Global executive on the move I’ve lived in five countries and coached leaders across continents, engaging in conversations that cross cultures, industries and worldviews. Over the years, I’ve come to believe that global leadership has nothing to do with how many stamps you’ve collected on your passport. It’s about how deeply you’re willing to listen to different perspectives—and how quickly you can integrate what you hear into how you lead. Today, that ability is more essential than ever. Globalization as we knew it is being redrawn. National interests are tightening. Supply chains are shifting. Leadership teams are increasingly fractured between local priorities and global mandates. Yet amid all this fragmentation, the need for connection has only grown. To better understand what this moment demands, I spoke with three leaders whose careers have stretched across continents, cultures, and industries. Eva Leihener-Stefan, Managing Director of L’Oréal Taiwan; Varun Bhatia, founder and CEO of eVolv (an AI-powered diagnostics SaaS platform) and former CHRO at AirAsia, Levi’s, Kraft, P&G, and Gillette; and Ikari Mototsugu, a global executive spearheading innovation in renewable energy with FLOWRA, each offered deeply personal insights into what it truly means to lead across borders. Each brought a different lens, but together they revealed something powerful: global leadership is no longer about managing difference: it’s about being shaped by it. MORE FOR YOU Do Not Make Calls On Your Phone If You Get This Message Gmail Hack Attack — Google Says You Have 7 Days To Act Apple Brings Back iPhone 15 Pro And 15 Pro Max For The 1st Time — At Lower Prices 1. Aligning Global Strategy With Local Reality One of the most consistent challenges in cross-border leadership is bridging the gap between corporate strategy and local context. A global vision is essential, but it means little if it doesn’t connect to real people in real places. Bhatia learned this early at Gillette, where he was asked to build a global HR services function. Rather than centralizing in a low-cost hub, he mirrored where business decisions were being made. His logic was clear: start where the influence is. He set up regional hubs in Mexico, Germany, India and Singapore—not because of labor arbitrage, but because those were the engines of business strategy. It wasn’t a textbook move. It was a contextual one. For Leihener-Stefan, the challenge plays out differently but just as viscerally. Taiwan is one of L’Oréal’s most sophisticated markets, and while the brand portfolio is globally recognized, consumer behavior demands deep cultural nuance. She described how even something as simple as a product nickname might need to shift for resonance. “Making global strategy work isn’t about pushing down,” she said. “It’s about translating up and across.” Mototsugu emphasized rhythm—his word for how business flows differently in different regions. He has led ventures across the Middle East, Asia and Europe and learned that forcing a universal pace rarely works. “If you don’t move in step with the market’s rhythm,” he told me, “you’ll be out of sync before you even begin.” Leadership lesson: Strategy succeeds not when it’s replicated, but when it’s interpreted through local understanding. Through learning, unlearning and relearning. 2. Leading With Curiosity Over Control The leaders I admire most are driven by deep curiosity. Not the performative kind that shows up in diversity brochures, but a lived, ongoing effort to notice, to ask and to stay open. Mototsugu’s leadership philosophy is rooted in this. As a child, he moved every two years across Japan as part of a defense force family. Later, he lived in Qatar, Iran, and Saudi Arabia—immersing himself in vastly different communities. In our conversation, one story stood out. In Qatar, his Indian colleague was a devoted cricket player. Mototsugu didn’t understand the game, but instead of ignoring it, he joined in, observed, asked questions. “It wasn’t about knowing the rules,” he said. “It was about understanding why it mattered.” That same mindset guides how he evaluates talent. When hiring in unfamiliar markets, he doesn’t rely solely on resumes. He visits the candidate’s hometown. “Community creates character,” he told me. “It tells me more than a degree ever will.” Leihener-Stefan applies curiosity to customer engagement. She continues to lead “consumer connects,” where she visits homes, observes routines, and asks people how they live with L’Oréal’s products. “It’s not just about market research. It’s about presence.” Bhatia emphasized that curiosity doesn’t mean indecision. It’s strategic. During Kraft’s decentralization, he spent less time telling and more time listening. “You can’t mandate empowerment,” he said. “You have to create the conditions for it.” My takeaway was that in every case, curiosity preceded influence. Authority came not from having answers, but from building trust through questions. Leadership lesson: Curiosity is what transforms global leadership from a function into a relationship. 