What Kind of Leader Do You Want to Be? – Harvard Business Review
It’s the question missing from so much of leadership development: “What kind of leader do you want to be?” Many have thought about their leadership footprint at some point, but few have defined it clearly enough to guide their behavior and evaluate their “success.” Of those who have, fewer give it regular consideration – letting it guide their daily decisions – or share it with others, to get feedback and be held accountable.
If Your Boss Thinks You’re Awesome, You Will Become More Awesome – Harvard Business Review
If your boss thinks you’re awesome, will that make you more awesome? This question came to us recently, when we were working with the top three levels of management in a multinational. When asked to rate their direct reports on 360 evaluations, some managers consistently rated everyone higher, and others consistently lower, than the average. We wondered if this was a result of bias, and what effect it had on the people who worked for them.
How to Really Listen to Your Employees – Harvard Business Review
Let’s face it: strong leaders tend to be characterized by their strong opinions, decisive action, and take-no-prisoners attitude. These are important traits, but it’s equally important for managers to stand down and listen up. Yet many leaders struggle to do this, in part because they’ve become more accustomed to speaking than listening. So, how can you develop this muscle? What are the barriers to good listening and how do you overcome them?
To Stay Focused, Manage Your Emotions – HBR Blog
This article discusses how leaders must recognize that it’s essential to work at enhancing their ability to direct their attention and minimize unhelpful distractions, and one of the most important steps in this process is managing emotions.
An Exercise to Get Your Team Thinking Differently About the Future – Harvard Business Review
Thinking about the future is hard, mainly because we are glued to the present. Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, observed that decision makers get stuck in a memory loop and can only predict the future as a reflection of the past. He labels this dynamic the “narrative fallacy” – you see the future as merely a slight variation on yesterday’s news. A way around this fallacy, we’ve found, is a speed-dating version of scenario planning, one that takes hours rather than months.