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Mobility and travel opportunities create a realistic dream of moving into another location. For some it means another state within the same country, others plan their new life on another continent. These movements can be independent of work between two jobs, or the company sends their own employee as an expat into another geography.

In these situations, building a local network requires creating a strategic networking plan well in advance. To a lesser extent this is also important for those working in international positions with regular business trips to show interest in a local experience.

There is a major difference between improving an existing network and finding net new contacts. Staying at the same place is all about fine tuning towards building relevant relationships. Quoting Mark Frauenfelder: “To be successful you have to have quantity of quality”. In the case of a new environment, the search should be executed more broadly to learn from others about life in...

Many famous statements differentiate between a manager and a leader. While the reality is never just black and white, most quotes are designed to show these as two different elements. Quoting Warren Bennis: “The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.” and “The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.”

John Kotter, Leadership Professor at Harvard University, described leadership as “aligning people to the vision, that means buy-in and communication, motivation and inspiration” while “Management is a set of processes that keep an organisation functioning”. The winning balance between “Managers handle processes” and “Leaders inspire people” is related to concrete situational requirements. The same company might need an innovative leader at their helm at one time and an operating manager in another circumstance.

Over the last couple of years, many companies moved to lean...