3. Redefining Leadership As Shared, Not Singular Traditional leadership models don’t travel well. What works in one culture often stalls in another. Today’s leaders need to think of leadership not as a role—but as something that moves between people, contextually. Leihener-Stefan described how, when she arrived in Taiwan, team members would email her asking whether to choose red or green—without a recommendation. She quickly shifted expectations. “I told them, you decide, and I’ll challenge or support you. Don’t wait for me.” Over time, that shift cascaded into a more empowered, confident team culture. Bhatia took this further when he led the Next Generation Leadership program at Kraft. The program wasn’t about seminars. It placed participants in live cross-functional business projects that spanned cultures, countries and divisions. It was designed to surface leadership, wherever it might be hiding. “Leadership isn’t just about who gets promoted,” he said. “It’s about who shows up when it matters.” At AirAsia, Bhatia worked closely with Tony Fernandes, the airline’s legendary, maverick CEO. Fernandes was fast-moving and instinctive; Bhatia brought structure and scale. “Tony would say, ‘Let’s just do it.’ I’d say, ‘Let’s make it repeatable.’ That tension made us better,” he told me. “We learned to play to each other’s strengths.” Mototsugu offered the most visual metaphor. Watching cricket and baseball, he noticed that the strongest teams didn’t always have a single standout leader. Leadership moved depending on the play, the pressure, the moment. “Leadership is like water,” he said. “It finds its level based on what’s needed.” My takeaway was that shared leadership isn’t a buzzword. It’s what happens when trust and clarity coexist and when authority is earned, not assumed. Leadership lesson: Leadership scales when it’s shared and situational. 4. Immersion Over Isolation: Go Beyond the Expat Bubble One of the biggest risks for global leaders is isolation. It’s easy to fall into a rhythm of expatriate life that’s comfortable but disconnected. All three leaders spoke about the importance of embedding (not just arriving). Leihener-Stefan didn’t just relocate to Taiwan; she redesigned how her teams work. From shifting lunch habits to open office designs and embedding Gallup’s ClftonStrengths into team conversations, she brought both organizational consistency and cultural fluency to the table. “Freedom within a frame,” she said, describing her leadership approach. “We set direction, but people find their own way to deliver.” A passenger is in the shadow walking past a commercial aircraft docked to an airport terminal Bhatia warned against the classic expat trap. “Too many global leaders fly in, attend reviews, and leave without ever getting close to the reality of the market,” he said. At Levi’s and AirAsia, he made a point to connect informally—on the shop floor, over meals, in town halls that weren’t scripted. “Culture is built in the in-between moments.” Mototsugu’s approach is deeply unconventional. He walks neighborhoods. Eats local food. Observes silence, not just speeches. When hiring in Iran, he visited a candidate’s village and noticed the tone of the streets, the way people walked, the visible care of the community. “That told me more about her mindset than any interview,” he said. My takeaway was that immersion builds instinct—and instinct leads to trust. And without trust, global leadership is just logistics. Leadership lesson: Immersion is not a gesture. It’s how global leadership becomes real. Glocal Fluency: It’s About Embracing Complexity With Humility Across these conversations with Leihener-Stefan, Bhatia, and Mototsugu, a clear picture emerged of what global leadership looks like today and not in theory, but in practice. It is no longer about mastering every market or exporting a fixed leadership model. It’s about leading through difference, not despite it. What stood out was how each of these leaders has embraced complexity with humility. Whether adjusting global strategy to fit local realities, rethinking how leadership shows up on a team, or seeking out cultural context through food, sport, or community—each made one thing clear: leadership across borders starts with human connection. Ultimately, glocal fluency isn’t built in a classroom or earned through job titles. It’s shaped through curiosity, immersion and a willingness to be changed by what you encounter. These are the leaps in leadership that are sustained through trust—often built in the smallest of steps. In an increasingly fragmented world, this kind of global leadership doesn’t just navigate complexity, it creates belonging within it. Follow me on LinkedIn. Editorial StandardsForbes Accolades