High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 709: Leading Across Cultures: Building a Global Mindset with Victoria Rennoldson

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

In this episode of the High Performance Mindset podcast, Dr. Cindra Kamphoff sits down with Victoria Rennoldson, an award-winning coach, speaker, and facilitator specializing in global leadership, communication, and cultural intelligence. As the CEO and Founder of Culture Cuppa and host of a top-ranked podcast with over 145 episodes, Victoria shares practical wisdom on how leaders can communicate confidently and collaborate effectively across cultures.   Cindra and Victoria explore what it truly means to be a global leader in today’s interconnected world—debunking common myths about cross-cultural communication and discussing how to build cultural agility. Victoria also opens up about the mindset shifts that have shaped her journey as an entrepreneur and offers powerful takeaways for professionals who want to lead and perform with impact on the global stage.   You’ll learn strategies for communicating under pressure, habits that help leaders grow globally, and the critical role self-awareness plays in leadership success. Plus, Victoria gives us a sneak peek at her upcoming book, launching in November 2025, and shares the life lesson that has stayed with her from working across cultures.   Connect with Victoria Rennoldson Website: culturecuppa.com Podcast: Culture Cuppa Podcast Book: culturecuppa.com/book LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/victoria-rennoldson To  Request a Free Breakthrough Call with a Mentally Strong Coach, visit: http://www.freementalbreakthroughcall.com/ To learn more about the Mentally Strong Institute, visit: https://mentallystronginstitute.com/ To learn about Dr. Cindra Kamphoff's speaking and coaching, visit: https://cindrakamphoff.com/ To follow Dr. Cindra on Instagram, visit: Cindra Kamphoff, PhD (@cindrakamphoff) • Instagram photos and videos

Hi, I'm Dr. Sandra Camp Off, and this is the High Performance Mindset Podcast. Today I set down with Victoria Reynolds, an award-winning coach, speaker, and facilitator, specializing in global leadership, communication, and cultural intelligence. As the CEO and founder of Culture Kappa, and host of a top-ranked podcast with over 145 episodes, Victoria shares practical wisdom on how leaders can communicate confidently and collaborate effectively across cultures. We explore what it truly means to be a global leader in today's interconnected world, debunking common myths about cross-cultural communication and discussing how to build cultural agility.

Victoria also opens up about the mindset shifts that have shaped her journey as an entrepreneur and offers powerful takeaways for professionals who want to lead and perform with impact on the global stage. You'll learn strategies for communicating under pressure. habits that help leaders grow globally, and the critical role self-awareness plays in leadership success. Plus, Victoria gives us a sneak peek at her upcoming book, launching in November 2025, and shares the life lesson that has stayed with her from working across cultures. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm so grateful that Victoria Reynoldsson is here to join us today. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for being here,

Victoria. Zindra, thank you so much for the lovely welcome, and I'm really looking forward to being on the show with you today. I can't wait. And I can't wait to talk about your new upcoming book, Becoming a Global Leader, or Become a Global Leader. And so I thought we could just start, Victoria, just talking about first, you know, you've known, you know, you've been known for helping leaders and organizations communicate confidently

and collaborate across cultures. So what led you to specialize in global leadership and maybe tell us. what global leadership is to get us started. Oh, wow, lots of really exciting questions there. So a little bit of context, like, why is this my passion? Why is this my area? I am somebody who has always been really interested in where does communication, leadership, and culture meet.

It went all the way back to my first career when I worked in marketing, in really large global organizations. and I saw firsthand some of the challenges that came up and also some of the opportunities when we were working across global teams. So I'm based in London, the UK, as maybe some of your listeners kind of maybe detect from my accent. And I was working for really large global corporates, organizations like General Mills, Heinz, as it was back in the day, now Kraft Heinz. And I was based in London. but working and traveling regularly across Europe and then also collaborating with colleagues

