The simple way to be a better leader

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iStock_000008828650Small[1]By Avery Roth

The world of work is changing at a furious pace. Innovation and disruption are causing radical market share shifts in many industries.

Millennials and working families are driving growth in remote work setups. Consumers and employees are demanding sustainable enterprise, which has a profound impact not only on economics, but also on organizational design and culture. Whereas yesterday’s leaders had a relatively clear sense of their market and the tools in their kit, today’s leaders face a landscape that shifts like a desert dune, and their toolkit is constantly becoming obsolete. Continue reading →

Why We Pick Leaders with Deceptively Simple Answers

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By Gianpierro Petriglieri

 

 

To distressed people in troubled times, the least rational leaders make the most sense. This hundred-year-old theory harks back to the work of Sigmund Freud — and having to resort to it to explain a leader’s rise is never good news.

After all, a decade after he cast light on the social forces that would sink Europe into the abyss of totalitarianism, an ailing Freud was forced to flee Vienna for London, where he could, as he put it, “die in freedom.” It was 1938. Soon after, hundreds of thousands began to die for it.

Although most people associate the Viennese psychologist with his controversial conjectures about the unconscious mind, sexuality, and neuroses, fewer know (or acknowledge) that he also put forward one of the most enduring and validated theories of leadership. Continue reading →

Overcome Your Reluctance and Start Negotiating Your Salary

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by Judith White

fullrpoNegotiating your salary can reap huge, long-term benefits, and negotiating deals with internal and external partners can create value and advance your career. So what’s stopping you from doing it? Throughout my 15 years of teaching and coaching negotiations, I hear the same three excuses over and over: “What if they get upset with me for asking?” “What if they say no?” and ”It’s not like me to ask.” In this post I’ll describe why we make these excuses and tell you how to overcome them.

First, prepare. Check that your reluctance isn’t simply due to a lack of preparation. If you’ve read a book on negotiation, taken a course, or paid close attention to a good negotiator, you know that the secret to having the conversation go the way you’d like is preparation. Let’s assume you’ve prepared but you’re still putting off the conversation. Which of the following excuses sounds familiar? Continue reading →

How to Really Customize Leadership Development

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by Gianpiero Petriglieri

 

 

There is a question executives always ask early on, when they consult potential partners for their companies’ leadership development initiatives:

“Will it be customized?”

The answer, today, cannot be anything other than a resounding “Yes!” Because “customized” has become a synonym of “good” for leadership development.

Sometimes, however, that question hides a request for subordination. It is a nicer way to ask, “Will you do everything that I demand?” Other times, it is the starting point of a professional collaboration, an invitation to learn and work together.

Promising customization, then, is not always good if it stops us from exploring what customization means, what good it is for, and who it is good for.

The important question executives and educators ought to discuss, as I see it, is not whether a learning initiative will be customized — but how. Continue reading →

4 Steps to a Better Management Technique

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photo_uniqueEffectively managing people is difficult, and no one is born knowing how to do it. Fortunately, management can be learned. We suggest following these four steps, which are simple, but time tested:

1. Set appropriate goals.

Goal-setting is essential. It helps employees prioritize their activities and focus their efforts. When setting goals with employees, you should make sure that they are SMART goals (specific, measurable, action oriented, realistically high, time and resource bound). The goals must also be meaningful to the employee. Sufficient rewards for goal achievement and consequences for failure should be specified. This will ensure that the goal and what’s needed to achieve it will rise to the top of the employees’ “To Do” list. Continue reading →