Expat Leadership: The Untold Truths Behind the Adventure

An international assignment often promises adventure and accelerated career growth. And while an expatriate experience can be life-enriching and fulfilling, it also comes with challenges and unexpected surprises few people talk about.

In this episode of Second Crack – The Leadership Podcast, hosts Gerrit Pelzer and Martin Aldergård draw on their decades of experience leading, coaching, and consulting abroad. Each having lived and worked in Asia for over 20 years, they offer candid insights into the unique rewards and hidden challenges of taking on international assignments.

Moving beyond surface-level excitement, they explore critical leadership dilemmas that can make or break an overseas posting. From managing misaligned expectations between headquarters and local stakeholders to the danger of being “parachuted in”, Gerrit and Martin share personal and hard-earned lessons on the importance of cultural intelligence, communication, and proactively managing networks and perceptions back home to avoid the "out of sight, out of mind" trap that can derail future career prospects.

The conversation also delves into the deep personal consequences of a life lived abroad. From navigating the impact on partners and children to caring for aging parents from afar and adjusting to the bittersweet reality of no longer having a single "home," they reflect on how an initial two-year contract can unexpectedly turn into a life-altering, two-decade journey.

If you’re preparing for your first expat role, already on assignment, or considering returning home after years abroad, this episode will give you the questions, perspectives, and tools to navigate the journey with greater awareness and intentionality.

About Second Crack – The Leadership Podcast
Learn more about the podcast and the hosts’ work at secondcrackleadership.com. To explore how they can support leadership development in your organization—whether through company-wide initiatives or individual executive coaching—email: hello@secondcrackleadership.com.
 
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Martin Aldergård
Gerrit Pelzer

Transcript

[00:10] Gerrit: Dear listeners, a warm welcome to episode number 48 of Second Crack, The Leadership Podcast. Every month we explore complex leadership dilemmas and paradoxes, and we invite you to self-reflect. I am Gerrit Pelzer. I work as an executive coach and I accompany leaders in their personal growth using a coaching combination with Western science and Asian wisdom. Joining me today, as always is my dear friend and business partner, Martin Aldergard. Martin specializes in driving change and transformation within organizations, and what we both have in common is that we always put people at the center of our work. Hello Martin. How are you doing today?

[01:00] Martin: Hi Gerrit. I am doing great today and looking forward to our conversation as always. And we are talking about complex dilemmas as leaders, and today we're really going to dig into our personal experience working abroad.

[01:18] Gerrit: That's right, and this was triggered by me talking at a Rotary Club event earlier this week. Where I was invited to talk about my intercultural leadership experience, and especially comparing how leadership and how the culture is different in Asian countries versus European countries. And then it occurred to me that Martin, you and I, we have been living abroad for over 20 years, each of us, and on this podcast, we never talked about the challenges that expat leaders are are facing. So if you are listening and you're preparing for an expat assignment abroad or you just went abroad, I, I hope this will be useful for you.

[02:04] Martin: And I think also for those of you that have already been for many years an expat, but you are considering your next move or even considering moving back to your home country, we are going to share our experience and our thought processes.

[02:20] Gerrit: Yeah, and Martin, we actually met after both of us have been in Thailand for a long time already, and I'm wondering: how was it for you in the beginning? Because in the organizations that I've experienced, usually an expat assignment is seen as something very positive, it's an opportunity to grow in the organization. It's also usually a demonstration that people trust in you. Uh, expat assignments are very costly and, and people wouldn't do it if they are not convinced that you will be successful abroad. 

However, I've also seen that many expats assignments fail or don't get the desired results, there can be a lot of unexpected surprises. So today we also wanna explore a bit of the dark side of living and working abroad. But then, you know, we don't want to come across as as negative. We wanna show you how you can make your expat assignment a success. And so, Martin, how did it actually happen, how did you become an expat?

[03:27] Martin: For me it was an adventure, I was 28. And when I was offered my first abroad assignment and I was traveling back and forth so not a real expat assignment for almost a year. And then I got a one month contract and I thought, okay, I can do that. And then it got extended and extended. So for me, it started as an adventure. I wanted to learn new things, I wanted to see new places. I was single, I was young, I had absolutely no problem with this. But over the years as well, I started a family, I had kids, I had a home abroad, and then actually I started to be homesick.

