Lead From the Heart

It wasn’t all that long ago when tech giants like AOL, Yahoo and Blackberry seemed immortal. Today, of course, we remember them only as fallen giants – a fate Microsoft appeared to be headed toward less than a decade ago. That Microsoft was able to fully revive itself when other first-generation technology innovators couldn’t begs the big leadership questions : “What did they do differently – what...

It’s an irrefutable truth that trust is on a serious decline. And all the key pillars of society are affected. The RAND Corporation recently reported that trust in government, the media – even in our businesses and workplaces – “has reached a lower absolute level than ever before.” And they warned that such a lack of trust inherently undermines the way we operate in the world. Deep down we a...

Bill Campbell is a Silicon Valley legend. Following a career leading sales & marketing at Apple – & as CEO of Intuit – he spent nearly two decades coaching a “Who’s Who” list of world-changing executives. The list included Apple founder, Steve Jobs , Google founders, Sergei Brin and Larry Page . Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg , former Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo , former Goog...

Esther Wojcicki knows what it takes to raise successful children. Her daughter, Susan, is the CEO of YouTube. Janet is professor of Pediatrics at the UC San Francisco Medical School (and A Fulbright scholar). And Anne is co-founder & CEO of DNA testing company 23andMe. If any of us were to guess how Esther influenced all three of her daughters to become so high-achieving, the logical leap woul...

When researchers tell us employee engagement is especially low, they’re almost always referring to American businesses. But as distressing as engagement is in the United States, the truth is it’s far worse in Europe and the UK – a fact this podcast is dedicated to exploring. Just a few days before this interview with Dan Cable, professor of Organizational Behavior at the London Business School, th...

Pick up any business magazine today, and it won’t take you long to find an article that features the phrase, “ according to Gallup research.” And whether that article is about workplace management, the future of work or how to most effectively lead a team of millennials, the studies to which the author will be referring are almost always the work Dr. Jim Harter. For over 30 years, he’s led Gallup’...

Over a span of only a couple of decades, we’ve witnessed entire industries get wiped out by digital disruption – advances in technology that have decimated traditional business models while ushering in new & previously unimaginable ways of delivering the same service. Very often, the innovators had never been previously seen as being either a threat or a competitor – until it was far too late....

In their new best-selling book, “Nine Lies About Work,”   co-authors Marcus Buckingham ( “First Break All The Rules”)  & Cisco’s Director of Leadership, Ashley Goodall prove that many of the basic truths we’ve long believed about work are actually lies. As examples of our faulty assumptions, we believe the best people are well-rounded & that employees crave feedback. We think strategic pla...

Gallup research shows 75% of people quit their jobs in response to a bad manager. 65% of Americans say they’d rather change their boss than get a pay raise. Global surveys report a staggering 70% of employees aren’t engaged at work – and only 4% of these employees had anything nice to say about their bosses. The obvious conclusion from these facts is that most people across the world experie...

When we consider the future of our careers, most of us fully realize that the only way we can ensure our continued relevance & viability is by learning & growing. We know we have a need to get increasingly better at our existing jobs while, at the same time, preparing ourselves to do entirely new things.  And given the many challenges we already have on our plates, most of us feel oppresse...

Harvard Business School professor, Amy Edmondson, is one of the world’s top experts on building highly cohesive, cooperative and productive teams. And much of her expertise comes from her decades of research into  “Psychological Safety,”  recently confirmed by Google to be the single most important quality found in all super-achieving groups. Simply put, psychological safety means that people work...

We all know the primary reason companies go into business is to make money. But is it possible for organizations to thrive financially while also doing good in the world? USC Marshall School of Business Professor Emeritus, Jim O’Toole  spent ten years researching companies that were founded with the uncommon ambition of driving profits – while also caring about the well-being of employees, custome...

There’s a longstanding taboo against displaying emotions in the workplace – and it’s based on the idea that we make our best business decisions when we keep feelings and intuition out of the mix. But the time has come for us to directly question these longstanding beliefs about human effectiveness – and challenge the notion that any of us has ever really possessed the ability to shut down our emot...

