How leaders can let go without losing control

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by Mark Bonchek

Massive iStock_000008828650Small[1]flocks of starlings, known as murmurations, exhibit a rare combination of speed and scale. The birds coordinate themselves with remarkable agility to find food and avoid attacks. Schools of fish do the same.

What’s noteworthy in these murmurations is the lack of a leader. Instead, each bird follows three simple rules: (1) move to the center, (2) follow your neighbor, and (3) don’t collide. The rules enable each bird to act independently while ensuring the group acts cohesively.

Every organization today wants to achieve both alignment and autonomy. Can what works for birds and fish also work for people? The answer comes from a surprising place: the battlefield. Continue reading →

Listening is an overlooked leadership tool

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110-Melissa_Daimlerby Melissa Daimler

 

“What do you think?”

I ask this question a lot. My team knows that when they come to me with a question, this is likely the question I’ll come back with first. Sometimes I even preface it with, “I don’t know.” As leaders in our organizations, it’s up to us to coach colleagues and our employees through finding that answer. More often than not, when I ask this question, my team has a better answer than I do — or one that I hadn’t thought about before. Continue reading →

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 →