Insights

THINK
If Overthinking Is Killing Your Productivity, It’s Time To Change How You Work
In our fast-paced business climate, too much thinking can hinder productivity and paralyze a business. Here’s how to avoid that.

Bent Philipson is the Founder of Philosophy Care, a consulting firm providing a range of services to skilled nursing facilities.

ACT
Four Ways to Build a Culture of Honesty and Avoid ‘Productivity Paranoia’
A lack of trust between colleagues and managers in remote and hybrid environments can damage workplace culture and morale.

Pamela Meyer is the author of Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception (St. Martin’s Press, 2010) and the CEO of Calibriate, a deception detection and inside threat mitigation consulting firm. Her 2011 presentation “How to Spot a Liar” is one of the 20 most popular TED Talks of all time.

LEAD
Taking Decisive Action in a Crisis
Cynthia Carroll was only a few months into leading the global mining firm Anglo American when she suspended operations in their South African platinum mine. She was concerned about worker fatalities there. But it was an unprecedented move, and it came at a huge cost for the company.  Harvard Kennedy School of Government research fellow Gautam Mukunda explains how Carroll, who he profiled in a business case, used that temporary shutdown to make changes to the company culture at Anglo American.

Gautam Mukunda is an internationally recognized expert in leadership and innovation. Gautam is a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, Senior Advisor to America’s Frontier Fund, the author of Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012) and Picking Presidents: How To Make The Most Consequential Decision in the World (University of California Press, 2022), and the host of Nasdaq’s podcast World Reimagined with Gautam Mukunda.

TRANSFORM
6 Key Levers of a Successful Organizational Transformation
Organizational transformations are extremely difficult on a personal level for everyone involved. A team of researchers found that in successful transformations, leaders not only made sure their teams had the processes, resources, and technology they needed — they also built the right emotional conditions.

Andrew White is a senior fellow in management practice at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, where he directs the advanced management and leadership program and conducts research into leadership and transformation.
Michael Wheelock leads a primary research and advanced analytics team in EY Knowledge.
Adam Canwell is head of EY’s global leadership consulting practice.
Michael Smets is a professor of management at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

REFLECT
The Strategic Value Of Kindness
7 steps to reinforcing a culture of kindness, which leads directly to talent retention, innovation and revenue growth.

Miles Nadal is an international entrepreneur, philanthropist and founder of Peerage Capital, a $10B business services and private investment firm.

BONUS
Ignorance Is Power: 3 Tips for Learning by Asking Questions
Brad Staats, UNC professor and author of the book  Never Stop Learning: Stay Relevant, Reinvent Yourself, and Thrive, urges us to stop being afraid to proclaim “I don’t know.” This is because admitting our ignorance is the first step in learning, and learning is an essential skill regardless of whether we are leading an organization, just starting in our careers, or somewhere in between.

THINK
Competing for talent in the current climate means that CEOs must rethink the whole notion of company time.

Anne Chow is lead director on FranklinCovey’s Board of Directors, a director of 3M and co-author of the best-selling book, “The Leader’s Guide to Unconscious Bias.” Chow is the former CEO of AT&T Business and was twice featured as one of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business.

ACT
“Quiet quitters” are employees who decide to do only what is specifically required of them at work and nothing more. For example, they may work only their contracted hours and refuse to take on additional tasks without remuneration. Some businesses are consequently incurring a financial loss equal to 20% of the “quietly quitting” employees’ annual salaries, while the annual cost to the UK economy amounts to some £340bn. Employers must be aware of this phenomenon and should consider what positive action they can take to combat it.

Christie Jamieson is an associate in Dentons’ Edinburgh office. She is a member of the People, Reward and Mobility practice group. She completed her training contract with Dentons in August 2021 and qualified the same month.

Christie has a range of experience in UK employment law, including human resource advisory, litigation, and corporate work. Christie has experience in contract review, due diligence exercises, advising on disciplinary and grievance procedures, and drafting settlement agreements, contracts, policies, handbooks, and redundancy documentation.

LEAD
Until recently, coaching was considered primarily a one-on-one practice. But no matter how effective employees are on their own, they can only contribute to the real power of the collective if their managers provide them with coaching as a group. In this practice, which the authors call team coaching, a leader’s role is to support the team as an organic unit, providing guidance, setting routines and practices, and creating constant opportunities for group learning. In this article, the authors describe three of the tools and techniques of team coaching that they have found to be the most important for fostering accelerated learning and successful outcomes.

