{"id":228,"date":"2026-06-19T14:05:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T14:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greenyellow-aardvark-190030.hostingersite.com\/?p=228"},"modified":"2026-06-19T14:05:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T14:05:30","slug":"leadership-lessons-brazil-x-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/leadership-lessons-brazil-x-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership lessons Brazil x Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the biggest leadership lessons of my career came from being <strong>disagreed with<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it happened after I moved from <strong>Brazil to Europe.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I relocated, I expected to learn about new markets, different customers, and a different way of doing business. What I didn\u2019t expect was how much I would learn about my own assumptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The challenges themselves felt familiar. Customer retention, expansion, stakeholder management, adoption. What changed wasn\u2019t the nature of the work, but the way people approached decisions, discussions, and ultimately, execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Looking back, I realize that part of this learning curve was <strong>cultural, but part of it was also structural.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Brazil, I had spent years building and leading a Customer Success organization with a <strong>high degree of autonomy<\/strong>. Because we operated far from headquarters, we often needed to move quickly, solve problems locally, and make decisions with limited support. Over time, I earned a significant level of trust from executive leadership, which gave me the freedom to identify opportunities, define priorities, and implement solutions that made sense for our market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The process was relatively straightforward. I would identify a problem, discuss potential solutions with the team, gather feedback, refine the approach, and then move toward execution. <strong>The debate happened before the decision<\/strong>. Once we aligned in a direction, our energy shifted toward making it happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That environment taught me a tremendous amount about ownership, creativity, resilience, and execution. To this day, I <strong>deeply admire the ability of Brazilian professionals to build solutions in environments where resources, support, and executive proximity are often more limited<\/strong>. When you don\u2019t have immediate access to every stakeholder or decision-maker, you learn to be resourceful and move forward with what you have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I moved to Europe, however, I entered a larger, more mature, and more matrixed organization. While the business challenges remained similar, <strong>my role within the decision-making process changed significantly.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the biggest shifts wasn\u2019t learning how different teams made decisions. It was learning how my role in those decisions had evolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many strategic discussions were now taking place at levels above me before reaching my team. Instead of being the primary decision-maker, I often became the person responsible for translating a strategic direction into execution. Naturally, I approached those situations the same way I always had. A decision would come from leadership, I would explain the rationale, share the objective, and begin discussing implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What happened next surprised me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rather than quickly aligning around the plan, team members would challenge assumptions, question certain aspects of the approach, explore alternatives, and raise potential risks. Conversations that I expected to focus on execution often became discussions about the decision itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If I\u2019m being completely honest, my initial interpretation wasn\u2019t very positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I remember walking out of some of those meetings thinking, \u201cWhy are we still discussing this? The decision has already been made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In my mind, the next step should have been execution. Instead, what followed was another round of questions, alternative perspectives, and discussions that often felt unnecessary at the time. At times, I interpreted those conversations as resistance and even caught myself <strong>thinking that some people were simply difficult to work with.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over time, however, I realized I was misunderstanding what was happening. The team wasn\u2019t questioning the direction because they were disengaged, nor were they trying to slow things down. What I had <strong>initially interpreted as resistance was often something very different: a desire to participate in the thinking behind the decision.<\/strong> They wanted to understand the rationale, explore alternatives, and contribute to the discussion before committing to the execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few months later, I realized something important: the discussion was never about changing the decision. It was about helping the team build ownership around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>That was a subtle distinction, but it completely changed how I approached leadership.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What they were looking for wasn\u2019t necessarily decision-making authority. They were looking for <strong>ownership.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once I understood that, my behavior started to change. Instead of presenting decisions as finalized solutions, I began presenting them as ideas for discussion. I would explain the context, share the objective, discuss the intended outcome, and then invite people into the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Questions such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What concerns do you see?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What risks might we be overlooking?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What would make this approach more effective?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What am I not seeing?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">became a much bigger part of my leadership style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What surprised me was that, in most cases, we still arrived at <strong>exactly the same conclusion. <\/strong>The strategy itself<strong> rarely changed<\/strong>, and the final decision was often identical to the one we had started with. What changed was the experience people had along the way. <strong>The debate happened after the decision, <\/strong>without affecting the end result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By creating space for discussion, people felt heard. <\/strong>Their perspectives were considered, and they had the opportunity to challenge assumptions before moving forward. That sense of participation created a level of ownership that made execution significantly easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The strategy didn\u2019t change, and people remained the same, questioning things until they had a clearer picture of the topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What changed was my interpretation of what was happening and, as a consequence, my <strong>behavior as a leader.<\/strong> That experience taught me something I still carry with me today: buy-in is often less about changing the decision and more about creating space for people to help shape the path toward it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps the most important lesson wasn\u2019t that Europe was different from Brazil. It was recognizing that leadership becomes far more effective when we stop assuming that our interpretation of a situation is the only valid one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Context matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Culture matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Organizational maturity matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The longer I work across different countries and teams, the more convinced I become that leadership is, at its core, an exercise in <strong>understanding context.<\/strong> Behaviors rarely exist in isolation. The same action can have very different meanings depending on the environment in which it occurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the mistakes leaders often make is assuming that alignment looks the same everywhere. It doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A team can appear aligned because nobody is speaking up. That doesn\u2019t necessarily mean everyone is committed, nor does it mean we have found the best idea to execute on. At the same time, disagreement does not automatically signal misalignment. In many cases, it signals engagement. People challenge ideas because they care about the outcome. They want to contribute, feel heard, and know that their perspective was considered, even if it doesn\u2019t ultimately shape the final decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Looking back, adapting to a new culture wasn\u2019t about learning different ways of working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was about learning different ways of thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More importantly, it taught me that leadership is not about assuming our approach is the right one. It\u2019s about remaining curious enough to learn from others, asking more questions than providing answers, observing more closely, and understanding what people actually need from us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because every culture has something to teach us. And every new perspective expands our professional growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The leaders who grow the most are often the ones willing to learn from both.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the biggest leadership lessons of my career came from being disagreed with. And it happened after I moved from Brazil to Europe. When I relocated, I expected to learn about new markets, different customers, and a different way of doing business. What I didn\u2019t expect was how much I would learn about my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,6,9,8,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cs-beyond","category-cultural-differences","category-discussions","category-leadership","category-multicultural-teams","category-strategy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266,"href":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions\/266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csbeyondrevenue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}