[04:15] Gerrit: Mm.

[04:16] Martin: And all my infrastructure, family, business, everything was abroad, but I was homesick. And then COVID came, old parents, and now I was in a dilemma. And of course in 1998 when I started this, I never thought about parents or kids.

[04:34] Gerrit: Yeah. Yeah.

[04:37] Martin: Time goes very fast. So I think as you said, there are great benefits. It's you learn a lot, you develop a lot. I developed a world view, I developed perspectives by traveling and meeting new people, being exposed to foreign cultures, being exposed to other ways of thinking, other ways of talking, other ways of eating. But it also comes at a cost.

[05:05] Gerrit: Other ways of eating. That's interesting.

[05:08] Martin: I had to learn to eat with chopsticks very fast, else I would starve. Yeah.

[05:14] Gerrit: Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. For me it was a little bit different. I was already, I think 35 and, uh, I, I was kind of neutral about it. It's not that I volunteered to become an expat. It was not that I resisted, so it was rather neutral. And I initially started with a two years contract and my contract was extended a couple of times. So I was working for six years as the typical expat in this country. However, I stayed for a total of 20 years. So, you know, what was supposed initially to be two years turned into 20 and it felt like it wasn't that long and it was certainly a life changing experience. And bottom line, I'm very happy where I am today, but it comes with a lot of challenges and I think we will explore some of them in greater detail that you mentioned.

 Perhaps if I can start, when I look back, because we said we also wanna look at, with the knowledge we have today, what would we do differently and what can other people in a similar situation today learn from us, from our mistakes. And, and the first thing for me would be perhaps: do you really understand the expectations fully?

Because I was in the big headquarter in Germany and I knew perhaps what the local people in Germany, and I mean also those who are then internationally responsible, what they would expect. But I must admit, what I did not really have on the radar was how about the local stakeholders in the host country? How about the region, what do they expect? And with this also the big question, the people in Germany wanted me in Thailand, but I haven't really thought about do the people in Thailand want me to be there? Because let's be honest, an expat is also always a disturbing factor. Somebody comes in who doesn't know the language, somebody who does not understand the culture well, who may make a lot of mistakes, stir things up. And also if you are, let's say if there's a vacant position, maybe somebody else locally has applied for the job, and how do you then deal with these people when when you got it?

[07:43] Martin: Hmm. I think there's already a lot of to unpack here because in one way we, it's important to understand expectations, but perhaps it's also something that's almost impossible to know from beforehand. And it's almost like I'm getting parachuted. I'm dropped as a parachute, and it's part of an expat's job then to start to, to build bridges between headquarter and the local. So you know what your boss, uh, back home wants. But typically the communication then to another country is not that great. Timelines are very tight. Usually projects and stuff needs to get done and you are parachuted straight down into this. And you need to start by actually not being sure about expectations, or at least you can be sure that there might be misalignment in expectations, and I think this leads to me in hindsight, one key importance is to communicate and to listen At the beginning.

[08:55] Gerrit: Yeah.

[08:56] Martin: And not start working as you know everything from a headquarter perspective. I've seen myself made the mistake, but I also seen under my long career in Asia, I've seen countless expat managing directors being parachuted into another country with lack of handover, with lack of listening capability, and it builds a lot of frustration.

[09:21] Gerrit: Yes. I mean I'm smiling about it now. But a lot of what you said resonated so well with me, and it's often then also that, yeah, how should I say, there is this lack of preparation and there's often this attitude from the home organization: oh, this person was doing a good job here, of course they will also do a good job abroad, and that is not naturally the case.

Which leads me also to this very challenging question everybody has to be honest about a. Are you the right person for the job? And I'm, I'm a good example for this perhaps, or a bad example because I was in charge of, let's say, a certain manufacturing unit, and on paper it looked like in Thailand was more or less the same manufacturing unit, and then since I had apparently done a good job in Germany, people expected I would do a good job in Thailand as well. And, and I hope I didn't do a too bad job, but I actually realized what looked similar on paper was very, very different in real life. For instance, my, my background is in, in chemistry and I was very lucky in Germany to work with brilliant engineers and have a lot of great technicians. And in Thailand the situation was different and actually an engineer would have been much better suited in that position.