Sanyin Siang is the executive director of the Coach K Leadership and Ethics Center, at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and is a CEO coach and advisor.

Michael Canning is the former CEO at Duke Corporate Education.

TRANSFORM
In the book Time, Talent, Energy, three trends were identified in companies with low levels of employee burnout: excessive collaboration, weak time management principles, and a tendency to overload the most capable with too much work. According to co-author Eric Garton, when workers are interrupted, it not only cuts into time needed for complex tasks or thinking up new ideas, but these everyday interruptions also take away from the essential downtime people need to rejuvenate.

REFLECT
When you believe you are not doing well as a leader and others are sharing feedback in line with this view, it can be overwhelming. In this piece, the author offers practical steps you can take if you are in need of a comeback. By focusing on self-reflection, enlisting support, and thoughtfully examining your role within the company, you will be able to determine your next steps and how you need to grow as a leader

Anne Sugar is an executive coach and speaker who works with senior leaders in technology, marketing, and pharmaceutical companies. She is an executive coach for the Harvard Business School Executive Program and has guest lectured at MIT.

BONUS
Whether you are someone who enjoys ruffling feathers or the type of person who’d like to challenge the status quo but shies away, you will benefit from understanding the best, research–backed ways to practice disagreement – even insubordination – while holding onto others’ respect at work. Todd Kashdan is a psychology professor at George Mason University and the author of the book The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively. He explains how contrarians, and those with ideas that run counter to the mainstream, can pick their battles, articulate their arguments, and gain allies along the way.

THINK
Company strategies often fail and this is frequently ascribed to unpredictable changes in the context. But most failures are the result of fairly predictable challenges, including one factor that is constantly overlooked: the role and impact of loss. New strategic priorities inevitably generate losses as people’s reality changes: loss of power, loss of competence or identity. Companies typically trumpet the benefits and ignore these losses, treating implementation as a straightforward technical challenge.

Natalia Weisz is Professor in Organizational Behavior at IAE Business School. She is co-author of Strategy as Leadership: Facing Adaptive Challenges in Organizations (Stanford University Press 2022).
Roberto Vassolo is Professor in Strategic Management at IAE Business School. He is co-author of Strategy as Leadership: Facing Adaptive Challenges in Organizations (Stanford University Press 2022).

ACT
Many organizations that allowed knowledge workers to do their jobs remotely during the pandemic now seem committed to getting them back together in the office, and bosses are trying to get their teams on board. Although the pandemic has been a once-in-a-century disruption to business, navigating this challenge is no different than managing any other kind of organizational change with professional and personal implications. The key is to engage one-on-one with people to move them from active resistance to neutral or supportive positions.

James R. Bailey is professor and Hochberg Fellow of Leadership at George Washington University. The author of five books and more than 50 academic papers, he is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, The Hill, Fortune, Forbes, and Fast Company and appears on many national television and radio programs.
Scheherazade Rehman is professor and Dean’s Professorial Fellow of International Finance. She is director of the European Union Research Center and former Director of World ExecMBA with Cybersecurity, has appeared in front of the U.S. House and Senate, and been a guest numerous times on PBS Newshour, the Colbert Report, BBC World News, CNBC, Voice of America, and C-Span.

LEAD
In a changing world of work — one in which remote and hybrid arrangements are now commonplace — how do leaders show respect for employees?

Kristie Rogers is an associate professor of management in the College of Business Administration at Marquette University.
Beth Schinoff is an assistant professor of management and organization at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

TRANSFORM

Most conversations in the last two years were centered on remote work strategies, vaccination policies and return to work. People forgot to talk – or even think – about purpose and meaning. They’re used to talking about how the work gets done. They’ve lost touch with how they feel about work. And that can make the conversation uncomfortable now.

Michele McGovern writes. A lot. These days, she covers HR, digging deep into company culture, DEI, leadership, management and the everchanging world of work. In the years between getting a BA in journalism from a state school and writing about HR, she wrote about big-city crime for a wire service and small-town life for local newspapers

REFLECT
While leaders are broadly aware of the importance of creating a psychologically safe culture to encourage candor, they are less cognizant of how subtle leadership behaviors can get in the way of people speaking up. In this article, the author shares behaviors that leaders might not realize shut down dissenting perspectives and offers guidance about what to do instead. Taking these actions will help you step outside the bubble of agreement where many leaders unwittingly exist.