and co-workers across US and Asia. And I got real insights into some of those gaps and challenges that came up in those times. So it got me really interested already in early days. As I progressed my own leadership journey, my own career, I got increasingly fascinated in this. And when the opportunity came up to start my own. own business 10 years ago, I decided this was the space that I want to get into. So global leadership and the idea of communication and cultural intelligence have very much been the threads throughout my life. I love it. Thank you. I think that's so wonderful to hear more about your

passion and why you do what you do. When I think about global leadership and communication and cultural sensitivity, tell us a little about like what could go wrong if you don't listen this episode. Absolutely. Well, you also really asked a great question, which is what is global leadership. So let's just start there because I think that's a really important point, which is, you know, what we mean by that today is that this could be somebody who is a leader stepping up from working in a role within their local market into more of a global role, a strategic role crossing many different time zones, cultures, different markets. That might be one version of global leadership. But also increasingly, we might have people who are leading diverse

teams across multiple locations. That might be what's going on for them. And these are people that they're leading who they don't get to see day to day. They very rarely get to meet in person. In fact, many of the people and planet organizations that I work with may only have those face-to-face times like once a year or maybe twice a year if they're lucky. So the ability to connect, to understand each other, to have those like moments where you just have the informal conversations, they don't really exist very much in that environment. And so what I find some the biggest challenges are, if you are a leader of those people, is finding those moments to connect over the conversation, understanding your people, knowing how to bring them with

you and motivate them, how to deal with the challenging situations that crop up as well. So this is definitely one of the big challenges that comes up for people who are stepping into that global leadership role. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I'm thinking about the importance of being culturally agile and being able to communicate across all these different maybe countries or communicating around the world. What are a few strategies that you think leaders really need to do to become culturally agile?

Is that the word you would use? would you use a different word and tell us, you know, what they should be able to do to be able to quickly, you know, communicate across different cultures and contexts? That's a great question, Sandra. And I think, you know, there are many different terms out there for this. So sometimes you hear people talk about cultural awareness, cultural sensitivity. I really like to talk about cultural intelligence because for me, this is about going deeper than the awareness, the knowledge, actually applying it, being able to create strategies and

action plans that mean you're implementing what you have learned. And I think, you know, a big challenge that comes up is that sometimes we have people who are stepping into global leadership roles. They've been incredibly successful to date. They've got a leadership style, a signature style that works for them. And then they step up into a more global role. And what they find is that what's worked previously isn't landing quite in the same way as before. So things like the way that they invite contribution, the way that they give feedback, the way they handle conflict within the team. They might have really great operating strategies for how that kind of worked well for them previously. But in a new world, in a world where they've got very

diverse kind of groups and teams around them, they may not recognize immediately that they need to adapt to the individuals in front of them. Now, that means, of course, having some level of knowledge, some insight. And there's some amazing research that are out there, really academically kind of grounded, that really talks about some generalizations, like people from, for example, the US may generally be like this, or people from UK or France or wherever. Yeah. But the reality is you have to go deeper than that.

If you want to get beyond just generalizations and perhaps even sometimes stereotypes, you have to see the person in front of you. So for me, this comes down to knowing that culture is about how you show up as well, knowing what you are doing, how you're showing up in your cultural style, and then really understanding the cultural styles of the people around you, how that influences the way they prefer to behave, the way they prefer to communicate, and therefore what they expect from you as the leader. Yeah, that's so great.

And I'm thinking about how it is, you know, you can understand maybe these generalizations, but there's also individual differences. Now I'm curious about what are some things that we shouldn't do or maybe what are some myths or misunderstandings when you're communicating across cultures, what are the things that we should avoid? Yeah.

