Developing deeper awareness of our own prejudices is often cited as the solution to racism. Recent research, however, suggests it’s just the first step. In a pilot study conducted at an American university, 75 per cent of white respondents acknowledged and were consciously aware of their own racial prejudices — and in a follow-up study, […]
Read More… from Conquering Racism by Taking Personal Responsibility
The greying of the post-war baby boom generation and increasing life expectancy are threatening the financial sustainability of pensions systems in many industrialized countries. European governments are responding by raising the mandatory retirement age. But this could be a short-sighted strategy. Recent research suggests that working for longer can have a negative effect on cognitive […]
Read More… from Delaying Retirement Can Be Bad for the Brain
‘Employee happiness’ has been getting a lot of attention in recent years. The evidence is there to show that it is directly-related to business performance; your happy employees are almost certainly going to be more productive than the unhappy ones. Similarly, there has been a lot of research highlighting the factors that can lead to […]
Read More… from How Prosocial Goals Promote Employee Happiness
The idea of character has been lost sight of. One reason could be that the educational system and organizations are completely competency focused, or perhaps because character seems an old-fashioned word. However, character is a vital part of leadership and it cannot be ignored. Character fundamentally shapes how we engage with the world around us, […]
Read More… from Character – The Unspoken Essence of Leadership
Only a small number of psychopaths become violent criminals. Others lead outwardly normal lives and appear integrated into society. Strongly attracted to money and power, these ‘psychopaths lite’ often seek careers in finance and business. (According to some estimates, approximately 3.9 per cent of corporate professionals have psychopathic tendencies, against approximately one percent of the […]
Read More… from Psychopaths in the C-Suite: How to Avoid Them
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 […]
Read More… from Ten Critical Skills for Tomorrow’s Workforce
How can leaders recognize and manage their psychological preferences and personality traits? This is the question the authors explore in this article. Interviewing over 2,000 international executives attending leadership programs at Duke University, London Business School and IMD, they identify the most common leadership pitfalls. The authors found that even the most successful executives have […]
In the past research has consistently demonstrated the importance of ‘dominance’ as a personality trait in influential leaders. Understanding this, the authors through their new research found that dominant individuals achieve influence because they tend to appear competent to others, even when they actually lack competence. Furthermore, dominant individuals behave in ways that make them […]
Read More… from How Dominant Personality Trumps Competence in Teams
In this paper, the author examines the possible bases for dysfunctional leadership, moving away from an emphasis on a leader’s performance and personality to focusing on the contextual features that can lead to success or failure. Even though the ‘romance of the leader-as-hero movement’ has been muted to some extent, the author says that the […]
Read More… from Dysfunctional Leadership: Context and Causes
Decision-making is at the heart of all leadership. Sometimes leaders make good decisions, but sometimes they make less good decisions. The authors set out to understand why bad decisions are made, and what causes them. They propose that in certain situations, the brain processes that normally get us to good decisions, lead us instead to […]
Read More… from Avoiding Bad Decisions: ‘Red Flags’ and Reflection
