When Markus took over as team lead of the twelve-person product development group in the U.S., he made a good first impression. Competent. Calm. Clearly knew the technology. His introductory meeting was efficient—he laid out priorities, clarified reporting lines, and was done in thirty minutes.
Then he went to work. And, from the American team’s perspective, he vanished.
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Week one. No drop-bys. No informal check-ins. No “how’s it going?” in the hallway. Markus was in his office, or in meetings with his peers and superiors. The team assumed he was getting settled. New role, new country. Give the man time.
Week two. Still no check-ins. A few emails—brief, focused on deliverables. Lisa, one of the senior engineers, sent a status update. Markus responded with two lines acknowledging receipt. No questions. No comments on the work itself.
Lisa mentioned it to a colleague. “Has Markus talked to you about anything? I can’t get a read on what he thinks.”
“Nothing. I assumed he was busy.”
Week three. The team had a standing Monday meeting. Markus attended, listened, asked a few precise questions, then let them continue. No motivational comments. No “great work on the prototype.” No coaching. The meeting ended ten minutes early.
Lisa began to worry. Was her work not meeting expectations? Was the project in trouble? She’d been in this company for six years under an American manager who checked in twice a week, gave constant feedback, flagged issues early, celebrated wins. She always knew where she stood.
With Markus, she was guessing.
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Week four. A small technical problem surfaced in testing. Under her previous manager, Lisa would have flagged it immediately in a quick call, gotten input, and moved on. With Markus, she hesitated. Would he want to be bothered? Would raising it seem like she couldn’t handle it? She solved it herself. It took three days longer than it should have because she went down a path that a five-minute conversation would have corrected.
Week six. Morale had quietly shifted. Not a crisis—nothing visible. But a low-grade disorientation had settled over the team. People weren’t sure what Markus wanted. They weren’t sure if he cared. Two team members had started looking at internal transfer opportunities. Not because they were unhappy with the work, but because they felt invisible.
One of them said it plainly in a conversation with HR: “I don’t have a relationship with my manager. I don’t think he knows what I do.”
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Markus was doing exactly what a good German team lead does. He was giving his people space. He had hired professionals—or in this case, inherited them—and he trusted them to do their jobs. He didn’t check in constantly because constant check-ins, in the German logic, signal distrust. If you have to monitor someone closely, you either hired the wrong person or you don’t respect their competence.
In Germany, Markus’s approach would be read as confidence. My boss trusts me. He doesn’t hover. He lets me work. When I need him, he’s there. That’s good leadership.
In America, the same behavior was read as absence. My boss doesn’t engage. He doesn’t check in. He doesn’t coach. He doesn’t seem to care whether I succeed or fail. That’s not leadership. That’s abandonment.
Neither reading is wrong. Both are cultural. And neither Markus nor his team could see it, because neither side knew there was a difference to see.
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The damage from a mismatch in communication frequency is slow. It doesn’t explode. It erodes. People don’t quit in protest—they drift. They stop sharing information proactively. They solve problems alone that would have been solved faster together. They begin to disengage, not from the work, but from the leader. And by the time the leader notices—if they notice—the team has already reconfigured itself around the absence.
The irony is that Markus cared deeply about his team’s success. He simply expressed it the way a German leader does: by preparing carefully, making good decisions, protecting the team from organizational politics, and staying out of their way. In Germany, that’s a leader people want to work for.
In America, it’s a leader people leave.
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To Germans leading Americans: increase your communication by 50%. More staff meetings. More informal check-ins. More “how’s it going?” It will feel excessive. It will feel like wasted time. It is neither. Your American team members are not less competent because they need more contact—they are wired for a leadership relationship that runs on frequent interaction. You will not succeed with them without shorter lines of communication.
And pay attention to this signal: if your American team grows quieter, that is not a sign that everything is fine. It may be a sign that they’ve stopped trying to reach you.
To Americans with German managers: the silence is not indifference. It is trust. Your German boss believes you can do your work without being monitored. That’s a compliment—even if it doesn’t feel like one. If you need more guidance, ask. Frame it as seeking input, not as needing direction. And understand that if your boss suddenly starts checking in more frequently, that may actually be the warning sign.