Dina Denham Smith is an executive coach to senior leaders at world-leading brands such as Adobe, Netflix, PwC, Dropbox, Stripe, and numerous high-growth companies. A former business executive herself, she is the founder and CEO of Cognitas, and helps leaders and their teams reach new heights of success.

THINK
Creating a high-trust environment isn’t easy, but applying these five principles on a day-to-day basis will get you there—and closer to real resiliency.

Ali Grovue is a Senior Consultant at Ignite Management Services and Mike Watson is the President at Ignite Management Services. Their latest book, Rise Up: Leadership Habits for Turbulent Times, unpacks actionable and transformative strategies to help leaders and organizations thrive.

ACT
Thanks to continuing resignations, many employees’ workloads have increased to untenable levels. There are a few common solutions for staffing shortages: redistributing work, hiring replacement employees and outsourcing lower-level tasks. But amid the Great Resignation’s persistent talent shortage, many managers are finding that their usual go-to solutions aren’t enough. The author presents three strategies for managers struggling with understaffed teams.

Margaret M. Luciano is an associate professor of management & organization in the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University.

LEAD
Leaders should be aware of a counterintuitive risk of trust: A strong emphasis on trust can lead to inertia, as employees might prioritize appearing trustworthy over behavior necessary for good, collaborative decision making. For example, in order to maintain a perception of being competent and trustworthy, an individual might withhold information or share inaccurate information when things aren’t going well. The author has spent over a decade making research on collaboration useable for organizations ranging from scaleups becoming unicorns to incumbents embracing transformation. He explains how overemphasizing trust can hinder collaborative decision making and cause inertia — and how leaders can strike the right balance between trust and progress.

Per Hugander is a strategic advisor on leadership, strategy, innovation, and organizational culture. He is an adjunct professor of practice at Hult/Ashridge International business school and an agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum.

TRANSFORM
Assumptions are a fundamental part of the way people work and communicate. But as the world changes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and new ways of thinking about work and society, assumptions should be acknowledged and, in some cases, changed.

Sara Brown writes about management issues affecting global business leaders, with an emphasis on management science. Areas of interest include artificial intelligence, the digital economy, marketing, operations management, platforms, system dynamics, and supply chain.

REFLECT
Letting go and accepting what is, instead of what you wish, is an emotionally challenging process.

Dr. Keren Tsuk, Ph.D is a sought-after speaker, consultant, and thought leader in 21st-century leadership. As the founder and CEO of consulting firm Wisdom To Lead, she specializes in the development of senior management teams and corporate leadership.

THINK
Great leaders have to get outside their comfort zones and force themselves to make tough decisions even when they don’t have all the information they would like. One CEO shares his strategy.

Bill Yeargin is CEO of Correct Craft, a 96-year-old company with global operations. Correct Craft’s subsidiaries include eight boat brands, three engine brands, three water sports parks and an entity devoted solely to innovation. The company has manufacturing facilities across the U.S. and distributes into about 70 countries.

ACT
In a recent survey, a majority of over 1,600 employees (58%) reported being worried about having tough conversations about returning to the office, and close to a third (29%) said they now have a strong preference for continuing remote work and are nervous about whether their company or manager might take the opposite side of the conversation. With topics as charged as vaccinations, safety, and flexibility, it makes sense that so many respondents reported some level of distress over addressing them. The authors present three anxiety-reducing principles to confidently and respectfully voice your concerns about returning to in-person work.

Joseph Grenny is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Crucial Conversations. He is also the cofounder of VitalSmarts, a learning company that offers courses in the areas of communication, performance, and leadership.
Derek Cullimore is the director of human resources at VitalSmarts and a certified trainer in the company’s Crucial Conversations course. He has more than 20 years of experience in leadership and development and is dedicated to building healthy, high-performing cultures.

LEAD
Imagine that today is the first day of your new leadership role at a federal agency. You’ve heard rumors the agency has a “culture problem.” Different offices don’t share information. Employees distrust managers. Absenteeism is at an all-time high. Your team works remotely across the country. Where do you begin to create change?

Melissa Dimitri, Katherine Krause, and Jonelle Hilleary are leaders in Grant Thornton Public Sector’s Business Change Enablement practice, helping federal clients understand, define, build and track culture.

