The question of how organisations develop their senior leaders has received significant attention over the past decade. Programs have become more sophisticated. Coaching has become more common. The investment in leadership capability is, in many organisations, substantial.
And yet there is a consistent gap in most of these programs — one that tends to become visible only when a senior leader is placed in an international context and the expected performance does not materialise.
The gap is communicative. Not in the sense of general English fluency — that is usually present. But in the more specific and demanding sense of what senior communication in international environments actually requires: the ability to project authority in a language with different social codes, to hold a position precisely when challenged by a native speaker who is also senior, to think and articulate simultaneously under pressure, to read a multinational room and adapt in real time.
These are not capabilities that develop through exposure alone. Exposure tells a professional what is expected. It does not build the capability to meet that expectation under pressure. And for many senior Indonesian professionals, the gap between what they know and what they can express in high-stakes English settings is not a reflection of their expertise — it is a reflection of what their development programs never addressed.
Closing this gap requires a different kind of intervention. Not a language course. Not a communication skills workshop. A sustained, contextually specific practice environment that replicates the situations in which the leader actually needs to perform — board presentations, regional leadership forums, cross-cultural negotiations, difficult stakeholder conversations — and develops the communicative responses those situations demand.
The organisations that build this into their leadership development are the ones whose senior teams can compete in international settings not just with expertise, but with the authority and presence to make that expertise heard.
If your leadership development program does not include how your leaders communicate internationally, it is only developing half of what they need.
ELC Coaching’s executive communication programs are built around the specific international contexts your leaders face — not a generic curriculum, but a development environment designed around their actual professional challenges.