But you know, nobody, including myself thought about this. So this is, again, something to clarify in advance and ask these questions. And you said, Martin, it's may be difficult to get this information upfront, but let's say if your expat assignment doesn't start next week, typically people have a few months to prepare. You can already make connections, you can call people, you can send them emails, and ask these questions. I mean, not the question am I the right person, but what are the expectations, what would success look like?

[11:23] Martin: I think I want to push back a little bit on this. The possibility to ask questions and get clarity, in my personal experience, it would still be very difficult to understand. So I would, of course I would try, but I would go in with expectations that I need to understand locally. Because it comes also with building trust, not coming in looking like I know everything and I have the solution, how to fix this, and my experience was when I come in with that mindset, okay, I'm well prepared, I know what needs to be done. I want to get going from Monday, 9:00 AM. In my experience, the local team was very good in isolating me. Because they knew this guy is coming. He think he knows everything. He doesn't care what we have done in the past. In one year, two year, this guy is gone and another guy is coming. So let's isolate this guy as much as possible and everything will be more stable.

So, for instance, meetings were delayed. Lunches were very long. When we had regional meetings, I didn't get anything done. Eventually I realized what's going on. And I had to reset and go in and listen much more and build trust first. And the trust came from developing mutual local expectations and get people with me. So I agree with you, we can do as much research as we want, as we can, sorry, as we can, but I think it's so super important to have the expectations of coming in to listen.

[13:09] Gerrit: Oh yes, definitely. And what you just said resonated also so well with me because there are, let's say, certain positions, for instance, the MD position in a smaller affiliate in another country, which is often seen by an organization as a developmental stage. And I've seen that a certain MD position in one company, the MD changes every two to three years. And the local people know, yeah, there's another one coming, new ideas, new style, we somehow have to survive the next two to three years with this person. However, all the other people in the organization, we might have to get along with them until retirement. And that puts sometimes expats in an isolated situation.

And then in Thailand, really the key is to build the relationship with people. Because as we say so nicely that "the Thai people don't care how much you know, they care about how much you care." And this really leads me also to really understanding the cultural differences. So again, even before you take this assignment abroad: how much do you really know about the culture in the host country? And are you sufficiently prepared for these intercultural challenges professionally and personally? But however, I think we should not go into too much detail of this because cultural differences are so complex; maybe one day we make a whole epi episode on, on this.

What I would definitely recommend, many multinational companies, they send people on, um, preparatory course. In my case it was two days, which was good. But I think people also really need some coaching while they are on the assignment abroad, because what you learn in the preparation course is a lot of theory, and what you really need is somebody who helps you with the real life challenges as they come up along the way.

[15:13] Martin: Uh, and I think for the cultural aspects in hindsight, one of the drawbacks I had is I didn't learn local language fast enough, or not at all. Again, also with expectations: I'm not going to be there so long, it, it's not worth it. And then, then suddenly time just goes, and then you're thinking now it's too late. And in hindsight, it's never too late. Uh, what I realize is language is culture.

[15:45] Gerrit: Yes.

[15:46] Martin: Through the language. I understand the culture much better.

[15:51] Gerrit: Yes, yes, exactly the same with me. I thought for two years Thai language is very complicated and then also even people at my headquarter in Germany said, ah, you know, don't worry in Thailand, everybody speaks English. And I think it, it goes beyond that, language shapes our thinking. And as you said, we, you not only understand the culture, you understand the thinking behind it. And indeed, I think that was one of the big mistakes that I made too, I did not put enough effort and time into learning the local languages.

[16:29] Martin: Now, we, we talked about communication, and I talked about communicating and listening locally. But I think also communicating back with headquarter, communicating with your bosses.

[16:41] Gerrit: Oh yes.

[16:42] Martin: What is your view on that?