TRANSFORM
Everyone is exhausted. People are coping with collective grief and trauma on a global scale, which means leaders have to learn and exercise new skills. The authors share steps you can take to foster healthy coping mechanisms and discourage unhealthy ones; help ward off some of the typical mistakes that people make under pressure; and ensure you don’t cause additional anxiety on top of what people are already dealing with.

Robin Abrahams is a research associate at Harvard Business School.
Boris Groysberg is the Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School

REFLECT
At some point, all of us experience moments when we must face the difficult decision to let go of something that formerly offered us purpose. But big decisions, like a career change, should be approached thoughtfully. While sometimes this can be done by reinventing your current work, there are times where the right choice is to strike out on a fresh path.

John Coleman is the author of the HBR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose and a coauthor of the book, Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders.

THINK
The author of this article leads with the following: “In a webinar I conducted in November 2021, I put the following question to 150 executives from 23 companies in the U.S., Asia, and Europe: “What is the major challenge you are facing right now?” As I watched the comments roll onto the screen, the overwhelming statement was “retaining people.” A close second: “recruiting people.”

The work environment and dynamic are definitely shifting—how will you react?

Lynda Gratton (@lyndagratton) is a professor of management practice at London Business School and founder of the advisory practice HSM. Her latest book (with Andrew J Scott) is The New Long Life: A Framework for Flourishing in a Changing World (Bloomsbury, 2020).

ACT
As organizations are returning to work, perceptions about remote/at home productivity have changed, even in more “traditional” companies. For organizations looking to remain competitive in the hybrid future, enabling and empowering employee autonomy will be the single most important enabler of flexibility. By ditching policies for principles, investing in competence and relatedness, and giving employees the tools they need to do their job well regardless of location, leaders can create a culture of autonomy and flexibility to the benefit of the organization, teams, and individual employees.

Holger Reisinger is SVP of Large Enterprise Solutions at Jabra.
Dane Fetterer is a Staff Researcher & Writer at Jabra.

LEAD
“It’s an outdated idea that a leader should adopt a fixed leadership style that’s agnostic to the specific context in which he or she is operating. A single approach to leadership is not going to meet the myriad of challenges that today’s leaders face. Thus, rather than perfecting a “leadership sweet spot,” a leader needs to develop and broaden his or her “leadership sweet range.” The wider this range becomes, the more effective or versatile the leader will be. The authors identify seven core tensions between traditional and emerging leadership approaches and offer strategies for leaders looking to broaden their range.”

Jennifer Jordan, Ph.D., is a social psychologist and Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at IMD. Her research focuses on power, ethics, leadership, and the intersection of these topics.
Michael Wade is a professor of innovation and strategy at IMD and holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation
Tomoko Yokoi is a researcher who studies digital transformations at IMD. She is co-author of Hacking Digital: Best Practices to Implement and Accelerate Your Business Transformations.

TRANSFORM
Most of us think we have to make a difficult, binary choice between being a good person or being a tough, effective leader. This is a false dichotomy. In truth, doing hard things is often the most human thing to do. There are two key ingredients — wisdom and compassion — and it takes learning and practice to lead with both, as well as some unlearning of conventional management habits.

Continue to read this article to discover four techniques you can apply in being a wise, compassionate leader.

Rasmus Hougaard is the founder and CEO of Potential Project, a global leadership, organizational development and research firm serving Microsoft, Accenture, Cisco and hundreds of other organizations. He is coauthor, with Jacqueline Carter, of Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way and The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results.
Jacqueline Carter is a partner and the North American Director of Potential Project. She is the coauthor, with Rasmus Hougaard, of Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way and The Mind of the Leader – How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results.

REFLECT
Resiliency has become a hot topic among senior executives. Concerned about stress and health related issues, burnout, and work-life balance, the author discusses the value of hobbies and their impact on well being and ultimately, performance.

Marlena Batchelor, staff writer for CEO Magazine

THINK
We are bombarded daily in the news and in the workplace with discussion and opinions about Diversity and Inclusion. Here at UNC Executive Development we are offering a very powerful seminar on Inclusive Leadership which has gotten great reviews from participants. I think this article offers some very relevant advice on building an inclusive environment. The author states:

“Inclusion is when you combine diversity with caring, and it’s far more powerful. Whereas diversity is measured in numbers, (e.g., “We have 15 Black, nine Hispanic, and three Asian employees.”), inclusion is measured by how those employees feel in the work environment. To measure inclusion, you need to go beyond the hard statistical data and consider your team through the lens of empathy. This requires a lot more effort than looking at the demographic breakdown of the company, but the added effort pays off. This sort of empathy unlocks the strength that true inclusion can provide.”

