The same decision, different tables

At one point in my corporate career, I reported to two different managers. On one side was my general manager in Türkiye; on the other, the marketing director at headquarters in Europe.

On the organisation chart, it looked quite simple. One solid line, one dotted line.

In everyday working life, however, there were different expectations behind those lines. A decision I made could be seen as entirely sensible in Türkiye, yet meet different questions at headquarters. A topic headquarters prioritised might not match the realities of the local market at that moment.

I remember often asking myself: “How will this decision be read at the other table?”

Today I see that many Turkish executives working abroad are in a similar structure. They run the operation in one country while reporting to headquarters in another. Sometimes they report to two managers at once.

This structure gives you a broad perspective. Still, I can’t say it is easy.

Why is the same decision read differently?

Headquarters and the local organisation usually work towards the same company goal. But they look at the issue from different places.

Headquarters wants to build a common approach across countries. It considers whether a decision can be applied to other markets. The local team, on the other hand, knows the customer closely. It sees the pace of the market and the conditions specific to that country.

That is why the same budget or the same campaign can carry different meanings at the two tables.

For the executive in between, the job does not end with making the decision. They also need to think about how it will be understood on each side. A detail that matters to one side may be secondary to the other. Making the same presentation in the same way at two different tables is often not enough.

For executives working abroad, language also becomes part of this process. When you express your thinking in a second language, you are not only translating words. You are also carrying a way of doing business and a cultural approach into another context.

Caught between two managers

In structures where you report to two managers, you may at times move away from one manager’s priority while meeting the other’s expectation. Each expectation can make sense on its own. Meeting both at the same time, however, may not be possible.

In organisational psychology, this is described as “role conflict”.

A study published in 2022 examined 111 managers reporting to two leaders in an international matrix organisation. The research shows that the experience is shaped not only by the manager’s relationship with each leader, but also by the relationship between the two leaders themselves.

This finding feels very familiar to me. In such a situation, a manager can start carrying a coordination burden beyond their own responsibility. Constantly translating between the two sides becomes tiring over time.

There is an important distinction here. Trying to meet every expectation of both sides perfectly is not the same as making the expectations visible and choosing consciously between them.

The organisation chart doesn’t solve everything

In their work published in 1990, Christopher Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal approach matrix management as a way of thinking. Despite the years that have passed, this approach remains relevant.

Changing the reporting lines on the chart is not within most managers’ authority. But we do have the chance to think about how we move within those lines.

In my experience, the first important step was to stop seeing the two managers as a single authority. I had a separate relationship with each of them. Their priorities, and what they expected from me, were not the same either.

Seeing this difference proved more useful than trying to work out who was right. I began to talk about expectations more openly and to make the reasoning behind decisions more visible.

It may not always be possible to satisfy both sides equally. Even so, it is possible to explain clearly what need a decision comes from. You can share where you have made a choice and what that choice means.

This openness does not remove every disagreement. It does reduce the weight of uncertainty.

Questions to ask yourself

If you report to two managers, or work between headquarters and a local organisation, you might reflect on these questions:

• How does each of my managers define success? Where do those definitions diverge?
• Are the expectations explicitly asked of me the same as the ones I assume?
• What do I need to talk about more openly with each of my managers?
• How much do I take the other person’s context into account when explaining a decision?
• When the two sides’ expectations conflict, what becomes my own decision criterion?
• Within this structure, where does my own responsibility begin and end?

These questions have no single answer for everyone. The organisation we work in, our role and our relationships with our managers change the answer.

Still, it matters to see where we ourselves stand. Otherwise, after a while, we may find ourselves spending all our energy trying to please both sides.

Related page: Coaching for executives abroad