[16:44] Gerrit: Oh, big topic. So first of all, in my case, working in Germany was the headquarter. We had the biggest manufacturing site globally there, and all the site managers, all the production engineers, they would usually meet for lunch. So you would actually solve a lot of your problems in the canteen. And then suddenly you are pretty isolated in a smaller site and, you don't have this exchange. also since I was then reporting to the regional manufacturing head. He was so to say, the main communicator back to headquarters, and I realized that actually backfired. My recommendation here is that you make sure you maintain communication pathways back home. It also comes back to a topic we discussed earlier, perception management. How can you make sure that people at headquarters or whoever your stakeholders are, know what you're doing?

[17:56] Martin: Hmm.

[17:56] Gerrit: And that you don't get forgotten or that somebody talks behind your back as it's, it's, uh, sometimes the case. So yes, communication is immensely important.

[18:07] Martin: This is something also that I, in hindsight, neglected. I was very much consumed by what was happening locally and regional, in Asia, and I thought that my boss will cover my back. But I realized that my seat back home is getting very cold. There are reorganizations going on, there's a lot of stuff happening, and when you are out of sight, you are outta mind. And uh, actually, I realized in hindsight it would have been up to me to make sure that I kept that connection and those networks alive. And it actually then when repatriating, it is a huge drawback when you don't have the network that you used to have back home.

[19:01] Gerrit: Martin, if you are repatriating, right? Because I mean this, the expat assignment often comes with a promise of future promotions. You go there for a couple of years and then you come back and you enter on a higher management level. Uh, in many organizations, international companies, they will also say to attain a certain management level, it's a prerequisite that you have proven your leadership capabilities abroad. But exactly as you said, it's sometimes this out of sight, out of mind. I mean, in addition, what you said, the roles change, people are in new positions and the, the person who made the promise to you may be no longer responsible. He or she may have left the company and oftentimes, I mean, what I see all the time, it's, it's like crazy: the organizations change all the time, and then suddenly maybe somebody in HR says, oh, oh, we have this Martin guy on our payroll. Oh, he's an expat, very expensive, what do we actually do with him? And I, I've never seen reliable numbers in research, but I think the number of expats not returning to headquarters, or even leaving the organization, they seem pretty, pretty high. At least what I've seen from personal experience, many people do not stay in the same organization. And as we said, we, we want to not only talk about the risks, we also want to make suggestions what people can do. And I think what you said earlier, I just wanna reemphasize this networking, and in both ways. So on the one hand proactively maintaining a network in your home country because you, you are not there on an everyday basis, so people need to remember you, you need to check in with people and not only professionally, also with friends and family, on a regular basis. But also build a network in the host country. Because as we have seen for both of us you might want to remain in that host country, and eventually you need to find another job. Or in my case, you need to find clients locally. And that will only work when you have a network because you find jobs not necessary through advertisements, but through networks.

[21:26] Martin: Hmm, absolutely. And I think this is very challenging, because as an expat you are driving a lot of change. You're supposed to drive projects, drive results, it easily consumes you, and then you need to do all the networking, you need to keep up connections. It's easily a lower priority. And then if you also have your family with you, or you're building a family at the same time, networking especially back to home country, on my list it, it fell off the list.

[22:01] Gerrit: Yes. Yeah. You have only 24 hours a day and you can't do everything. And I think what you just said is also really thinking about these other personal challenges. So if you're relocating with a partner or a family, what do they do? Right? And a a worst case scenario for many people is that they go abroad with a partner who does not really have much to do and is waiting for you to come home. But the company expects you to work 24 7, because as we said earlier, an expat assignment is usually quite expensive for a company, and the company wants to see return on their investment.

[22:40] Martin: Hmm. And of course it's exciting work. There's a lot of things happening. As an expat, you're typically more in the center of the action, so it's very easy to work long hours and then leave early in the morning, and what does your partner do?

[22:55] Gerrit: Yep. Yep.