Eric Strafel is the author of The Frontline CEO and the founder of the consulting firm SUMMi7, which helps businesses grow profits and scale innovation with mission-driven purpose. Previously, he was the President and CEO of Aviall, a global provider of new aviation parts, supply chain management, and other services to the aerospace aftermarket, which was acquired by Boeing. Previously, he held leadership and program management positions at L3 Communications, Honeywell, and Precision Conversions.

ACT
This article from the Sloan Review at MIT offers some timely thoughts about managing meetings in the “new normal” of having workers both remote and in the office, or a “hybrid” environment. You may need to sign up for a free subscription to be able to access the article but it only takes a few minutes and is worth it to have access to the site.

Robert Hooijberg is a professor of organizational behavior at IMD Business School. Michael Watkins is a professor of leadership and organizational change at IMD, cofounder of leadership consultancy Genesis, and author of The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013).

LEAD
When unwanted but necessary decisions are made, employees not only look for answers— they also look for hope. A smart and prepared leader will provide both.

Joel Schwartzberg is a leadership communications coach whose clients include American Express, Blue Cross Blue Shield, State Farm Insurance, the Brennan Center for Justice, and Comedy Central. He is the author of Get to the Point! Sharpen Your Message and Make Your Words Matter.

TRANSFORM
Leaders at every level need to embrace and model how to engage in and affect change. Personal leadership and engagement, however, is not enough. For change to be operationalized, you need to inspire your team to be creative and enable them to innovate. But innovation only happens when people are able to work in the gray space — where ambiguity is okay and business principles, rather than hard and fast rules, apply.

Edith Onderick-Harvey is managing partner at NextBridge Consulting, an organization change and leadership development consulting firm focused on helping clients stay ahead of the curve.

REFLECT
This article in Government Executive has relevance in today’s work environment, though it was originally published in 2016. Almost everyone I know has experienced a toxic employee or boss. How do you handle it? How do you prevent it?

Art Petty is a coach and consultant working with executives and management teams to unlock business and human potential. He writes the Leadership Caffeine blog.

THINK
“Alignment is like sculling—when the entire team works in cadence with the coxswain, the boat moves straight and fast. Conversely, even a small percent difference in the force of oars will be the difference between winning and losing.”

Many of our programs begin the first day of instruction with a block on Strategy Development and Execution, of which a large part of the content is devoted to alignment of Vision, Mission, and Goals/Objectives. I am always interested to discover how many of our groups suffer from misalignment of these very critical areas and the impact it has on their organizations. Is your organization aligned?

Art Johnson is CEO of Infinity Systems, Inc., a management consulting firm where he helps leaders identify and rectify organizational misalignment.

ACT
How do you maintain a confident aura of leadership in a time of crisis? How do you continue to instill confidence and loyalty to your workforce when the organization is struggling—either thorugh the recent pandemic or economic downturns? What can you say to make it better? This article offers some very timely suggestions.

Josh Steimle is the host of The Published Author Podcast, which teaches entrepreneurs how to write books they can leverage to grow their businesses.

LEAD
What are the traits strong leaders exhibit in times of duress? The authors of this article offer the following thought, “CEOs who manage emergencies using emotion as well as logic and intuition find the best results in the short term and the long.” What does this mean? Read on and see if you agree with their findings.

Navi Radjou (@naviradjou) is an innovation and leadership author and adviser based in New York. He is a fellow at Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge in England. Prasad Kaipa is a CEO coach and leadership adviser based in Silicon Valley.

TRANSFORM
One of the major changes to work environments brought on by the pandemic is use (or overuse) of Video meetings. While most of us have gained a tremendous amount of experience in this area, have you ever stopped to think if you are leading the meetings in a way thought would be considered successful? Additionally, even though we are beginning our return to the office, video meetings have become a staple of our environment and are here to stay. How can you be better at managing/leading meetings in the virtual age?

Bob Frisch is the Founding Partner of the Strategic Offsites Group
Cary Greene is the Managing Partner of the Strategic Offsites Group

REFLECT
Executive coaches are gaining popularity with government organizations. What do you think of the author’s premise?

