The Air Canada CEO’s English-only condolence video cost him his job—and it’s a warning for every global CEO to read the room

To non-Canadian eyes, Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau’s decision to post a message of condolences in English following the airline’s deadly crash at New York’s LaGuardia airport may not seem all that noteworthy. After all, Rousseau has acknowledged himself the limitations of his French. And this was an extremely emotionally fraught moment: In the first Air Canada accident to involve fatalities since 1983, the March 22 runway collision between a plane and a fire truck killed two pilots and injured dozens of others.