If you’d invested $1,000 in Netflix stock just a dozen years ago, you’d have $90,000 today – quite an extraordinary return from a company that fearlessly took on the Goliath, Blockbuster Video, and won – and today has 137 million customers worldwide. It wasn’t all that long ago that Netflix was shipping out a million DVD envelopes per day to its customers. But in a deft display of risk-taking and...

With people living longer than ever – and therefore wanting to work longer – a big question many workplace leaders are asking themselves today is whether workers in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s can remain relevant in our rapidly changing digital world. If you have even a tinge of gray in your hair, you’ll be pleased to know that many companies are coming to realize that qualities that only come with...

Not since 1974 when Studs Terkel published his groundbreaking book, “Working,” has anyone performed a deep dive into the modern-day work experience. But with automation and digitalization poised to radically change our workplaces in the very near future – along with the jobs we all do – Boston University journalism professor, Ellen Rupell Shell spent the past eight years researching all the ways o...

HOW DOES A LEADER TAKE THEIR TEAM FROM GOOD TO GREAT? Georgetown University business school professor, Christine Porath says we won’t make that leap until we address the incivility that’s taken over our workplaces. In preparing for her recent TED Talk  that’s had nearly one million views  so far, Dr. Porath asked 20,000 employees around the world what they most wanted from their leaders today. The...

Is it possible that you have a pattern of behavior or a personality trait that greatly limits your effectiveness as a person and as a leader? Could you have an unconscious way of acting – particularly under stress – that unwittingly thwarts your dreams of moving up the ladder? If you consider yourself part of the human species, it’s almost guaranteed that you’re doing at least one thing that under...

More than anything else today, what people want from their employers & leaders is to be given a safe & respectful place in which to work. That’s the conclusion of new Pew research which shows 89% of American workers rank these needs highest. Yes, employees also expect their leaders to be honest, ethical – and to reward them fairly with pay & benefits. But their ultimate happiness, enga...

While we might consider the time in which we’re all living a more enlightened age, the word “heart” still carries a lot of negative associations when it comes to workplace leadership. Tied to traditional leadership wisdom, we cling to the belief that caring and supportive management is an inherently weak idea that cannot drive productivity – and so we go on leading in old & less effectiv...

Hear the word “rebel” & we immediately think of troublemakers & outcasts – people who end up with bad reputations for being non-conformists. But after a decade of studying rebels (especially rebel leaders), Harvard Business School Professor, Francesca Gino says we’ve got it all wrong. In her New York Times bestselling book, “Rebel Talent: Why It Pays To Break The Rules At Work & In Lif...

In 2012, Gallup made the startling announcement that employee engagement across the globe was in crisis.  We learned that only 30% of American workers were fully committed in their jobs – and the numbers were even worse in most other countries. So here we are six years later and we’re left to wonder: “Has engagement gotten any better?” “Did most organizations fully commit to creating more supporti...

If you have the chops to get accepted into an elite MBA Program at a school like Harvard, Wharton or Yale, you pretty much know that the next two years of your life will be devoted to mastering left-brain coursework – classes in analytics, statistics, accounting, economics, finance and the like. But a few years ago, top business schools like these started to reassess. Alarmed by rock-bottom employ...

Everyone has self-limiting behaviors, for the simple reason that we’re all human. But frequently, what holds women back from obtaining the next raise, promotion or job tends to be different from men. In their new bestseller, “ How Women Rise,”  legendary leadership coach, Marshall Goldsmith , and Sally Helgesen – the person Forbes Magazine  named the world’s top women’s leadership expe...

We’ve all worked for managers who sapped our talent, energy and commitment while always needing to be the smartest person in the room. And if we’ve been lucky, we’ve also worked for leaders who brought out the better angels of our nature – people who used their own intelligence to amplify the talents and capabilities of every person around them. So what’s the mindset difference between leaders who...