Leadership is an inside out job

By Polly LaBarre
December 19, 2011 at 7:00pm

For all of the time spent chasing after what looks like success, too many of us have only a dim sense of what it feels like. That's clearly a wide-spread cultural malady, but it acquires special force in the world of work.

Nine Ways to Identify Natural Leaders

By Gary Hamel
June 27, 2011 at 10:59am

The need to empower natural leaders isn’t an HR pipedream, it’s a competitive imperative. But before you can empower them, you have to find them.

In most companies, the formal hierarchy is a matter of public record—it’s easy to discover who’s in charge of what. By contrast, natural leaders don’t appear on any organization chart. To hunt them down, you need to know . . .

How to Tell If You’re a Natural Leader

By Gary Hamel
May 20, 2011 at 9:19am

I’ll bet you know a natural leader. Maybe you are one.

Maybe you’re a mom who started a support group for the parents of children with special needs.

Maybe you’re a concerned citizen who mobilized a group of preservation-minded neighbors to halt the destruction of a venerable old building.

Maybe you’re a churchgoer who convinced some of your fellow parishioners to help mentor at-risk kids.

Or maybe you simply organized your company’s first softball league.

We Want Your Vote—And Your Ideas!

By Polly LaBarre
February 18, 2011 at 11:58am

As we close out the semifinal round of the HCI Human Capital M-Prize, we wanted to offer up a quick take on each of the entries in the running—and encourage all of you to rate the entries, add your ideas and questions in the comments field.

True collaboration embraces conflict

By Leigh Weiss
January 26, 2011 at 1:08pm

Editor's note: Research by McKinsey & Company's Organization Practice finds that better collaborative capabilities help companies achieve superior ﬁnancial performance. These results are supported by academic research, which shows that the ability to collaborate in networks is more important than raw individual talent to innovativeness; it also boosts employees’ overall performance and loyalty.¹

Leading vs. Managing: A False Choice

By Bob Sutton
December 8, 2010 at 10:18am

As you're putting together the guest list for your holiday parties you might want to consider this: not once, but twice over the last five years I've embarked on an in-depth review of the academic and practical literature on leadership. The first time was for a 2006 book with Jeff Pfeffer, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense. The second time was for my new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss.

The M Word

By Julian Birkinshaw
November 15, 2010 at 11:18am

When you ask children what they want to be when they are older, how many of them say they want to be a manager? I've certainly never met one who had such aspirations. In part this is because management is a pretty amorphous concept to a ten-year-old. But it's also because we adults aren't exactly singing the praises of the management profession either. For example, in a 2008 Gallup poll on honesty and ethics among workers in 21 different professions, a mere 12 percent of respondents felt business executives had high/very high integrity--an all-time low.

Women in Leadership : Neelam Manwani

By Vineet Nayar
November 12, 2010 at 6:53am

Editor's note: You can follow Vineet Nayar on twitter at @vineetnayar.

I’ve often wondered about the book ‘Nice girls don’t make the corner office’ by Dr Lois P Frankel. The author cautions women that their careers could get sabotaged by “girlish behaviour” learned in childhood, such as working non-stop without a break, worrying about offending others, backing down too easily, explaining too much when asked for information or “polling” friends and colleagues before making a decision…

People rocking the MIX: Aaron Anderson

By Chris Grams
November 2, 2010 at 12:16pm

As I've browsed the MIX over the past months, I've noticed a few regular contributors whose hacks, stories, and barriers always blow me away. Over the coming months, I hope to highlight some of these people and their ideas here in my role as a Moonshot Guide.

M-Prize Contenders: Stories on Reinventing Leadership

By David Sims
September 23, 2010 at 5:20pm

As we build towards the deadline for choosing our M-Prize winners, we're taking a look at the Stories that MIXers have shared as entries. This week, 9 promising Stories about Reinventing Leadership.