If you were raised in a North American culture you were probably taught that making eye contact when talking to another person projects confidence and honesty. If you were raised in other parts of the world you may find direct eye contact rude or threatening, especially if you don’t know the other person well.
Cultural differences are inherent in remote, global teams. The interplay between how we see ourselves and how others see us is a dynamic process that influences our behaviors and emotions.
We often find it easiest to align our self-perceptions—eye contact projects confidence—and others’ perceptions of ourselves—eye contact is threatening—by surrounding ourselves with other people who think similarly, but that becomes impossible when working on a global team comprising people from different cultural backgrounds.
