Have you ever found yourself in the frustrating position of voicing suggestions that for some reason keep going unheard? You are not alone; even the most talented of executives often reach such a stage in their careers where they find themselves short of the power and influence needed to get things done. Such power deficits […]
Subject: Interpersonal Skills
Maximising Employee Performance
Based on interviews with more than 50 employees across 12 companies, as well as questionnaire data from more than 200 employees London Business School’s professor, Julian Birkinshaw, along with his fellow researchers, say that management should be about “seeing the world through the eyes of the employee.” In other words, it is a manager’s job […]
Ten Critical Skills for Tomorrow’s Workforce
The authors say that a qualitative shift is taking place in the ways we work. Their research is based of ongoing studies of the key forces driving change in society, combined with interviews, through which they explore the impact of these changes on workers and their careers. As such, they identify 10 skills they believe […]
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Status in the Team: Extraverts Vs Neurotics
When it comes to personalities and employment roles, extraverts have traditionally done well, as they tend to express confidence, dominance and enthusiasm easily – all traits typically associated with good-performing employees. After all, someone expressing anxiety, emotional volatility and an overall neurotic personality in comparison will hardly make a better employee, right? Not according to […]
Political Correctness Helps Expression in Mixed-Sex Teams
In January 2011, a football commentator found himself unceremoniously fired after he made a remark about the appearance of a female match official, and questioned whether another was capable of understanding the ‘offside rule.’ Many called his comments sexist and ‘prehistoric.’ However, there were also some people that suggested the commentator’s termination was a result […]
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Gender and the Use of Deception in Negotiation
To an extent, all negotiations involve a certain level of deception; participants almost always withhold information as a self-protective strategy. After all, revealing all of your cards may leave you vulnerable if your opponent takes advantage of your honesty. But are there any differences in the way male and female negotiators hold back information? Does […]
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The Value of Front Line Managers
CEOs are often put under the spotlight, with everything from how they spend their time to their leadership style closely scrutinized. But what about managers and supervisors lower down in organization hierarchies? These are the people that most employees directly work with, yet their ‘value’ is less discussed, which is surprising considering more often than […]
Advantages of Confidence and Dangers of Overconfidence
Executives cannot afford to ignore the dangers posed by acting overconfidently. Numerous examples in recent history can attest to this, from the inflation of the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, to the housing boom pre-2008. Fortunately, overconfidence is not a universal problem; it is only likely to be a problem in certain situations. Identifying […]
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Business Relationships: Test the Water or Take a Leap of Faith?
There are two basic types of exchanges employed by people when forming new relationships: incremental exchanges and constant exchanges. In the former, we ‘test the water’ and build relationships gradually through incremental steps of commitment; in the latter we take ‘leaps of faith’ in each other and relations gets off to a quick start. So […]
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Why Good Bosses Tune Into Their People
Leaders can have a ripple effect through their company, particularly those in the C-suite; their actions reverberate throughout the organization, with followers sometimes even mimicking them. The CEO of BAE Systems learnt this quickly as she noticed a dozen women in her office imitated the way she tied her scarf after her first day on […]