Coaching the Global Nomad

K Burrus International Journal of Coaching in Organizations 2006

Executives who work in various cultures bring a multitude of cultural backgrounds, identities, and orientations with them. they are called in to new situations because of their skills and past successes, yet working well within local contexts is crucial. Coaching such global nomads is a task of identifying and sorting out the cultural contexts that the executive draws upon in normal and unusual situations; identifying the needs and cultural expectations of the local situation, leadership, and organization; and working toward finding a good fit between the local culture, the executive’s many choices, and the skills and behavior needed in a given situation. Burrus uses a case study and two theoretical frames of intercultural work to examine the issues of coaching the global nomad.