"You May Have Misunderstood Me": The Hidden Cost of Code-Switching

Bonus Insight #5 from podcast conversations with leaders who leave the world better than they found it

My friend Alyssa told me if she could title her life, it would be: "The wrong thing, or you may have misunderstood me."

That phrase—"you may have misunderstood me"—has been a constant across many contexts of her life.

She grew up code-switching constantly: speaking differently to her Chinese father versus her Papua New Guinean mother. Adjusting mannerisms and language when she moved to Australian boarding school. Shifting again at American international school.

"I even have to change the sort of language I use, my mannerisms change, how I even address adults changes," she told me.

For years, she thought this was just her personality. She was "bad at communication." She was "always being misunderstood."

Then she received an autism diagnosis. And suddenly everything made sense.

The exhaustion wasn't personality. It was undiagnosed autism PLUS the constant labor of cultural navigation.

And organizations do this to multicultural team members all the time—pathologize what's actually cultural difference.

The Problem With "Communication Issues"

When organizations identify "communication problems" on multicultural teams, here's what usually happens:

Someone from a non-dominant culture communicates in a way that doesn't match organizational norms. Leadership labels this a "performance issue" or "cultural fit problem."

The person gets feedback: "You need to be more direct." "You're too formal." "You need to speak up more in meetings." "You're not collaborative enough."

What's really happening? That person is already code-switching constantly, and the organization is demanding even more without recognizing the labor involved.

They're translating their thinking into organizational language. They're adjusting communication style to match cultural norms that aren't theirs. They're navigating hierarchies differently than they were raised to.

All of this is cognitive work. Exhausting work. Invisible work.

And when the organization labels the resulting exhaustion as "not being a strong communicator," it compounds the problem.

What Code-Switching Actually Costs

Alyssa described code-switching between different cultural contexts as something that happens "when no one's looking."

The internal negotiation. The constant calculation of which version of yourself to present. The mental energy spent translating not just language but entire cultural frameworks.

For people navigating multiple cultural contexts, this work is constant:

In meetings: Deciding how direct to be. Whether to challenge authority. How to build relationships before business versus getting straight to the point.

In emails: Calculating appropriate formality. Whether to use first names. How much context to provide versus assume.

In decision-making: Navigating different cultural frameworks for consensus, hierarchy, and individual agency.

In conflict: Reconciling different cultural norms for directness, face-saving, and resolution.

Every single interaction requires translation work that people from culturally dominant groups don't have to do.

And this work is completely invisible to most organizations.

When Personality Is Actually Cultural Navigation

Alyssa thought her struggles were personality. "I process things differently. I read things quite differently."

It took an autism diagnosis to help her see: some of what she thought was just "how she was" was actually autism. But much of it was the accumulated exhaustion of code-switching across radically different cultural contexts her entire life.

"The othering I felt came from all these things I thought were cultural clashes, but they were all down to my autism," she realized. But also: the cultural clashes were real. They just compounded the neurodivergence.

Organizations make the same mistake. We see someone struggling and assume it's:

• Personality (they're just not a good communicator)

• Competence (they're not strong enough for this role)

• Fit (they don't match our culture)

We miss that it might be: They're doing double the cognitive work of everyone else just to participate, and we're not acknowledging or supporting that labor.

The Audit Nobody Does

Here's what organizations should do but almost never do:

Ask multicultural team members directly: "What code-switching are you doing that we don't acknowledge or support?"

Not in a performance review. Not when there's already a problem. Just as a normal part of understanding how people experience the organization.

You'll hear:

"I adjust how direct I am depending on who I'm talking to because different people on the team have different cultural expectations."

"I spend extra time on emails making sure my tone doesn't come across wrong because my natural communication style reads differently here."

"I'm constantly translating concepts between different cultural frameworks so people can understand each other."

"I code-switch my entire presence depending on whether I'm talking to X team or Y stakeholder."

All of this is real work. Skilled work. Work that creates organizational value.

And most organizations neither recognize it nor compensate for it.

What Organizations Should Do Differently

Once you recognize code-switching as labor, several things become possible:

Name it as valuable work. Don't treat cultural fluency as just "nice to have." It's strategic capacity that creates access and bridges differences.

Resource it appropriately. People doing extensive code-switching need more time, more support, more recognition. They're doing additional cognitive work.

Distribute it fairly. Don't let the same people do all the cultural translation. All team members should develop some cultural fluency.

Stop pathologizing it. When someone seems "exhausted" or "not communicating well," ask whether they're doing invisible translation work rather than assuming incompetence.

Create space for rest. Code-switching is draining. People doing it need permission to sometimes just be themselves without translating.

Compensate it. Cultural fluency and translation work should be recognized in performance reviews and promotion decisions.

Why This Matters Beyond Diversity

This isn't just about being nice to multicultural team members. It's about organizational capacity.

People who can code-switch between cultural contexts are bridges. They create access to communities. They translate between stakeholder groups. They navigate complexity others can't see.

That's strategic value. And you're losing it when people burn out from unrecognized labor.

When Alyssa realized the exhaustion was real—not personality weakness—it changed everything. She could finally ask for what she needed. She could stop blaming herself. She could recognize her code-switching as skilled labor.

Organizations need to do the same thing. Stop treating multicultural communication as individual deficit and start seeing it as organizational asset that requires support.

Next time you're about to give someone feedback on "communication issues," pause.

Ask first: "What cultural translation are they doing that I'm not seeing? What code-switching labor am I expecting without acknowledging?"

You might discover the problem isn't their communication. It's your organization's failure to recognize and support the invisible work they're already doing.

Because "you may have misunderstood me" isn't a communication failure.

It's evidence of labor you're not seeing.

This is bonus insight #5 in an extended series exploring lessons from podcast conversations with leaders who leave the world better than they found it.

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