CEOs and corporate leaders come from diverse backgrounds, with a broad range of childhood experiences. While some CEOs were raised in affluent families, with all the privileges and opportunities that such an upbringing offers, other CEOs had difficult childhoods marked by poverty and challenging family situations. A team of researchers studying the impact of different […]
Read More… from Are Working Class CEOs Less Worried about Employee Welfare?
Prior research has revealed a ‘glass cliff’ phenomenon: Companies in crisis situations are more likely to appoint women top managers than companies that are not in trouble. These disproportionate crisis appointments often set up women executives to fail. Some have argued that companies in crisis appoint women as top managers because of stereotypical beliefs by […]
Read More… from How Signaling Motives Send Women Managers Towards the “Glass Cliff”
The theory of evolution argues that survival depends on adaptation to the environment. Biological, psychological and behavioural characteristics in living things evolve or emerge in an ongoing battle to survive in a changing environment. Through the prism of evolution, leadership emerged because of the social needs of groups—that is, leadership is necessary for groups to […]
Read More… from Inspiring Hero or Humble Diplomat? The Core Functions of a Leader
Research has identified as non-productive the narcissistic tendencies of a leader, such as a grandiose sense of self-importance and need for constant admiration, that have a negative impact on the organization. In contrast, productive narcissistic tendencies, such as charm and the drive to push through adversity, can have a positive impact. A new study examines […]
Read More… from Narcissistic Leaders Negatively Impact Different Employees in Different Ways
In the language of psychology, individuals who are more afraid of missing opportunities than taking risks are considered promotion-focused. Their counterparts are individuals who are more afraid of taking risks than missing opportunities; these are prevention-focused individuals. A study of U.S CEOs and CFOs (the latter considered the second most influential executive in strategic decisions) […]
Read More… from Promotion-Focus CEOs and CFOs Drive Strategic Growth
New research demonstrates how leadership humility positively influences the performance of a group or organization. Specifically, the research, based on two laboratory studies and one field study, shows that leadership humility leads to collective humility on the part of the group he or she is leading, which in turn leads to a group focus on […]
Read More… from Leadership Humility Is Contagious-Resulting in High Performance
How does competitive pressure impact innovation? To answer this question, two researchers, Kenneth Younge of the E?cole polytechnique fe?de?rale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Tony Tong of the University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business, took advantage of a fortuitous series of court rulings in Delaware that eased the competitive pressure on firms incorporated in […]
Read More… from Less Competitive Pressure Leads to Less Innovation
A number of different incentives can potentially push leaders to make decisions that favour short-term returns over long-term value. To test whether such incentives actually have an impact on decision-making, a team of researchers used market reaction to new project announcements by CEOs. They compared differences in the market response to CEOs who had incentives […]
Read More… from Wrong Incentives Push CEO to Focus on the Short-term
New research into the personal history and decisions of division managers, CEOs and directors of nearly 360 S&P 1500 industrial conglomerates reveals the extent of the gender bias that exists in large corporations, and highlights some of the surprising origins of the bias. Specifically, the in-depth study led to the following findings: 1. CEOs are […]
Read More… from CEOs-Gender-biased Formative Years Has a Negative Economic Impact
In general, previous research shows a linear relationship between intelligence and perceived leadership effectiveness, with the line heading steadily northeast (the more intelligent, the higher your actual and perceived leadership capabilities). Intuitively, this would seem to make sense: you need smart people to make the right decisions, to resolve problems or even to gather and inspire […]
