“Better English” May Not Be the Problem You Need to Solve
If you’re a senior professional who speaks English as an additional language, you’ve probably wondered whether your English needs to improve. As an English communication coach for immigrant professionals, I often find that the real challenge is something more specific, and it tends to show up at a particular moment.
When preparation becomes your safety net
I recently worked with an executive in legal and compliance. Most of the people around them speak English as a first language, and many were born and raised in the U.S. When they have time to prepare, they do very well. They rehearse, anticipate questions, and refine every point, partly because they don’t fully trust themselves to speak spontaneously. By the time they present, the work is polished, and the feedback is consistently positive.
Preparation is a real strength, and it’s a big part of good English public speaking coaching. But if it’s the only thing that makes you feel safe, it can quietly limit where you’re willing to speak up.
What happens when the stakes go up
What bothered my client was what happened when there was less time and more on the line. They might need to defend a recommendation, push back on a senior stakeholder, respond to an unexpected challenge, or negotiate contract provisions in real time. In those moments, they could freeze, stammer, overexplain, or lose the thread of their message.
It would be easy to decide the solution is better English. If you’ve ever walked out of a meeting thinking, “I knew what I wanted to say,” you may have reached the same conclusion about yourself. But my client’s proficiency wasn’t the main issue. This is someone who negotiates contract provisions in English.
If you work in tech, you may know your own version of this. The sprint review goes smoothly because you prepared for it, then a VP asks an unexpected question, and your thinking scrambles. That’s a common pattern in English for tech professionals in the U.S., and it’s rarely about vocabulary.
What was happening underneath
Part of our work was understanding what pressure does. The freezing and stammering weren’t random. They were a fear response, and once my client could see that, those moments stopped feeling like evidence that something was wrong with their English.
From there, we focused on practical ways to create enough mental space to respond clearly. That meant getting comfortable with a strategic pause, using bridge phrases naturally (something as simple as “Let me think about that for a moment”), and relying on a few simple structures to organize their thoughts without overexplaining.
This is also where workplace English for multicultural leaders goes beyond word choice. You may be reading hierarchy, translating context, and deciding whether it’s safe to disagree, all in real time. Good cultural communication training for professionals takes that full picture seriously.
The goal was never to sound like someone else
I wasn’t trying to help my client sound more “native.” What mattered was helping them reach the expertise they already had when a conversation became unpredictable. That’s closer to accent-friendly English fluency coaching: you keep your accent and build the clarity and range to be easily understood in different rooms.
It’s also what I mean by executive presence with an accent. It isn’t a personality transplant. It’s composure, concision, and a clear recommendation that people can follow, delivered in your own voice.
That’s why I believe leadership communication for non-native speakers has to go beyond grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. At a certain level, the real question is whether you can keep thinking clearly, organize your message, and speak with authority when the stakes rise. That’s a different kind of communication problem, and for many experienced multilingual leaders, it matters most.
So where do you notice it most? Is it in the meeting you prepared for, or the one where someone unexpectedly asks you to defend your thinking?
If this sounds familiar, you can learn more about my business English coaching for tech professionals and other senior leaders, including my Executive English Communication work, at The Leadership Voice Studio here.
Joyce Talag, MCC, is a leadership and executive communication coach and founder of The Leadership Voice Studio in The Loop, Chicago. She works primarily with multicultural and multilingual professionals navigating greater visibility, influence, and leadership responsibility in U.S. workplaces.
