suitable for leadership.

Diversity Needs Curiosity; Inclusion Needs Humility

Diversity brings a range of experiences to an organisation. This diversity creates the potential for better judgment, broader perspectives, and more robust challenges.

But difference alone does not guarantee any of those outcomes. A diverse team can still become a room in which everyone learns that only one communication style is rewarded.

People may be present but remain unheard. They may contribute but receive less credit. They may continually adapt while the institution considers itself inclusive.

Curiosity helps us notice difference. Humility helps us question the meaning we have assigned to it. That distinction matters.

It is relatively easy to learn that cultures communicate differently. It is much more difficult to recognise that our own interpretations may contribute to the problem. That is the real work.

Not memorising national profiles.

Not becoming afraid to speak plainly.

Not replacing individual judgment with cultural stereotypes.

The real work is learning to pause long enough and consider whether another reasonable interpretation exists, and whether we have fostered an environment where people feel comfortable telling us when we have misunderstood them.

We may all be speaking English; however, we may still not truly understand one another.

Diversity brings different people into the room. Inclusion requires us to consider whether the environment is prepared to understand and support them.

Leadership is what closes that gap.

References

• Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture, 1976.
• Erin Meyer, The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business, 2014.

The views expressed here are my own.