Harvard Business Publishing

In my work as a business coach in London, I observe at close hand how managers and leaders deal with the massive changes wrought by multiculturalism and globalization. The city attracts hundreds of thousands of expatriate workers. It's home to 6.7 million residents, one-third of whom, our mayor tells us, belong to an ethnic minority or were born outside the UK. London is one of the most diverse and cosmopolitan cities on earth - and the business community reflects that.

Over the past five years I have coached hundreds of executives from around the world, all of whom have their own view of what it means to work in the global community. In recent weeks I have worked with a French manager of a Swiss retail company based in Budapest, an Australian manager of a British investment bank (whose team comprised a German, two Indians, a Greek and five Russian academics who were formerly rocket scientists), and a senior British manager of a U.S. professional services firm and his Japanese assistant.

I'm not just an observer: I help executives gain a clearer perspective of themselves and their work so they can become more effective managers or leaders. This means helping them peel back the layers of complexity so they can understand themselves, their team, their organizational culture, and the business challenges they are facing. Only then can they derive strategies to get the best out of their people and drive the business forward.

In this space I will share stories of the everyday challenges facing real managers and leaders in the global community. The names and details of the protagonists will be changed in order to preserve confidentiality, but the narratives will stay intact. Whether the story is about meeting tough targets in a shrinking market, managing conflict between individual team members, or understanding the purpose of work, I hope these stories will inform, reassure, and provoke your views about what it means to be a modern manager or leader.

Of course, this is only half of the story. The rest is up to you. I hope I'll inspire you to comment on these posts and to share your own experiences so we can build a lively and provocative debate.