The Global Cosmopolitan Mindset: Lessons from the New Global Leaders

A growing number of people in the world have embraced globalization and actively seek opportunities to live, study, and work in other cultures. Highly talented and deeply motivated, they have been shaped by the new political/economic opportunities, technological realities and personal choices that have configured their lives. They are the Global Cosmopolitans. 

Professor Linda Brimm, whose last book, Global Cosmopolitans: The Creative Edge of Difference, defined and named this phenomenon, now introduces the Global Cosmopolitan Mindset and Skillset and examines what are the dilemmas and opportunities of composing a global life over time.

Dr. Brimm has interviewed Global Cosmopolitans at different life stages and has garnered insights from those on the front line of the global economy. She describes how they understand the life dilemmas and opportunities implicit in navigating the rapidly changing global environment and how they learn from the lives they are creating. While these are people using the expertise developed over their global journey to manage change, lead organizations, make a difference in the world, or create their own ventures, she helps us understand what they have learned and how this global learning opportunity has contributed to the development of a Global Cosmopolitan Mindset and Skillset.

This book relates some of the stories that global leaders and entrepreneurs have shared with Dr. Brimm. These concrete examples help us understand what the individuals have learned from their personal experience. Emerging from these stories are the unique attitudes and skills that are necessary to confront life challenges, embrace change and take steps to create new life chapters.

Whether you are a Millennial considering joining this ‘Cosmopolitan Club’, an existing Global Cosmopolitan reflecting on what is next, someone in mid-career contemplating an international move, part of an organization trying to develop its responses to a global workforce, or a leader considering who can best run global organizations, this book provides a unique insight into the Global Cosmopolitan Mindset and Skillset – as well as the challenges and rewards of pursuing a global life.

Linda Brimm is Emeritus Professor at INSEAD, one of the world’s leading business schools, where she has been teaching in France, Singapore and Abu Dhabi.  For over thirty years, Dr. Brimm has studied, counseled and taught a talented population of educated, multilingual individuals who have lived, worked and studied for extensive periods in different cultures. She has coined the label ‘Global Cosmopolitans’ for this group, which she described in her groundbreaking book, Global Cosmopolitans: The Creative Edge of Difference.

Her work on Global Cosmopolitans and on embracing complex change has attracted significant attention, appearing in the Harvard Business Review and several publications across the globe.

While the previous book considered the opportunities affecting identity relatively early in Global Cosmopolitans’ careers and lives, her current writing examines Global Cosmopolitan senior executives and entrepreneurs at different stages of their journeys. In this book, drawing on the stories of people from various corners of the world, she has articulated the Global Cosmopolitan Mindset and has described how people use their lessons from living globally to become effective leaders.

Dr. Brimm is the founding director of the Psychological Services at INSEAD. Trained as a clinical psychologist, she also continues to work actively at a center she co-founded in Paris in 1979, where she provides assistance and therapeutic interventions when needed for global cosmopolitan individuals and families arriving or living in France.