[22:56] Martin: These family related challenges is also then looking at, for instance at parents, at siblings, at friends back at home. I was personally neglecting my parents for a very long time, and now I'm in a different situation when I choose to move back to Sweden, right, because of that. And also reflecting on your friends for instance. I travelled back to Sweden every summer. But gradually when I met friends in Sweden, we had less and less in common. We didn't share a common context. What they were talking about when we met over a beer, I had no clue what was going on back in Sweden, I couldn't relate to that. I mean, I was traveling the world, I was out traveling and working 120 days on the road per year. It was a totally different context. And they couldn't relate to my stories. If I talked about, uh, you know, I've been in Mongolia or I was in LA or I had food in, in Penang or something, didn't matter to them. And, and in hindsight I see a problem with this, because you lose these personal friendships step by step by step, and then of course I can replace them with other friends that understands my context. But what happens if you move back home, so to say, as I have done, you almost burned your bridges, not intentionally, but just because you, you grow away from each other, you grow away from your friends. How do you handle that?

[24:41] Gerrit: Yeah, I, I didn't make such a negative experience with friends. However, I found it very difficult, or more difficult than I anticipated of staying in touch with friends and family, simply in my case, because of the time difference. So Thailand was always five or six hours ahead of Germany. So in in Germany, I would often take a Saturday morning to call friends. Well, if I tried this in Thailand, they would ask, well, why are you calling me in the middle of the night? And at the end of my working day, those people would still be working. So the window that you have to connect with people is much, much 

[25:23] Martin: Hmm. 

[25:23] Gerrit: However, for me, coming back it was more that, what should I say, I mean, I have changed over these 20 years. Germany has changed over the 20 years and I don't feel it so much with friends, I still have a lot of close friends that I can relate very well with. But overall, the German culture feels, feels very, different to me. And also I had a similar experience with parents. So when I first went abroad, my parents were still very fit. They actually came every year to visit and enjoyed it. But then over time, this became less, and I never really thought about how it would be when you have aging parents and you are a couple of thousand kilometers away. You can't just go and visit when something happens.

And I also recall a colleague of mine whose mother was then seriously sick, and he flew back to Europe. And his mother passed away while he was on the plane. Huh? And, uh, these are are things you need to prepare yourself for. And also then this experience when you stay so long abroad, whether it's in one country or a more countries, people will say, yeah, now you have many homes. Yes, but sometimes it also feels you have no more home because you will never a hundred percent integrate in your host country. And when you come back after a long time, your home country does not necessarily feel like home before.

[26:57] Martin: Hmm, exactly. To me the realization in hindsight is how fast time flies. I was starting my expat career slowly, traveling back and forth between countries back to Sweden. And then I got the first assignment fully living abroad, which was one month. And it got extended and extended and I started my own company, et cetera, et cetera. And suddenly there were 24 years gone. And I, I never really thought through, I should have started to think through and realize the long term implications and be more prepared. I'm not sure. I, I probably wouldn't have done something much different. I mean, life is a lot of, uh, uh, uh, 

it's like almost an accident that you happen to go this way, right? There's small, small things that make, and actually your life takes a big turn. Perhaps we cannot avoid that, but I would have wished that I would be more aware of the long-term consequences. And sometime these decisions, I was pushing them ahead of me. They were at the back of my mind and they were bothering me, but the daily busyness, having kids, having work, having employees, traveling a lot, having fun projects. You know, the everyday work was fun, but I might have avoided too long thinking about where is this actually leading and how am I going to solve that?

[28:35] Gerrit: Yeah. And Martin, at the same time I hope we are not coming now across as negative or talking too much about the negative sides. Because as it has changed me and you, I think there were also very positive experiences there. So for instance, working in this intercultural environment and especially living in Bangkok, a city of 11 million people a, a melting pot of so many different cultures. So I've learned so much and broadened my perspective. I think when I first came to Thailand, my mindset was, or my view of the world was very, very narrow because I only experienced the, the German culture really deeply. And so it has opened up so many new perspectives and I've also adapted a lot. So I think for instance, in Thailand, we both know that relationships and family are so much more important than in many European countries and that actually drove me to also then relocating back to Germany. Right? One big reason is to be able to care of my mother, who is now 86 years old. 

And also Thailand is a Buddhist country. So I became very curious about the Buddhist teachings, and today I am a Zen practitioner, which is, you know, I would say a, a very fundamental part of my life and I would not have had this without my love, life, abroad. Love leads me to the, the last important point. I found the love of my life in Thailand, and I'm happily married now for over 10 years, and all this would not have happened, but it's like you said, sometimes you just slip into it and I think you need to find the balance between planning and just letting it happen and be okay with it.

