In most hierarchies, power is malleable, which means that it can change. A leader at the top can lose his or her power, and be replaced by subordinates who have, usually through their superior skills and accomplishments, managed to rise through the hierarchy. One of the characteristics of highly skilled subordinates is their ability to […]
Subject: Leadership
How Early Work Experience Shapes Later Leadership Outlook
Employees just joining the workforce will have different experiences in their first jobs, depending on the economic situation of the firm in which they land. This economic situation makes a major difference in the skills, habits and routines that these first-time employees develop. For example, new workers who arrive during good economic times will have […]
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Facial Cues: Can We Judge Who Looks Like a Leader?
A number of academic studies have shown that because many of us form impressions about potential leaders from their facial characteristics, certain facial characteristics (for example, a ‘competent’ look) can help people achieve leadership positions. At least six different studies show that CEOs who share certain facial characteristics command higher salaries or are hired by […]
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Younger Generations Determined but Concerned about Leadership
As the younger generation of employees move into their first leadership positions, they will naturally be anxious, as any new leader would be, about the responsibilities, pressures, and risks that come with leadership. They will wonder, as the earlier generations of leaders did before them, about whether they are up to the task. And as […]
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How Neuroscience Can Aid Collaborative Leadership
The SCARF® model, developed by neuroscientist David Rock, enables ‘change agents’ to exhibit more adaptive behaviours based on how mental experiences occur over time, thus offering to improve people’s capacity to understand and modify their own behaviour and that of others within a corporate leadership context. SCARF holds that the organizing principle of the brain […]
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Using Values-Based Leadership to Drive Performance
Richard Barrett’s Seven Levels of Consciousness model, founded on the principles of values-based leadership, is a guide to achieving exceptional performance in organizations. Barrett’s framework based on his extensive research across organizations and increasingly whole countries is an extension of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a well-explored, but frequently misrepresented, theory […]
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How Leaders Emerge in Online Communities
Online communities can be the source of staggering feats of pooled knowledge creation, with volunteers from around the world combining their expertise. Think of Wikipedia, or of Linux, or even the online community helping NASA to map craters on Mars. “Open-source software development creates products that are as good (some say, even better) as those […]
What Boards Think of CEOs
CEOs tend to be strong in decision-making and the financial elements of their jobs, but weak when it comes to managing their people and developing talent, according to a survey of 160 North American boards of directors and CEOs. Specifically, ‘mentoring skills’ was tied with ‘board engagement’ for first place in CEO weaknesses, followed closely […]
Hierarchical or Egalitarian Organizations? The Advantages of Hierarchy
Hierarchies have been taking a bad rap. The mantra for a number of years has been to ‘flatten’ the organizations. Hierarchies were not only seen as inefficient, but worse: as a mechanism for the out-dated belief that leaders must ‘control from the top down’. In place of hierarchies, flat organization advocates argued for a more […]
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What is the Psychology Behind Resistance to Change?
Why are some people more open to change and others instinctively resistant to anything that significantly alters the status quo? The key is often in an individual’s basic attitude toward change. Some people will default to an unfavourable, negative attitude toward change that leads to resistance, while others have within them a favourable positive attitude […]
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