So I think a really, an interesting situation that I often get asked about is, you know, I seem to be, you know, people talk to me about, I seem to be in, you know, on the call. I'm asking people to share their points of view, like, what do they think about this topic? And I'm met with silence. And they're not, you know, people are not very used to that. They're used to people on meeting, like speaking up, saying what they think. And that might be a bit of a shock if you're very used to the US slash UK slash Western style of, like, everybody's quite individualist in their style.

they're happy to speak up, share their opinion, say what they think. There's not so much usually hierarchy or power distance between people, so they're not so worried about, you know, speaking up before more senior people. In some cultures, that deeply matters. People may not be so comfortable speaking up in front of you as the senior manager or the senior leader until you've expressed your own point of view. They also may be collectivist. That means they prefer to discuss.

us as a group and come to a common view before sharing that. And actually, if you call them out in front of the group and say, hey, like, what do you think? That's really threatening. And that may actually create a lack of psychological safety for the group. Sure. So things like this are really critical to understand if you are that leader. And that's a great example where you need to adapt. You need to make sure that you're adjusting your strategy. The biggest challenge for the leaders that I work with is they have that signature style. They have the approach that's worked for them for many, many years. Adapting and perhaps risking getting it wrong can feel quite scary. It can feel like pushing that comfort zone. And realizing that you may not get it right is also quite something

that takes some confidence to lean into that and to try to take action and see what lands. Yeah, that's super helpful. I go back to your question or your statement, earlier where I wrote, you know, cultural intelligence and I wrote, like, being able to give feedback and to work with conflict within teams globally. And I'm curious about Victoria, like, are there any frameworks or specific things you could give us on here's how to give feedback? Here's how to avoid it. You know, here's how to work through conflict with teams globally. Here's, you know, what not to do. Absolutely. So I think some of the things that I find with, say, conflicts, which is obviously universal. It's something that every team experiences, every

leader is going to be working through at some point, is really thinking about designing the conversation. So I have a conversation bridge that I use when I'm thinking about challenging conversations. And there are many different steps to that. But before you can even step on the bridge, you have to think about what's going on with that bridge. The idea of it is not to bring the other person to your side. It's about stepping along the bridge towards them, understanding what's going on. And that means you need to get the foundations right. So it starts with the foundations of designing the conversation, knowing that you have to think about where you're having this conversation in what space at the time. What is it? Are the other people or person,

are they open to that conversation right now? It's about understanding the cultural behavioral preferences that could be impacting that conflict, such as direct or indirect communication style. You know, it's very specifically, if people you're working with have an indirect communication style, then you need to make sure it feels less threatening to them and maybe do that one-to-one, one-on-one, rather than in the group. And then finally, you know, I think the foundations of a challenging conversation bridge is you want to ramp up your empathy radar, as I call it. So you want to be really understanding that I'm going to say like 95% of the time, like people are not trying to be difficult. They're not trying to make things challenging.

There is something you're not understanding. And that's the bit you've got to unlock. That's the bit you've really got to understand. And so what I would be saying is like, see it from their point of view, try and put up that empty radar and understand what might be driving the behavior or the communication approach. I think that's so helpful because I think, you know, it's so easy to kind of only think about your perspective and not think about what's going on with the person. I love this quote by Bray Brown.

Maybe you've heard of Brayne. I love all of her work. She's a researcher and professor at the University of Texas at Austin. And she has this phrase called clear is kind, unclear is unkind. And I love that phrase because when I think about giving feedback, or like, you know, having that empathy and understanding where the person is coming from is so important. But also, like, you know, sometimes we can like step around what we really want to say instead just being straightforward, but also being kind as well and realizing that, you know, you never

know what's going on in the person's life when you give them that feedback. You think kindness, we need definitely more kindness in leadership. And in fact, that idea of human-centered leadership, I think, is really critical as well, which is why one of the pillars in my book in the idea of global leadership communication is connection. It's about like leaning into that human connection, understanding people are people that we are, you know, we're having less conversations, we're having more efficient and productive meetings. We need to have a deep desire to connect more than ever. And that's going to be really critical to leadership in the future as well. Yeah, excellent. Well, you know,

for those people who want to become and grow as more as global leaders, what are, you know, three habits or three practices they can start today to be able to do that? So I think the first one is curiosity. I think, you know, it really starts with curiosity for me. So really making sure that they're leaning into keeping open minded. Like, why is that person operating in that way? Why are they saying it in that way? Sometimes when we're operating in that kind of global environment, we may or multicultural environment, we might be surprised by what people say. The way they're behaving or interacting with us is not quite what we're expecting. So you have to ask yourself, why is that?

