1138 Posts Found

A novel management theory looks past individual leaders to constraints that might limit their effectiveness.

Content: Article | Author: Pawel Korzynski | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subject: Leadership

The best leaders ask questions they genuinely want to know the answers to. To do that, stop and check in with yourself: Why am I asking this question? Do I genuinely want to hear from this person or am I trying to make sure that I don’t look bad? Am I checking a box or am I trying to truly engage?

Content: Quotation | Authors: Massella Dukuly, Vanessa Tanicien | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Leadership, Management

Even though most business schools, executive training courses, and leadership programs espouse servant leadership, few bosses manage to fully commit to it. Perhaps that’s no surprise. In most organizations, the average manager has neither the incentives nor the skills to focus on employee happiness. Consider how most businesses make promotion decisions: people who get ahead tend to be either current high performers or those who … [ Read more ]

Authors: Bill Schaninger, Tera Allas | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Effective leaders learn early to target only important issues — and ones they have a fair shot of winning. That requires two skills. The first is the ability to accurately estimate the level of conflict a particular course of action will elicit. (This is where EQ can support OQ.) The second is the maturity to not engage in unimportant issues. In many ways the second skill is … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: George Yip, Nelson Phillips | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Leadership, Management

Bias can marginalize employees and lessen their contributions. Leaders need to take corrective action to get the best out of their teams.

Content: Article | Author: Wanda T. Wallace | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Some leaders tend to have a large circle of concern: They’re thinking about the effects of their decisions on a large group of people, now and into the future. Others think in a smaller circle: who they have to please and how to get it done. A leader’s ability to be strategic is a function of having bigger circles of moral concern. But that quality … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Annette Simmons | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Ethics, Leadership, Management, Personal Development

Many traditional decision-making tools fall short when it comes to the complex, subjective decisions that today’s leaders face every day. In this piece, the author provides a simple framework to help guide leaders through these difficult decisions. By interrogating the ethics (what is viewed as acceptable in your organization or society), morals (your internal sense of right and wrong), and responsibilities associated with your specific … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Eric Pliner | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Ethics, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

When we look at what visionaries really succeed at, they give us a confident, consistent and coherent plan that makes us feel safe. We trust them not because their vision is perfect, but because they have it under control. They communicate clearly without giving us all the answers. What most people think of as vision is actually persuasion.

Content: Quotation | Author: Tyler Odean | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Communication, Leadership, Organizational Behavior

Three ways for leaders to stop missing essential information from across their organization.

Content: Article | Author: Eric McNulty | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

Tarun Khanna and Prithwiraj Choudhury use machine-learning technology to look for links between a CEO’s communication style and company performance.

Content: Article | Authors: Michael Blanding, Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Leadership

Historically, we’ve been disproportionately focused on the value of the cascade, the leader, change leaders. They’re still all very important. But, increasingly, as we are a workforce comprised of a generation that has a lot of their actions that are digitally based, we’ve had to come to grips with the idea that influencers and opinion leaders and people in the social network, their role modeling … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Bill Schaninger | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Change Management, Leadership, Organizational Behavior

Leaders actually have little capacity to make anyone do anything, so instead they need to think about how to help people connect to the understanding, intention, and will that can inspire them to act of their own volition.

Content: Quotation | Author: Adam Kahane | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Leadership

I now know that there isn’t [a handbook of so-called management]. Any that you may come across, including one that I wrote myself, will turn out to be practical common sense dressed up with long words to make it seem professional. I would only urge you to remember the three different activities of organizing, leading, and managing, and to apply them appropriately, because I truly … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Charles Handy | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Human Resources, Leadership, Management

Think about this: Any organization whose key assets are talented or skilled people — universities, theaters, law firms, churches — don’t use the word manager to describe the people in charge. They call them deans, senior partners, bishops, directors, or team leaders. [In those organizations,] the title of manager is only used for those who are in charge of things, not people, that is, the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Charles Handy | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Management

In [Marcus] Buckingham’s view, another quality which cannot be defined is leadership. He agrees that “followership” can be measured — by the overall success of your team, or people’s willingness to give you their attention — but not leadership, despite what he termed a $50 billion industry built around describing it.

“If we start measuring the traits of leaders, the first thing that strikes you is … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Marcus Buckingham | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Leadership

Business publications are filled with articles about feedback: how important it is for leaders, how leaders can both give and receive it, what happens when leaders don’t get it, and even what to do if someone is not open to feedback they have been given. The focus tends to be on the transfer of data.

What is less explored is how leaders should respond once they … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jennifer Porter | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Career, Leadership, Personal Development

What happens to a company when a visionary CEO is gone? Most often, innovation dies and the company coasts for years on momentum and its brand. Rarely does it regain its former glory. Here’s why.

Editor’s Note: for more on this theme, read “Visionary, Salesman and Pragmatist Model of Business Succes.”

Content: Article | Author: Steve Blank | Source: VentureBeat | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Psychological safety takes off the brakes that keep people from achieving what’s possible. But it’s not the fuel that powers the car. In any challenging industry setting, leaders have two vital tasks. One, they must build psychological safety to spur learning and avoid preventable failures; two, they must set high standards and inspire and enable people to reach them.

Content: Quotation | Author: Amy Edmondson | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Decades of research have uncovered the five key capabilities of effective leaders.

Content: Article | Authors: Deborah Ancona, Henrik Bresman | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subject: Leadership

Our work with succession candidates indicates that a track record of grooming multiple effective leaders is an oft-overlooked measure of authentic leadership capability, yet a reliable predictor of C-suite performance. It is also a measure of self-awareness; people who rise quickly in an organization usually have bosses who are looking out for their best interests.

A leader who develops leaders is also more likely to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Adam Bryant, David Reimer, Harry Feuerstein | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Human Resources, Leadership