Advanced Search

FedEx uses these criteria to identify potential leaders

There are as many lies in business as there are people in business. Here are nominees for the five most common lies.

four rules for aspiring radicals

How learning takes place in organizations

Founder of the Chaordic Alliance talks about management.

Companies need new techniques to train their professionals for the challenges of the 21st century. It takes more than schoolwork.

Philosopher Peter Koestenbaum discusses some interesting concepts: reckoning with freedom, leadership as two vectors - competence and authenticity, ability to manage polarity, etc.

You've come up with a radical plan that will transform the way your company does business. The next step: execute. But how? By reading, ripping, and leveraging Fast Company's startup manual for leading change.

overview of bestseller, First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently, w/ main contention that hiring decisions that focus mainly on pay and perks are misguided; one mediocre manager can wreak havoc in even the best company

The transition from team player to the leader can make-or break-your career. Here's FC's six-point leadership guide.

FC asked in-the-trenches leaders and experts on teamwork to identify the action items that should be at the top of any new leader's To-Do list.

Three former military officers recently spoke about how their experience in the armed services prepared them for their present roles in corporate America. Their fundamental message: Character counts; leadership means caring for your troops; and those who accept the status quo will probably die.

Authors talk about need for today's CEOs to be extraordinary leaders who can change the world. The companies that successfully changed the world according to authors' study of 55 industries, excelled in strategic learning. Companies can learn faster by employing three strategic learning disciplines: knowing where you are, sensing opportunities, and analyzing bets.

Discusses results of study conducted by the World Economic Forum and Booz-Allen & Hamilton analyzing leadership as an institutional capacity, not solely a personality trait of individuals. Primary conclusion: CEOs of enduring companies use effective communications and enabling management systems to create organizational alignment around business objectives, while encouraging adaptability in the face of discontinuous threats or opportunities. Alignment and adaptability create the environmental conditions for employees to

Trying to lead fast-growing organizations in volatile, uncertain markets poses a significant leadership challenge-and requires executives with unusual-even paradoxical-qualities. Example: Such leaders must be highly confident and self-assertive while also being open and flexible enough to be team-builders. What other skills do leaders of e-commerce ventures need? What kind of culture should they build for their organizations? A session at a recent meeting of the Wharton Forum on Electronic commerce addressed these issues.

The author of "Corps Business: The 30 Management Principles of the US Marines," offers four strategies used by the Marines that can help new economy executives

excerpts from Chapter 10 of the book, 'Shaping the Adaptive Organization: Landscapes, Learning and Leadership in Volatile Times' offers 10 activities that leaders of organizations can emphasize to help shape a coherent environment that can handle constant and significant change and thereby achieve breakthroughs.

You know the sort: They operate deep within big companies, well beneath the cultural radar, and are practically invisible to the top brass. Employing many different styles and strategies, typically waging small battles rather than epic wars, they work slowly to change the rules.

Former football coach Dick Vermeil is now working with Safeguard Scientifics and Bridge Tech Partners on a $150 million venture capital fund that will support women and minority-owned firms in the technology, media and communications areas. But his ideas about leadership are based on a career in which he led two different teams to the Superbowl two decades apart. Vermeil shared his thoughts on being a leader during a visit to Wharton on Sept. 20 during which he used both anecdotes and an acronym to make his points. As in "The 'L' in leadership stands for 'loyalty' and 'like', the 'E' for 'ego', the 'A' for .." and so on. You know the drill.

Find a wide selection of interviews with business luminaries in our Interviews Section

---

Bigstep.com founder Andrew Beebe recently handed over the reins of his young company to a more experienced CEO. Here are his five tips to step down gracefully -- without stepping out.

Atiq Raza was in position to become CEO of one of Silicon Valley's old-guard giants. But he left to create Raza Foundries, a company that helps build other companies. Just don't call it an incubator.

Includes a sidebar of three leadership lessons learned by proteges of Atiq Raza: never take a dollar at face value; deal with the customers who count; and focus on the deliverables.

Find a wide selection of interviews with business luminaries in our Interviews Section

---

Donald Winkler is profoundly dyslexic. He is also a startlingly effective leader at one of the world's biggest companies. The two are related. He sees the world in ways that we can't or won't. Read about his ideas on "breakthrough leadership" and his 10 principles for effective leadership.

Rayona Sharpnack is a teacher and a mentor to some of the most powerful women in some of the most important companies around. Her message: Don't worry so much about what you need to know. Instead, figure out who you need to be.

Internet Capital Group has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in companies that are looking to make their mark in e-commerce. John Hamm evaluates and advises the entrepreneurs who run those companies. Here are the character traits that he looks for. Do you have what it takes?

Robert Greene's controversial book, "The 48 Laws of Power," lays out a code of conduct that appears diametrically opposed to Fast Company's principles and precepts for the new economy. Here, we pit Greene's laws against Fast Company models and mentors. Whose power schemes make sense to you?

Never confuse talking and communicating. A little self-examination about what you say - and how you say it - can mean the difference between a listener tuning you out and hanging on your every word.

Leaders are not always benevolent; their intents not always benign. Followers are not necessarily passive and devoid of responsibility. History has taught us these lessons enough times - why then is popular management literature so full of inspirational transformational models of leadership?

Inspiring article about Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy, who runs several eye hospitals that restore eyesite to about 180,000 Indians each year, 70% of whome receive the service for free.

"Think of pre-1990 as the Age of Sucking Up to the Hierarchy. The Age of the Promise 'Em Everything Pitch lasted from 1995 to 2000. The next five years will be the Age of No-Bull Performance. Which means that we're going to see leadership emerge as the most important element of business -- the attribute that is highest in demand and shortest in supply. And that means that over the next five years, we're going to have to reckon with a new, unorthodox, untested list of leadership qualities."

Some listed in this article include:
1. Leaders are important. But great managers are the bedrock of great organizations.
2. But then again, there are times when this cult-of-personality stuff actually works!
3. Leadership is confusing as hell. (The situation rules. Leader for all seasons? In your dreams!)
4. When it comes to talent, leadership doesn't income-average.
5. Leaders love the mess.
6. The leader is rarely -- possibly never? -- the best performer.
8. Leaders create their own destinies.
9. Leaders win through logistics.
10. Leaders understand the ultimate power of relationships.
11. Leaders multitask.
15. Leaders trust their guts.
17. Leaders are natural empowerment freaks.
18. Leaders are good at forgetting.
20. Leaders make mistakes -- and make no bones about it.
21. Leaders love to work with other leaders.
22. Leaders can laugh.
26. Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.
28. Leaders don't fall prey to their own success.
30. You must execute consistently. But consistency = focus = blinders
31. Leaders honor the assassins in their own organizations.
32. Leaders love technology.
33. Leaders wear their passion on their sleeve.
34. Leaders know: Energy begets energy.
35. Leaders are community organizers.
36. Leaders give respect.
38. Leadership is a performance.
39. Leaders have great stories.
40. Leaders give everyone a cause.
43. Leaders always make time to work the phones.
44. Leaders listen intently.
45. Leaders revel in surrounding themselves with people who are smarter than they are.
46. Great leaders are great politicians.
48. Leaders learn.
50. Leaders know when to leave.

Entrepreneurs, as most people know, are risk-takers who thrive on uncertainty and change, always on the lookout for their next startup. But according to new research from Wharton management professor Ian C. MacMillan and co-author Vipin Gupta, entrepreneurs aren't the only ones who should be able to operate in unpredictable, high-risk environments. Drawing on an extensive worldwide survey of middle managers, the two authors outline the qualities that define "entrepreneurial leaders."