And that might require reflection. It might require conversations to understand the drivers and motivators behind that. But that real kind of curiosity is really important. So I think that's a starting place. And within the cultural intelligence framework that I use, which comes from the Cultural Intelligence Center, at International Global Organization, that's called CQ Drive,

cultural intelligence drive. So your curiosity, your real kind of motivation to learn about others. The next step is what's called CQ knowledge. So really building up your insight about your people. Like what is important to them, not only in the workspace, but outside as well. What's going on in their?

lives beyond the work space and really, you know, doing it as much from research, learning, like staying really open-minded to knowing what is influencing people's lives. So sadly, we live in a time where there is a huge amount of conflict happening in the world in many different regions. Being very sensitive to that and knowing how that might be impacting your team, either because of they've got family in particular regions or they've got heritage connected to those regions is incredibly important. So that's knowledge, CQ knowledge.

The next place is CQ strategy. So understanding that knowledge by itself is not enough. You have to do something with that knowledge. And that's where taking it into CQ strategy is really critical. That means anticipating what might come up in your meetings or conversations. Thinking about the behavioral preferences, some of which we've talked, about here today like communication style or whether you prefer to speak up or be part of the group when you're discussing. And really thinking about, you know, what you want to do differently

as a result of that insight. But strategy is not enough. The final piece of this is CQ action. And this is the piece where I find, actually sometimes leaders find this really challenging. They want to get it right. They want to be able to lean into the conversations, the meetings, be very, you know, often they have very good intentions, but they also don't want to get it wrong. And the reality is that it's much better to take in perfect action. If it doesn't work out or it doesn't land as you want it to, to really learn from that or to have further conversations with your team and then improve on that, iterate from that. But without the action, things are not going to change. And so, you know, the real framework

around this is, is really understanding that cultural intelligence means. not only knowing, but turning that insight into strategies and actions and knowing that you're having the confidence to know that it won't always be easy. In fact, sometimes it might be super stressful and it might be hard to know what the right thing to do is. But ultimately, you can only change things and move the needle if you actually take that first step. And that's part of the managing yourself and managing the cultural stress sometimes of these situations. Absolutely. All right. So we got four parts, curiosity, knowledge, strategies, and action. And the CQ, does that stand for cultural intelligence? Exactly. So this is the framework that was originated from the Cultural Intelligence Center. Originally, I think they're based in the US, but now a huge global organization that has been around, you know, doing research on this topic for 20 years. And this is the basis of the assessments that I do in my work. So when I work with individuals and organizations and teams, we start with doing a cultural

intelligence assessment. So people can understand not just because they are from one country, they are like everybody else from their country, but they do their own cultural profile. They understand how they show up across 10 different criteria, 10 different behavioral preferences, and then they get their scores for the cultural intelligence for CQ drive, CQ knowledge, CQ strategy, and CQ action. And this shows strengths and the development areas. Where does that leader or group of leaders really need to pay attention to be more effective?

I love it. That's the four parts, curiosity, knowledge, strategy, and action. Can you give us an example of how you've put this into place? Or maybe there's a client that you can share how they've used these four steps? Absolutely. So I think what is super interesting is that this is also applicable across many different kinds of culture. Yes, it's incredibly helpful for organizations where, for example, I've been working with clients where they're relocating members of their teams, leaders from one zone to another, one region to another, and they need to be immersed in a new culture and of very different, diverse culture. and they need these skills to be able to be successful.

But one of the interesting applications for this is use it with other types of cultural integration and understanding how that can help as a global leader. So, for example, I've been working with an organisation over the last few months where they are also working with a national cultural change, so moving leaders from one region to another. But in addition, there is a, it's a joint venture. So that means there is cultural, organizational cultures that are coming together and potentially creating different dynamics, that their leaders need to navigate to be successful.