[30:29] Martin: I totally agree with you. I also don't want to come across as negative, but what I want to highlight, it has big implications. And to me it came forward during COVID. That is when it came to a point, because I, I was always thinking, you know, I can travel. When I need to go, I can go, no problem. But with COVID, that was the, turning point for me to realize I need to make a tough decision. Am I going to continue like a globetrotter, you know, staying in Asia Pacific and, and trying to manage, or am I going to connect back home?

And the benefits again, I had the benefit of traveling all across Asia. I, I lived in Thailand the whole time, but you know, my projects, they were in Australia, in Japan, in the US, in Singapore, even in Mongolia, everywhere, Indonesia. The second thing that is so fantastic, I think is because there was hardly routine job, always being on projects, always meeting talented people and change agents. Even all the local teams are all excited, we were working very hard, we had great dinners, we were visiting places, we are going to different sites. It's so exciting

[31:48] Gerrit: Yes,

[31:49] Martin: and, and at the same time. We need to realize the consequences, the potential implications on our career, on our life.

But I think you are in a good place where you are today as well.

, course, and decisions cannot be changed, what happened happened. But in hindsight, I would have put more time and effort on actually trying to think. Perhaps my decisions would have still been the same. But I was not aware of the long-term consequences and time flies very fast.

[32:25] Gerrit: Yes. I hear you. And at the same time, I also feel there is maybe also still a difference between a, what should I say, more or less typical Northern Europe mindset and the Thai mindset. Because I've, I've seen in Thailand people don't tend to plan much, um, whereas we tend to, I think there's a stronger sense of wanting to be in control and uh, especially this idea of 'where do I want to be in 10 years', I think that's a very typical western attitude. And you know, my saying, I think what is more important than, for me, at least this goal, where do I want to be in 10 years, is having clarity about: what matters to me? Yeah, is it for instance, friends or family, um, is it the job? Whatever it is. And then if you focus on this every day, then naturally you'll arrive somewhere. Most importantly, you are sort of doing the right thing every day.

[33:30] Martin: I think you're totally right. And the importance is to find a balance.

For me, of course, the positive outweighs the negatives, and in hindsight we can always find things to do differently. But I don't want to discourage anybody for taking on an expat assignment. For me I would never have done it differently. It's a great adventure. I've developed myself as a person. I've developed a world view that I think is so important in these days when everything seems to be much more nationalistic. We have trends in society and in politics today, uh, that that is, uh, quite scary. But by traveling around, being in different countries, understanding different ways of thinking, understanding other cultures,we are living on one small planet in the whole universe, we are actually not very different from each other. And I think this worldview, I, I would never want to be without it.

[34:36] Gerrit: A hundred percent. And I think we all need to start to see us inhabitants of this planet as one humanity rather than many different nations. Martin, I think these were wonderful closing remarks. What, what else do we need to wrap it up?

[34:55] Martin: Um, I'm just thinking about the reflection question as always.

[34:59] Gerrit: Do you have one?

[35:01] Martin: My reflection question is when you are doing this decision to either accept an expat assignment or moving on to your next expat assignment, really think long term considering all the impacts on your professional career. Whether you actually need to move closer to home or whether you want to go further away from home for another three years or five years, really considering also the long-term impact on what you're going to do and create more options for you.

[35:37] Gerrit: Wonderful. And I don't have one specific question. I think we all had them already in our discussion. So starting with when people are just about to take on the expat assignment, being clear about the expectations. Then how can I, even when there's a lot of time pressure, how can I spend enough time on, networking, in my former home country, in the current host country. How can I communicate properly, also language wise, but how do I work on my perception management in the new role? And then I liked very much the word that you used, being aware of the 'consequences'. Everything you do has consequences in one direction or another. And uh, this would be my take on it.

[36:26] Martin: And to add to your 24 hour per day, learn local language.

[36:32] Gerrit: Yes. Wonderful Martin. It was great that we finally discussed our life situation on this podcast, and this concludes today's episode.

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