Ann Rindone, ACC
Ann is an ICF Associate Certified Coach and a former Vice-President of ICF Professional Coaches

THINK: 6 Reasons Your Strategy Isn’t Working
“During turbulent times, many organizational leaders default to a take-charge, authoritarian style of leadership. No time for questions or collaboration, the thinking goes. This is a crisis, and the goal is to take action ASAP.” Sound familiar? The author of this insightful examination of crisis leadership thinks there may be better ways to keep your team engaged.

Victoria Roos Olsson is a senior leadership consultant with FranklinCovey and author of Everyone Deserves a Great Manager: The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team.

LEAD: In Times of Anxiety, Lead With ‘We’ and ‘Us’
An erosion of trust in the leadership of organizations can be devastating to productivity, morale, and retention. In this article, the author puts forward a number of practices based on employee feedback surveys to keep this from happening.

Paola Cecchi Dimeglio (@hlspaola) is the chair of the Executive Leadership Research Initiative for Women and Minority Attorneys (ELRIWMA), a senior research fellow at the Center for the Legal Profession, and affiliated faculty in the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) of Harvard Kennedy School. She is the CEO and founder of the decision-making consulting firm People.Culture.Drive. Consulting Group.

Leonard Marcus is the founding co-director of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard. He is the co-author of You’re It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When it Matters Most (PublicAffairs, 2019).

ACT: How to Combat Virtual Meeting Fatigue
“The Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 and the Coronavirus pandemic globally in 2020-2021 have distinct parallels in how the two crises unfolded, nations responded, complex ad-hoc teams were created in response, and senior leaders must leverage different skills to navigate complexity of crisis response. This article uses the 2014 Ebola Outbreak as a backdrop to explore six best practices for getting extremely complex organizations with diverse cultures to focus, as an enterprise, on supporting teams at the tactical edge of crisis. These best practices are timeless and will assist business executives to lead equally complex teams through today’s Covid-19 crisis…and the next crisis after that.”

Major General (Ret.) Bryan Watson has over 34 years of military experience with 8 years working in multi-service and/or multi-national headquarters. As the Director of Operations in U.S. Africa Command in Germany, he managed over 14 major regional crises requiring extensive coordination with interagency and international partners prior to gaining approval by national leadership. He was the chief architect of the U.S. military assistance to the 2014 Ebola Crisis that halted the pandemic in 6 months

TRANSFORM: The Netflix Effect at Work? How Can Leaders Conquer Decision Paralysis?
What is the Netflix Effect and how does it bring decision making to slow grind? In facing increasing complexity, how can you, as a senior leader, avoid this type of decision paralysis?

Jason Wingard is Dean Emeritus and Professor of Human Capital Management at the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University, with an academic focus in the areas of leadership development, professional learning and human capital management.

REFLECT: 7 Ways to Find Meaning at Work
“Does your work have meaning to you? Is it ‘just a job?’” Read the article below to hear perspectives on how to transform your work from being a “job” into a “vocation.”

Uri Friedman is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and managing editor at the Atlantic Council.

THINK: Reasons Your Strategy Isn’t Working
“…To survive this pandemic, leaders must confront the reality of their competitive environment and the hidden barriers that make their organization ineffective. If your strategy is failing and you don’t know why, look for these hidden barriers in your organization…”

Michael Beer is the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School.

LEAD: Are You Leading Through the Crisis … or Managing the Response?
All crises require executives to both lead and manage effectively. But more often than not, leaders tend to focus their efforts on management, rather than leadership. This constant struggle between maintaining strategic focus versus being sucked into the tactical level of management is a constant topic of conversation among executives attending our programs. This article offers some recommendations — what do you think?

Eric J. McNulty is the associate director of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard. He is the co-author of You’re It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When it Matters Most (PublicAffairs, 2019).

Leonard Marcus is the founding co-director of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard. He is the co-author of You’re It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When it Matters Most (PublicAffairs, 2019).

ACT: How to Combat Virtual Meeting Fatigue
After working remotely for just over a year, most, if not all organizations, have realized that “screen fatigue” during remote meetings is a real thing. More than that, though, employees are reporting that the manner in which the meetings are conducted is a large contributing factor how the meetings are received. How can you plan and manage your remote meetings more efficiently/effectively?

