Leadership: Top Picks

Leadership: an evolutionary journey

Duane Dike

Have we learned anything new about leadership over the past few decades or are we just touting the same mantras over and over? To answer that, let’s take a journey through history.

12 differences between winning and losing leadership

James M. Kerr

Leaders can make or break an organization. Great leaders drive great organizations and great organizations produce great results. Less-than- stellar leaders usually deliver the opposite. So what characterizes winning and losing leadership styles?

The new language of leadership

Neil Cassie

A profound shift is taking place from predictive to non-predictive demand – from push to pull economics. And if organisations are to adapt to this, their leaders need to radically reassess their behaviour.

Wanted: more bad (as in good) leaders

Max McKeown

Sometimes, bad behaviour is inspirational. That's why great leaders need to be unreasonable. That's what leaders do. It's why the cool kids were the cool kids. It's what progress depends on.

True leaders are human

Duane Dike

True leadership is the stuff of relationships. Being a leader is much more complicated than simply acting leader-like. True leadership is quality-based. Fake leadership is leader-like-sound-bites of things leaders might say.

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Taking time for leadership

Duane Dike

Pondering issues before acting brings new alternatives, fresh perspectives and creative solutions. That why leaders who don't pause to reflect often run into trouble.

The Icarus syndrome: flying too close to the sun

Manfred Kets De Vries

The Icarus syndrome, with its signature lack of humility, has felled many leaders who planned grandly but failed miserably. That’s why every leader needs to keep their hubris in check.

Three scary things that real leaders need to do

Greg Giuliano

If you want to be a leader and not just a boss, you need to stop relying on your title or your position to get people to comply and start to strengthen your connections with others.

Ten ways to shift from founder to leader

Greg Giuliano

Successfully founding a company is a very different to successfully leading it. Some make the shift. Others do not. Missing the turning point or making it too late can cause a company to stagnate or even implode. So how do you avoid this fate?

A Christmas gift that lasts all year round

Fiona Logan

What gift will you give your employees this festive season? Throwing an office party might seem like a nice thing to do, but the gift that will really be appreciated - and is much more lasting - is the gift of leadership.

The key to cultivating agility in decision making

Marc Le Menestrel

Decision-making excellence requires self-awareness and the ability to choose how to think in different situations. That's why being able to understand different perspectives is such a crucial skill for today’s business leaders.

I think, therefore I feel

Duane Dike

How many of us have said, “I’ve been so busy today I haven’t even had time to think?” If you haven’t had time to think, you haven’t had time to lead. Leading without thinking is leading into disaster.

Are you addicted to power?

Manfred Kets De Vries

In democracies, a free press and the separation of powers reduce the risk of leaders becoming power addicts. But most businesses concentrate power at the top, a design that all too easily leads to power intoxication.

The invisible woman

Myra White

Visibility is key to building the type of power that leads to top jobs. Men are masters of this visibility, but women are not. So we won't get more women in leadership positions until they start to step out of the shadows and give themselves and their talents a higher profile.

Leadership Is a journey, not a destination

Ian C. Woodward

Whether you are a leader of today or tomorrow, thinking consciously about leadership is essential. Every context requires different talents and skills, so leaders must learn to adjust themselves along the way.

Horizontal leadership and the spaces in between

Michael Jones

Horizontal leaders don’t just think outside the box, they think outside the building, seeking answers and opportunities in the ill-defined, ambiguous spaces at the boundaries of sectors, disciplines and capabilities.

Leadership, innovation and the future

Duane Dike

Leaders are critical to innovative thinking. Great ideas don't emerge from companies whose leaders try to control and micromanage. Innovation only thrives in organizations whose members are free to think and express themselves.

Everyday leadership

Duane Dike

Over the years, I’ve lost count of the number of leadership theories and styles that I’ve studied, practiced and discarded. What all this has taught me is that leadership is a complicated puzzle - and that the best solution is to keep things simple.

Developing agility

Val Nichols

Top-down, command-and-control leadership slows organizations down and limits creativity. Instead, we need to develop the agility to rethink, reinvigorate and reinvent in response to changing circumstances.

Leading from the heart

Michael Jones

In a future of intelligent machines, the fastest growing segment of the economy will be the emergence of artist-leaders who build value through experiences that connect people with their hearts.

Leadership and the power of the imagination

Michael Jones

At the core of our existence is a pool of energy that has very little to do with personal identity. This is the world of the imagination, a world in which we play only a small part in the whole marvellous act of creation.

Encouraging others to do what you want

Val Nichols

Having a job title doesn’t make you a leader. If you want other people to follow you, you first have to enlist their support. And that means that you need to build your influencing skills.

Would you follow you?

Val Nichols

If you want to be a leader, a good place to start is by considering what convinces you to follow someone else. The chances are that the factors that carry the greatest weight are ones to do with trust.

