Leading employees from different cultural backgrounds has become an everyday reality and challenge for managers. An understanding of cultural differences, as well as how these differences play out in interpersonal and group relationships, is no longer optional but a critical tool. To start with, the authors look at the assumptions typically encountered when considering the […]
Subject: Leadership
Developing Business Leaders in China
Across the world, effective leaders are needed now more than ever; China is no exception, but the experiences of Chinese leaders may certainly warrant a different perspective for their development. Based on research initiated in May 2007, the authors present findings and implications for leadership development for China-based economies. They provide evidence of specific work […]
Five Traits of the Better Leader
How can leaders recognize and manage their psychological preferences and personality traits? This is the question the authors explore in this article. Interviewing over 2,000 international executives attending leadership programs at Duke University, London Business School and IMD, they identify the most common leadership pitfalls. The authors found that even the most successful executives have […]
Avoiding Flawed Decisions: A Finance Manager’s Role
Rational and objective thinking is not the only influence on the decision-making process. Recognising this, the authors set out to research why good leaders often make flawed decisions, at times dragging their organizations down. According to them, finance managers play an important role, being “savvier” at managing rational thinking and the inevitable personal biases of […]
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Leadership Alignment and Strategy Implementation
Through their research, the authors set out to examine the effects that leaders at different levels in an organization have on each other. To do so, they investigated the relation between leadership alignment and strategy implementation in a large health care organization of more than 3,000 physicians, who work in 19 large medical centres or […]
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Leadership Essentials: Diagnostics, Influence and Energy
What makes a successful leader, and how can leaders develop their own personal leadership models? Exploring these questions in this article, the author highlights the importance of leaders in general; they are responsible for other people’s lives, futures and money. They lead people in challenging times and times of uncertainty, thus making it imperative that […]
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When Growth Fails: Managing the Dark Side
In high-growth companies, it is a fact that periods of expansion are often punctuated by sudden and severe challenges. Noting the extreme tension between success and failure in businesses today, the authors set out to research how “the dark side” of growth can be managed appropriately. They describe this as the often sour situation that […]
Dysfunctional Leadership: Context and Causes
In this paper, the author examines the possible bases for dysfunctional leadership, moving away from an emphasis on a leader’s performance and personality to focusing on the contextual features that can lead to success or failure. Even though the ‘romance of the leader-as-hero movement’ has been muted to some extent, the author says that the […]
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Avoiding Bad Decisions: ‘Red Flags’ and Reflection
Decision-making is at the heart of all leadership. Sometimes leaders make good decisions, but sometimes they make less good decisions. The authors set out to understand why bad decisions are made, and what causes them. They propose that in certain situations, the brain processes that normally get us to good decisions, lead us instead to […]
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Leadership Tools: Magnet to Pull, Hammer to Drive
The authors set out to examine the leadership tools required to help managers rise to new challenges faced during uncertain times. Using case studies of prominent leaders of the past 50 years, they explore the keys of effective leadership. They find that in order to inspire others and lead change in difficult times, the two […]
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