It's also about leaders navigating different departments and stakeholders, senior stakeholders, to be successful in that environment as well. So it can be applied in many different ways. And this really helps individuals understand their leadership style culturally, but also how do they adapt, be more successful to get to results where they can influence others. They can motivate and lead their team effectively. And they can resolve the challenges, whether it's conflict or giving feedback or whatever it might be. Wonderful. Yeah, I think those are four good components just to take a step back and say, am I being curious? Do I have the knowledge of the culture?

What are the strategies I might use and how can I take action today? Hi, this is Cindera Campoff and thanks for listening to the high-performance mindset. Did you know that the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing? If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively and get to your goals quicker. Visit free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches. Again, that's free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free call. talk to you soon you know one of the things that both you and I talk about is communication confidence and I know it's a theme that you really work on deeply with people so in your

experience what holds people back from communicating with confidence particularly on the global stage I think you know this is something which is a perennial theme and I think it's true also for people also on their own kind of national stages or whatever stage they're on and And then this is the theme of that they see others doing it. They kind of have a look at other kind of leaders and there's that sense of comparison that that person seemed so confident. They seemed like they were always like that. They were born that way.

They're naturally talented like that. And the way that I describe it and liking it too is people almost see it like this light switch. Either somebody had it from the start or they worked out one day where the confidence switch was and they turned it on and it stayed on permanently. My work with clients over the last 10 years tells me that people are challenged with their confidence at different moments in their lives. As they grow and expand outside their comfort zone, they start to feel that challenge again. So that idea of a confidence switch staying on and staying on permanently is, it just isn't true. And in fact, naturally confidence is that journey that's naturally meant to go like up and

down. So, you know, the point that I always talk to my clients about is that feeling, that fear to step up and to be more visible or to speak in a different way to be contributing in different rooms with more experienced and more senior stakeholders and leaders. Yes, you will feel challenged at first. But rather than perceiving that as a negative feeling, really turn that sort of mindset into you're feeling something positive here. You're feeling. about to grow, you're about to kind of expand yourself. And that should be excitement anticipation rather than the fear. And once you switch your mindset around that, you can still feel the nervousness and the fear and the communicate the confidence still not fully there. But this is

the other point. Many people are waiting to feel the confidence to then do the thing, to then go and kind of do the big speaking or to be that person. The reality is you have to step forward first. feel confident later. So we sometimes say practice makes perfect as a phrase. I don't believe in this at all. I believe in practice makes confidence. Nice. Awesome. I like that. And the way I would describe it is the action of confidence can come before the feeling of confidence. So just stepping up and volunteering or starting to talk or you raise your hand and then you feel confident. So much so much of like I think you know confidence is a feeling and a decision and a belief in self and we can misinterpret those feelings of anxiety to think that we're not very confident when

really you know that's not necessarily always true true I love that and I love you know for me it's also this idea of commitment to yourself to your goals to your dreams and so for me this has always been about you know when when some talks to me about their challenges and confidence or even imposter syndrome or whatever it comes up, I'm always asking the question, but what is you want to achieve? Like, what's your goal? And if that's motivating enough and exciting enough to you, then that is the thing that keeps you going, even if it feels super challenging. So, you know, I absolutely believe in this, which is, you know, the confidence comes, or I love that idea. You framed it. The feeling of confidence comes later. And the secret is,

you know, I talk to senior leaders all the time who were saying to me, I'm not feeling very confident right now. So even when you kind of look upwards and you think, they have made it, they know it. Yeah. It's just not true. Everybody has that sense of challenge at some moment. There is something that tests the boundaries and that's good to know as well. Yeah, it's good to know that you're not alone and, you know, that confidence could be a really fragile thing. And you're Right. Like even if it's, you've been in your career for 20 years, there are things that can impact your confidence. And so it's like, I see it something is that you have to constantly nurture. Absolutely. I mean, for me, this is really connected to the other idea, which is

is core to my work, which is self-leadership. So this idea that to lead other people, you have to be able to lead yourself. And that requires things like knowing your leadership energy, knowing how you want to show up, putting an intention behind that. But people, cultivating your energy, knowing that it's a resource that you absolutely have to ensure that you are looking after and nurturing. And when you're feeling that lack of energy or that pull down, what you're going to do to put it back into place. And I look at things like resilience factors to help you with that and microactions to help you really kind of bring that energy back in line. What's an example of a microaction you might provide people? Yeah. So this