Learning from Demosthenes

Wayne Turmel

If you’re looking for a role model for how to conduct yourself as a business person and a human being, my vote is for a lawyer who pounded the streets of ancient Athens 2300 years ago. Yup, Demosthenes is my boy.

The road to Rio: three powerful leadership lessons

John Blakey

The road to Rio represents four years of dedication, hard work and suffering for thousands of athletes from around the world. But working with Olympic sports coaches can also offer valuable lessons for those of us leading businesses.

The music of leadership

Michael Jones

Music is a powerful vibration. Too often our world seems filled with bits and fragments that don’t make sense. But then we hear the music that tells the story and our world feels coherent and whole again.

Choosing brave leadership. Blue pill or red pill?

John Blakey

Are you one of the 'old guard' dutifully propping up the creaking edifice of the blue pill world, comfortable in your sense of denial? Or are you one of the 'new guard' digging the foundations of the new red pill business architecture?

Truth, authenticity and leadership

Duane Dike

‘Authentic leadership’ is one of those phrases that gets tossed around so much that its real meaning is in danger of getting lost. So let’s take a look at ‘authentic’ in the context of leadership, music and tourism.

More Good Stuff

Names without faces

Duane Dike

'Recognition', in its most basic sense, means being able to put a name to a face. But in the business world, names without faces are all too common. And the larger a company grows, the more likely it is that bosses don’t know the names or faces of the people who do the work.

Leadership and the art of minimum force

Michael Jones

Sometimes by forcing less, we accomplish more. It is when we are at ease that life rushes in. So for leaders, instead of trying to impose their will based on what they believe ought to happen, perhaps they'd be better off going with the flow.

Lessons in trust from the Panama Papers leak

John Blakey

Ever since the 2008 crash, public anger and scepticism has been running like a river of lava beneath the fabric of our societies. And the Panama Papers leak is yet another nail in the coffin of popular trust in those in positions of leadership.

Regenerative leadership: learning from craftwork

Michael Jones

Every leader has some sort of theory being the way they lead. For some it might be military strategy or competitive sport. But for others, it is the regenerative and transformational notion of craftwork.

Are you an alpha male leader?

Manfred Kets De Vries

Alpha male leadership comes with a hefty price tag. Fear, low morale, high absenteeism and stress. So shouldn’t we be looking instead for models of leadership that connect, build and nurture?

Leaders who can read collective emotions are more effective

Quy Huy

For leaders to be able to respond successfully to frustrations, hopes and fears of their organisation, they need to be able to read the patterns of emotions that signal the onset of different behaviours.

When CEO narcissism spreads to the board

Guoli Chen

The push for better corporate governance has overlooked the problems that occur when narcissistic CEOs load their board with images of themselves.

Leading in an unpredictable world

Michael Jones

We can’t predict the future, but we can imagine and feel it. So rather than avoiding surprise, leaders can embrace uncertainty and learn from the unexpected by being open to subtle signals that they may not fully comprehend.

Respecting the moment

Michael Jones

Some leaders are so focused on outcomes that they can’t leave space to listen to other points of view. They could learn a lot from artists about respecting the moment and the importance of the spaces between the notes.

Leading through stories of place

Michael Jones

Too often, we try to change things without taking into account the narrative that holds everything together. At the heart of that narrative is a sense of place, because place is not an object or a thing, but a power and a presence.

Wisdom vs intelligence

Peter Vajda

Many business leaders are intelligent. But they're not wise, or even aware that they lack wisdom. And that's something that no amount of left-brain thinking, operations-focused education or experiential learning is going to change.

Five ways leaders can communicate change

Marcia Xenitelis

No matter what the issue - be it a merger, acquisition or and organizational crisis - there are five key ways that a CEO can communicate with employees and achieve positive outcomes each time.

Leadership and the art of the impossible

Michael Jones

In times of volatility and change, we need to dig deep for fresh responses. That is a leader’s work now, to master the art of the impossible and, in so doing, to achieve what we did not think it was possible for us to do.

When management meets emotional intelligence

Sandrine Frémeaux

The fine balance any emotionally intelligent leader has to strike is to take into account basic human needs without being tempted to institutionalise them. And the the most important element in this is the example set by a leader’s own actions.

Abolishing the myths of leadership

John Roulet

We tend to associate leadership with individuals who are visionary and inspirational. But this is a hopeless distortion. Leadership is about work, not personality traits or social behaviors Business leaders simply need to manage performance

The three legs of leadership

Duane Dike

Every move a leader makes affects someone and something else. So leadership effectiveness depends on three things: knowledge of the job, your place in the working environment and your ability to relate to others. Remove any of these and - like a stool - you're heading for a fall.