While “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is one of the most enduring leadership quotes I’ve come across, I’ve never seen it play out in front of the rolling cameras of the world press. Until Friday, the last day of February, 2025.
Everyone agrees that the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was startling. But it depends on who you ask whether Trump or Zelensky is responsible for the mineral deal not being signed.
So what happens if, instead of asking who to blame, we ask how to understand the cultural differences that worked against the signing, without any of the negotiating partners apparently realizing it? Looking at the Trump-Zelensky clash from a culture perspective, the leadership lesson seems to be:
Unless you acknowledge the cultural differences in how you and your negotiating partner approach language and leadership, you won’t close the deals you have a common interest in closing. Here are 4 culture lessons from the Trump-Zelensky clash.
1. English Speech Does Not Equal English Culture
Both Trump and Zelensky spoke English at the press conference. But there is a huge difference between speaking English and having an Anglo-American mindset. And of the two, only Trump has the latter.
“Here’s what’s really interesting about the English speaking world,” Singapore-based American communications advisor Heather Hansen told Quartz in 2021: “Only 400 million of us were born into the English language.”
Compared to the 2 billion voices who have had to learn English in the classroom, this made Hansen curious about how it affects people to engage in conversations in their second— or in Zelensky’s case, third — language.
Her research showed that self-consciousness about accents eroded people’s self-esteem and often prevented them from speaking their minds. And, she added, this applies to even the most accomplished professionals in the top tiers of leadership.
Zelensky doesn’t seem to have a problem speaking his mind, but both he and Trump seem to have a problem understanding their different ways of thinking and behaving. And according to my post doctoral studies of how people living in different language cultures use questions to distribute responsibility, there is a good reason for that.
2. Another Language Culture Means Another Mindset
Basically, people coming from different language cultures enter conversations and negotiations with very different mindsets. Without realizing it, we either focus on:
- “What I did and will do”
- “What you did and should do”, or
- “What it takes to make X a success”
My studies of Chinese, Danish, and Russian school classes showed that while there’s an obvious difference between focusing on ourselves and focusing on our conversation partner, the hardest difference to bridge is when one of us is focused on the people side of things (be it ‘me’ as in the Chinese school class or ‘you’ as in the Danish) and the other is focused solely on ‘X’ (as was the case in the Russian school class).
According to Professor Per Durst-Andersen’s theory of linguistic supertypes, English belongs to the same ‘hearer-oriented’ supertype as Danish, which means that people who were born into the English language enter conversations and negotiations with a clear ‘you’ focus. That is, they direct their attention to the thinking, actions and obligations of their conversation partners rather than to themselves. In Scandinavia we even have ‘Janteloven’, telling us to never draw too much attention to ourselves.
This focus on ‘you’ became evident when Trump said things like, “You’re not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position.” “You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III.” And when JD Vance told President Zelensky that he “should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict,” he demonstrated how the ‘you’ focus can quickly evolve from telling others what they did to telling them what they should do.
3. Language Culture Shapes Leadership Culture
Next to Trump sat Zelensky, who was born into the Ukrainian and Russian languages and therefore enters conversations and negotiations with a clear focus on ‘X’. That is, he was so focused on solving the problem he came to Washington to solve that he probably didn’t give the people aspect of his visit much, if any, thought.
While Trump seems to genuinely feel that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have forged a personal bond and talked about Zelensky’s “tremendous hatred” toward Putin as making it very tough for him to make a deal, it neither seemed to be feelings nor personal bonds that made Zelensky behave the way he did.
Even when Trump scolded Zelensky, saying, “you don’t have the cards,” Zelensky calmly responded, “I’m not playing cards. I’m very serious, Mr. President. I’m very serious.” And instead of arguing against Trump when he accused him of dictating how Americans are going to ‘feel’, Zelensky tried to clarify what he meant by saying that Americans will also ‘feel influenced’ by the war if Putin is not stopped.
Zelensky’s use of the word ‘feel’ clearly triggered Trump, but the idea that Zelensky was out to dictate what and how Americans should feel says more about Trump than about the Ukrainian president. In fact, chances are that Zelensky, as a consequence of having English as his third and not his first or second language, used the word ‘feel’ for lack of a better word for the impact the war will have on all members of the free world.
4. Don’t Demand Respect, Respect Culture
Based on my research into the differences between Danish and English language cultures on the one hand and Russian and Ukrainian language cultures on the other, my guess is that Zelensky has no intention of telling Trump how to feel. As long as Trump does what it takes to help Ukraine remain an independent, free country, Zelensky likely doesn’t care about Trump’s feelings or with whom he forms personal bonds.
In Zelensky’s relationship with Trump, ‘me’ and ‘you are subordinate to ’X’, which is saving Ukraine as an independent nation. But it is reversed in Trump’s relationship with Zelensky, where ‘X’ is presupposed by Zelensky’s acceptance of being a ‘you’ who respects and conforms to Trump’s ‘me’.
That’s why Trump repeatedly talks about the disrespect he feels Zelensky is showing with his “argumentative manner and body language” (and cloths) while Zelensky seems indifferent to whether or not Trump respects him.
And that’s why they are having problems dealing with each other as negotiating partners and leaders: Because they don’t acknowledge and accept their fundamental differences. They have different historical backgrounds, diplomatic experiences, personal characters and a lot of other aspects that are relevant to understanding why they behave the way they do. But more importantly, they are shaped by language-based cultures that are so alien to each other that they are almost impossible to bridge.
This means that there is one thing that is even more important than trying to understand each other, and that is to recognize and accept that not everything needs to be understood. Or put differently: The first step to closing the deals we have a common interest in closing is not to demand respect from others, but to respect our cultural differences.