Katie Kavanagh, Nicole Voss, and Liana Kreamer are doctoral students studying organizational science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Steven G. Rogelberg is the Chancellor’s Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the author of The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance (Oxford University Press, 2019).

TRANSFORM: Diversity and Inclusion Efforts That Really Work
A Stanford and Harvard professor convened a symposium on what’s actually working to improve diversity and inclusion in organizational life. In this article, David Pedulla summarizes the main findings.

David Pedulla is an associate professor of sociology at Stanford University.

REFLECT: How to Be a Visionary Leader and Still Have a Personal Life
“The demands of an executive role can wreak havoc on the self and on personal relationships. Without thoughtful planning, leaders can experience both physical and mental-health issues as a result of their work, and their relationships with loved ones can deteriorate. While there’s no easy way to make everyone happy all the time, leaders who think carefully about their goals, discuss them openly with their loved ones, invest in their own resilience, and check in with themselves and others regularly can help prevent the collateral damage that’s all too common at the top of the org chart.”

David Lancefield is a catalyst, strategist, and coach for leaders. He’s advised more than 35 CEOs, was a senior partner at Strategy&, and is a guest lecturer at London Business School.

THINK: 3 Ways to Motivate Your Team Through an Extended Crisis
When Covid 19 hit and we started to change our work habits, did anyone really think we would be working remotely almost a YEAR later? This article discusses leadership approaches to motivate your workforce through an extended crisis.

“Research shows that we are most energized and committed when we are internally motivated by our own values, sense of enjoyment, and growth — in short, internal motivation, not external structure, inspires us to be our best selves. The authors discuss how business leaders can use this approach to keep teams going in times of prolonged crisis, such as the continual uncertainty brought on by Covid-19. Using self-determination theory, or SDT, they outline three tactics to help leaders ignite employees’ internal motivation.”

Anne M. Brafford is a former law firm partner, a consultant to the legal profession on individual and organizational thriving, and a PhD candidate in positive organizational psychology from Claremont Graduate University. She is the author of Positive Professionals: Creating High-Performing Profitable Firms Through the Science of Engagement.

Richard M. Ryan is a psychologist and co-developer of Self-Determination Theory. He is a professor at Australian Catholic University, North Sydney, Australia and co-founder and chief scientist at Immersyve Inc.

LEAD: Leadership Revealed, Lessons Learned
The author of this article describes how he applied real world expertise from a variety of leadership positions as he became a CEO in the middle of the pandemic. Are his perspectives helpful/useful for you as well?

John Agwunobi is CEO and Chairman of Herbalife Nutrition, a premier global nutrition company that serves customers in 94 countries.

ACT: What Leaders Should Know About Managing Covid-19 Trauma
Your employees are shouldering the accumulated burden of months of emotional trauma and persistent anxiety. Here’s how, and why, you should help them.

“…amid the Covid-19 pandemic, workers aren’t dealing with a one-off spat or work problem. Instead, they are shouldering the accumulated burden of weeks of emotional trauma and persistent anxiety.”

Debrah Lee Charatan is the president and principal of BCB Property Management, a Manhattan real estate firm. She is also a co-founder for the Charatan Family Foundation and serves as a donor for a number of charitable organizations in New York City.

TRANSFORM: 5 Rules for Every Manager Leading Remotely
We have certainly experienced a change in work habits with the vast majority of companies moving to remote work—this is a major cultural shift in the federal sector, which has been traditionally resistant to telework. How can you better manage this remote environment to get the most from your teams?

Matt Martin, HR Expert Contributor, Co-Founder and CEO of Clockwise, an intelligent calendar assistant that frees up your time so you can focus on what matters. It uses AI to understand your work and life commitments and automatically organize your calendar to help you focus on your priorities.

REFLECT: A Framework for Leaders Facing Difficult Decisions
“Many traditional decision-making tools fall short when it comes to the complex, subjective decisions that today’s leaders face every day. In this piece, the author provides a simple framework to help guide leaders through these difficult decisions. By interrogating the ethics (what is viewed as acceptable in your organization or society), morals (your internal sense of right and wrong), and responsibilities associated with your specific role, you can begin to understand how different courses of action align with these different values and make informed decisions when they inevitably come into conflict. While there are no easy answers, proactively thinking about your decisions through these three distinct lenses — and recognizing where your past actions may have been inconsistent with these values — is the key to leading with integrity.”

Eric Pliner is the CEO of YSC Consulting.