Leadership

Three ways to stop feeling like a fraud.

Even in engineering, competence alone isn’t enough.

Even when it makes them uncomfortable.

Don’t be “all business.”

We’ve known for years that emotional intelligence improves results—often by an order of magnitude. Now, new research shows that a leader’s mood plays a key role in that dynamic—a discovery that should redefine what leaders do first and best.

Stop spreading the money around.

A memo to the cardinals applies to executives as well.

How decision making, communication, and dark-side tendencies vary.

They're all hard to improve because they run counter to our instincts.

When Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of Oracle, and his chief operating officer, Ray Lane, parted ways in 2000, the event inspired the kind of breathless reporting usually reserved for celebrity divorces. Forbes.com reporter David Einstein wondered in print, “Did Lane quit or was he fired?” and wished he had “a clue as to why […]

Fixing a learning imbalance.

Much has been written about the qualities that make a great manager, but most of the literature overlooks a fundamental question: What does a great manager...

Too many companies start seeing the future as a threat.

This article has benefited greatly from the assistance of many individuals and companies. The author gives special thanks to Jan Rivkin, the coauthor of a related paper. Substantial research contributions have been made by Nicolaj Siggelkow, Dawn Sylvester, and Lucia Marshall. Tarun Khanna, Roger Martin, and Anita McGahan have provided especially extensive comments.   I. […]

The real gender issue isn’t a lack of qualified women, but a surplus of unqualified men.

What leaders need to know to change orgs for the better.

When asked to define the ideal leader, many would emphasize traits such as intelligence, toughness, determination, and vision--the qualities traditionally...

From history to fiction, a reading list to guide your career.

What is the best way to motivate employees to do creative work? Help them take a step forward every day. In an analysis of knowledge workers' diaries,...

A team of researchers asked executives from 114 companies to describe the leadership style of their CEOs and the culture of their organizations. The responses...

A year's worth of management wisdom, all in one place. We've examined the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review...

How can you transform yourself from a good manager into an extraordinary leader? We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on...

Google's Project Oxygen started with a fundamental question raised by executives in the early 2000s: do managers matter? The topic generated a multi-year...

Provides an opportunity to examine leadership and entrepreneurship in the context of Ernest Shackleton's 1914 Antarctic expedition, a compelling story...

In his defining work on emotional intelligence, bestselling author Daniel Goleman found that it is twice as important as other competencies in determining...

Describes the events that transpired during the May 1996, Mount Everest tragedy. Examines the flawed decisions that climbing teams made before and during...

Wolfgang Keller, manager of the Ukrainian subsidiary of a German beer company, faces a managerial dilemma. His subordinate, Dmitri Brodsky, is a talented...

Performance reviews are a key component of employee development and a critical part of your job as a manager. It's an opportunity to assess performance,...

GE is faced with Jack Welch's impending retirement and whether anyone can sustain the blistering pace of change and growth characteristic of the Welch...

In 2014, Chiara Ferragni, a globe-trotting founder of the world's most popular fashion blog The Blonde Salad, had to decide how to best monetize her blog...

70% of all change initiatives fail. But the odds turn in your company's favor once you understand that change is a multi-stage process--not an event--and...

This specially priced nine-volume set provides practical advice, insights, and tools to help develop and mentor first-time managers, ensuring a successful...

At the end of 2014, Apple Inc. recorded the most profitable quarter of any firm in history, and its market capitalization soon topped $700 billion. 'Apple...

Starbucks Coffee Company: Transformation and Renewal analyzes the turnaround and reconstruction of Starbucks Coffee Company from 2008 to 2014 as led by...

The path to your own professional success starts with a critical look in the mirror. What you see there--your greatest strengths and deepest values--are...

Under Jack Rivkin's leadership, Shearson Lehman's research department rose from relative obscurity to the highest ranking research department on Wall...

How to Innovate and Execute. Leaders already know that innovation calls for a different set of activities, skills, methods, metrics, mind-sets, and leadership...

Sir Alex Ferguson, the most successful manager in British football history, is preparing for the 2012-2013 season-his record-setting twenty-sixth as manager...

Key topics include designing teams, managing teams, managing conflict, group dynamics, project management, product development, interdepartmental relations,...

Managing people is fraught with challenges: What really motivates people? How do you deal with problem employees? How can you build a team that is greater...