The branch manager at a large training provider had spent weeks completely ignoring me. During an initial coaching intake, I sat down with a Ukrainian refugee whose German was barely at an A1 level. To lower her stress levels and build enough trust to address her actual obstacles, I opened the conversation in Russian. Walking past the open door, the manager overheard us and later confronted me with condescension: asking if the client's German was really so terrible that I had to speak Russian.
This perfectly exposes the ignorance running through these management ranks. Many leaders don't speak a second language themselves and lack any understanding of how language acquisition or genuine empathy actually works. They naively believe that simply insisting on German will somehow do the trick. Outdated mindsets are being forced onto multicultural realities. These managers might still hold structural power for now, but this clueless form of control is heading toward a dead end.