This is very, very personal. So what I kind of really talk about is what are the resilience factors that are true for you? They're different for each person. So for me, I know that exercise and really specifically my strength training is a really key part of my resilience factors. For me to be able to do that though, that requires micro actions behind that. That requires me to do things like set my alarm for 6 AM to get out my sports kit and lay it out ready to go, to have like my weights already out. There's just no like compromise or

kind of negotiation with myself. The alarm goes goes off. I get out of bed. Everything's ready to go. And that's an example of planning micro actions that just make it not only easy but reduce the friction and make it super like there's just nothing to stop me getting on with that, knowing that's going to bolster me through my day, give me the energy to show up in the best possible way. And that's something people don't often think about how are they going to really help their own leadership energy to be at their best, their fullest during the day for their sales, but also for the team as well, right? Yeah, absolutely. I love those ideas of microactions to really set you up for success. And I'm thinking about this topic of pressure and I think pressure can really connect

a lot with confidence. And I know it's something that you work with leaders who, you know, are constantly under pressure. So how do you help them manage their mindset? And, you know, their confidence when they're feeling under pressure, especially as a global leader. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of this sometimes is clearly overwhelm. And often the connected to things like speed of necessary action and communication as well. So for me, it's really knowing kind of where the boundaries lie. Where is it you need to protect your energy?

As somebody once said to me, energy is expensive. Your energy is your most precious results. So you have to be really looking after that. So that means, for example, not just pushing through, but knowing like where the edge is. Where is it? You need to make the decision to pause and do something for yourself. And that is where the self-leadership piece comes in. Because if you are truly leading yourself and committing to yourself, you know that working

like another hour, two hours, three hours may not be the best decision for you here and now. Yes, there are deadlines, but sometimes you have to be. to understand what you need in your day to give you the best possible setup, for sure, but then to maintain that energy through the day. And what I see is the best leaders are not the ones who are working the longest. They're the ones who are working the smartest. Really understand what they need to be at their, what I'm saying is like they're showing up their best, their energy that they bring to the day.

And that's connected to communication with me because the way you produce, your leadership presence is absolutely down to the energy you bring. Being able to do that virtually, even more so, right? Like the way that if you've got to be leading teams around the world, you need to be really skillful in the way you're engaging and projecting that energy to people really feel you. Like they genuinely get a sense of who you are, how you're feeling and that you understand them as well. So this idea for me of being under pressure is recognizing what it is you need to be protecting that energy, to cultivate it further. And I think energy is contagious, you know, so I appreciate everything that you're saying.

And also, it takes a lot of understanding of yourself as a leader to be able to step back and say, this is kind of the energy that I want to bring. This is how I'm going to bring it. It really, you know, you have to really take a step back and be intentional with that and create that vision for yourself. So congratulations on your podcast. You have over 145 episodes amazing. Is there a powerful lesson or maybe an aha moment that you've had from all those conversations?

I feel very blessed that I have had this number of conversations, but also some of those are solar episodes as well. But I'm really lucky. I'm ungrateful. I've had some amazing guests on my show. And sometimes we have coaches, people who are specialists in the space of global leadership communication and cultural intelligence. But recently in the last few months,

I've had a lot of leaders come on the show and share their own insights into their career path, what makes them the successful leader they are, how do they see global leadership? And that has been deeply insightful. So, you know, what has been very exciting is to talk to some real people at the top of their game. People who, for example,

I had a recent conversation with Sri Sharma, where he was talking, he's somebody who's like a mega successful tech entrepreneur with two exits from his businesses, and he was talking about authentic leadership. What does it mean to be authentic when you, everybody's looking to you for the answer and you don't have the answer. I love that conversation. I also had a really fascinating conversation with Simon Olsen a few months ago about, he's a partner at Deloitte, and he was talking.

talking about the importance of bravery and leadership. When you're on that journey and you're feeling those confidence challenges, what does it mean to step up and what does bravery look like? But he also talked about mentorship and how important it is. But there are so many. I'm so lucky to have those conversations. Yeah. That's awesome.

