In a world where business moves across borders faster than ever, many leaders still underestimate one of the most important skills of all: cultural humility.

In this week’s episode of Leadership Story Talks, Narativ hosts Jerome Deroy and Julienne Ryan sat down with Dean Foster—cross-cultural expert, speaker, and author of Business Beyond Borders—for a rich conversation about leadership, trust, communication, and what it really takes to work effectively across cultures.

Dean has spent more than three decades helping Fortune 500 companies, governments, and universities navigate business across borders. But what makes his perspective especially compelling is that it is rooted not only in global travel and professional experience, but in something much earlier: childhood.

The First Culture We Learn

When Jerome asked Dean about an experience that shaped who he is today, his answer was immediate and deeply personal: growing up in Brooklyn, New York.

For Dean, Brooklyn was more than a neighborhood. It was an early education in multiculturalism. In the apartment building where he grew up, people from all over the world lived side by side. Just by going up or down a flight of stairs, he encountered different foods, beliefs, customs, and ways of seeing the world.

That experience became foundational.

Long before he formally studied cultural anthropology or built a career in cross-cultural business, Dean was already learning one of the central truths of leadership in a diverse world: the way we see the world is never universal.

It is shaped by the cultures that form us.

Why Cultural Similarity Can Be Misleading

One of the most revealing points in the conversation was Dean’s reminder that cultural misunderstandings do not only happen between obviously different cultures. In fact, they can be especially tricky between cultures that seem similar on the surface.

Shared language, shared history, or shared professional norms can create the illusion that people are aligned when they are not.

Dean pointed to examples like the U.S. and Australia, or different English-speaking business cultures, where assumptions of similarity often mask meaningful differences in tone, trust-building, expectations, and decision-making.

That false sense of familiarity can be costly.

When leaders assume everyone interprets words like empowerment, fulfillment, teamwork, or accountability in the same way, they risk creating confusion without even realizing it.

Trust Is Universal. Building It Is Not.

One of the strongest themes in the episode was trust.

Every leader wants to build trust. Every team depends on it. But as Dean explained, while the need for trust may be universal, the way trust is built varies dramatically from culture to culture.

In some cultures, trust develops through directness, consistency, and competence.
In others, it grows through personal relationship, shared obligation, and informal exchanges over time.

Dean shared examples from Russia, Brazil, China, and Australia that illustrated how easy it is to misread signals when you rely on your own cultural expectations.

That is where many leaders get into trouble.

They mistake their own preferred approach for the “right” one.

But cross-cultural leadership requires something deeper: the ability to recognize that other people may be operating from a completely different framework—and that framework makes sense to them.

When Words Travel, Meanings Shift

This insight has enormous implications not only for global business, but for organizational culture as well.

Companies often rely on value statements and mission language to unify teams. But as Dean pointed out, those words do not carry identical meanings across cultures.

A phrase like “empowering employees” may sound positive everywhere. But in practice, that empowerment may be interpreted very differently.

In one culture, empowerment may mean giving someone the authority to act independently.
In another, it may mean removing burdens and protecting them from individual accountability.

The words are the same. The lived meaning is not.

For leaders, this is a critical lesson.

If you want your values, strategies, or expectations to translate across borders—or even across teams—you cannot stop at language. You have to go deeper into interpretation, behavior, and lived experience.

That is where stories become essential.

Stories Reveal What Culture Really Means

At Narativ, we often say that stories reveal what abstract language cannot.

This conversation reinforced that truth beautifully.

Whether the topic is trust, leadership, accountability, or interpersonal care, stories show how those things actually work in context. They make invisible assumptions visible. They help people understand not just what another person believes, but why.

Dean’s stories—from negotiations in Russia to parking a car in Rio to navigating relationships in China—offered more than colorful anecdotes. They were windows into how culture shapes business behavior in practical, everyday ways.

And for leaders, that is the real value of storytelling.

Stories create the understanding that data, frameworks, and policies often miss.

Leadership Across Cultures Starts With Humility

When Jerome asked Dean what one idea he would leave with the audience, his answer was clear: humility.

Not performative humility. Not passive humility.

But the active choice to approach difference without assuming you already have the answer.

Dean described this as the ability to remain fully yourself while also respecting that others may believe, value, and behave differently—and that it is your job to understand that if you want to work effectively with them.

That mindset changes everything.

Instead of seeing cultural difference as an obstacle, leaders can begin to see it as an opportunity:

• an opportunity to listen more carefully
• an opportunity to solve problems differently
• an opportunity to expand what leadership looks like

In an increasingly divided and polarized world, that may be one of the most important leadership capacities we can develop.

The Leadership Opportunity in Difference

Too often, leaders approach difference with impatience.

Why are they doing it that way?
Why don’t they just say what they mean?
Why is this taking so long?
Why can’t they be more direct, more collaborative, more flexible?

But behind each of those frustrations is a missed opportunity.

As Dean reminded us, when someone behaves in a way you do not understand, there is often a hidden lesson there—something that can help you grow, adapt, and lead more effectively.

That does not mean agreeing with everything. It does not mean ignoring ethics or abandoning standards.

It means learning how to respond with curiosity before judgment.

And in leadership, that shift can make all the difference.

Final Takeaway

If there was one message at the heart of this episode, it was this:

Cross-cultural leadership begins with listening.
And listening begins with humility.

In global business, in organizational life, and even in our everyday relationships, we are constantly encountering people whose assumptions differ from our own. The leaders who thrive are not the ones who bulldoze those differences. They are the ones who learn how to work with them.

That is what it means to lead beyond borders.

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Learn more about how to leverage Narativ’s storytelling method for your pitch and sales team: Download our free e-book, or you’re welcome to schedule a free 15-minute call with Jerome.

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