And so your upcoming book, Become a Global Leader, is out this November, November 2025, Tell us about this and where Kaylee find more information about your new book, become a global leader. Thank you so much, Sandra. Well, I'm incredibly excited to bring this book to the world. It's been a long-held dream to really be able to share the book, share my work in a way that can really be accessible much more broadly, much more globally. And so this book is coming out on November 17th. It's all about the four pillars of global leader communication. So focusing on confidence, clarity, challenging conversations and connection.

And I would absolutely love for everybody to go and buy that as soon as it goes live. So if you're interested and want to be the first to know, head over to www. CultureCuppa.com forward slash book. And hopefully I can share a show link as well on that. But this is the place to register. make sure that you be the first to know as soon as it goes live. You can get your Kinnel or paperback version. And then from there, you'll also get your exclusive invitation to the global launch virtually.

So I'd love for you. Yeah, that's wonderful. Listeners to come and join me. So that is cultural Kappa. It's spelled C-U-L-T-U-R-E and then C-U-P-A dot com slash book. Such an exciting thing. And I like your four pillars, confidence, clarity. challenge and conversation and continuing to be an incredible global leader. So last question for

you, Victoria, what's one cultural lesson or experience that has stuck with you for your life? So I think one of the very early days in marketing, this is a lesson that I learned very hard, which was I was working with a German research and development team. I was over in Germany and I remember being an incredibly excited, marketeer, early in my career, very enthusiastic, sharing new innovation ideas that we wanted to launch. And I remember sharing the ideas, going, right, what does everybody think? And I remember one person saying in the German team, I really don't like your ideas, they're terrible.

And that felt incredibly direct, particularly for somebody who came from a more In direct communication style culturally, I found that quite challenging to take that feedback in front of everybody, in front of the whole room, including senior managers. But the valuable lesson I learned from that, and I did learn a lot from working quite closely with German teams, is that direct communication is highly, highly valued. In fact, it's seen as very honest. It's seen as very, you talked about kindness earlier. it's seen as the most clearest way to kind of get to the next stage and not waste time.

So what is interesting, and I took out of that as a lesson, was we all communicate in different ways. You may see that if you come from more indirect communication culture as maybe impolite, maybe rude, even offensive, but that wasn't the intention. That's just the style. That's just the way that they do it. So cultural intelligence coming back to what we discussed right at the beginning is really interpreting, decoding what's going on and recognizing with curiosity that actually this wasn't the same professional expression of behavior and communication. And that was a brilliant lesson for me early in my career that stuck with me from, well, until now.

That's a great example. We should have started with that because I feel like that's so real on, you know, different people's communication style. and how you can take it so personally, and then let that impact your confidence or your motivation moving forward. So, Victoria, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I love the new definition of cultural intelligence, and we were talking about designing the conversation, the bridge is the exercise you shared with us.

You shared four components of cultural intelligence, like curiosity, knowledge, strategy, and action. We talked about confidence and why it's, This many times the action of confidence comes before the feeling of confidence. You shared with us some microactions we can take to help us be the best leader that we can be. We talked about energy as our most important resource. And then at the end, thanks so much for sharing about your book. Coming out, November 17th, go grab your copy or at least follow along so you can find out and be a part of that launch party.

That's culturalcopa.com slash book. and you'll learn more about the four pillars of global leadership, confidence, clarity, challenge, and conversation. So thank you so much for joining us from the UK today. I appreciate you, Victoria. Thank you so much, Sandra, and really love this conversation. It was brilliant to be on the show. Thank you. Way to go for finishing another episode of the high performance mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and enjoy my exclusive community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can add over to Dr. Cyndra.com.

See you next week.