How to spot a bad leader from the beginning — and what to do next

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By Barbara Kellerman

 

We’ve all worked for bosses who could have been better — in some cases much better — but inexplicably they remain in charge. Barbara Kellerman has been studying that phenomenon for much of her career. A Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, Kellerman has written several books on bad leadership, exploring why it matters, how it’s changed in the digital age and what we can do when we don’t trust the people in charge of our companies or communities. Her latest book, “Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers,” is both a cautionary tale and a call to action. In the excerpt below, she details the early indicators of poor leadership — and why we are obligated to act when we see them.

—Audrey Goodson Kingo

Excerpt from, “Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers.”

When they take power, many leaders, probably most, assure their followers that things will get better. That their lives will somehow improve. After all, that’s how leaders get to be leaders in the first place. By persuading their followers that they have some sort of secret sauce that will enable them to provide what other leaders could not or would not.

What, then, distinguishes leaders who start out bad from leaders who start out good? Questions like these are impossible to answer with precision. We are talking humans, not widgets, and humans don’t lend themselves to criteria or measurements that are exact. But in general we can say that leaders who are good, as in both ethical and effective, tend from the get-go to be more reasonable and realistic than leaders who are bad, as in unethical, ineffective, or both. Good leaders avoid the spectacularly grandiose. They avoid the implication that they and they alone can save us from ourselves. Continue reading →

How to Manage a Cross-Functional Team

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by David Burkus

 

 

 

A couple years into your career, you’ll find a few different opportunities to step up and practice your leadership skills. Sometimes it will be preparing and running a team meeting. Other times it may be volunteering for a new task the team requires.

You may find that your first “real” leadership role is managing a newly formed, cross-functional team for a specific and short-term project. Today, cross-functional teams — those with people from different departments who have varied expertise — are becoming more common, as is the rise of project-based work arrangements.

The most common reason for assembling a cross-functional team is speed — speed of information, speed of innovation, or even just the speed required to complete the project. Traditional organizational designs create functional silos, and those silos slow down the flow of information and ideas. Cross-functional teams build bridges that connect once-distant parts of the business and, if done right, allow people to work together better and faster.

But cross-functional teams also face a number of challenges that must be overcome to get off to a great start. Sometimes there are territorial tensions, where members feel accountable to their original functions and are not open to others weighing in on their expertise. Sometimes people have different ways of working, which can make collaboration slower and more difficult. Sometimes teammates are working inside an incentive compensation system that only rewards individual, rather than collective, performance or weights performance in their “normal job” as more important than performance on this project.

While these barriers may be present, they don’t mean your project is doomed. There are a few key actions new leaders can take to get their cross-functional project off to a great start. Continue reading →

Love Your Job or Leave It? Maybe There’s Another Way

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by Winnie Jiang

 

 

 

 

 

In this INSEAD Knowledge podcast, Winnie Jiang, an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, explains how financial security, connections with colleagues and even the satisfaction of doing a good job can all contribute to a sense of purpose.

But what can we do if we feel our job lacks meaning? Jiang suggests taking a step back and reflecting on what’s causing this disconnect from your work and why it no longer feels fulfilling. Is it some shift at work, like an organisational restructuring or a change in leadership that has altered the nature of your work? Or is it something that has changed in yourself or your personal life? 

Once you understand what has brought about the loss of meaning, you can explore whether there are ways to bring the meaning back, for example, by moving to a different team. You may consider engaging in job crafting – such as adjusting tasks, choosing to work with certain colleagues or changing how you view the overall meaning of your work.

For instance, you can shift from viewing your work as a simple means to earn a paycheck to a job that makes your family proud, shows your children the value of hard work or creates a positive experience for others.

Importantly, Jiang emphasises that while passion and purpose can be cultivated in almost any role, you ultimately have control over your experience. You can either change your perspective and approach to a situation or, if necessary, remove yourself from it altogether.

How crises trigger career changes

Jiang’s ongoing research, conducted with Yuna Cho from the University of Hong Kong, suggests that crises can trigger a reevaluation of life’s meaning. This reflection often leads people to consider different ways of living, such as working less or more, or even changing careers entirely.

However, this search for meaning might not always translate into a long-term career shift. While some might finally pursue their dream jobs, many others simply crave a change. For instance, someone who previously valued work primarily for financial gain might now prioritise helping others.

Importantly, they found this shift in perspective to be temporary. Most people in their study returned to their pre-crisis views on work within three to four years.

Relatedly, Jiang’s recent research examines why some people find it difficult to move to a new role, while others seem to switch occupations with ease. The key is to recognise what gives your work meaning – such as particular tasks or the opportunity to build relationships with certain groups of people – and identify how those elements might be transferable to new roles.

Before making a career transition, it is helpful to reflect on what parts of your previous job you consider most meaningful, and whether and how your new role could provide that. The important thing is to have self-awareness and the courage to be honest with yourself about what truly matters to you.

Source: INSEAD

Employers worry training won’t keep pace with tech advancement

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By Carolyn Crist

 

The vast majority of business leaders responding to a recent survey said they’re concerned they can’t train employees quickly enough to keep up with AI and tech developments in the next three years.

 

A similar amount said AI and other tech disruptions will require companies to rethink skills, resources and new ways of doing work, according to an April 4 report by the World Employment Confederation.

“It is clear that advances in AI have the potential to transform the workplace at an unprecedented pace, yet the growing technical and soft skills gap is a critical hurdle businesses must overcome,” Jonas Prising, chairman and CEO of ManpowerGroup, a WEC member organization, said in a statement.

How CIOs are putting data in action
“While Gen AI will revolutionize many aspects of work, there are elements of jobs that are, and will remain, quintessentially human: collaboration, communication, creative problem solving, and empathy towards others,” Prising said. “Organizations must cultivate these uniquely human traits and invest in upskilling and their workforce to succeed in this new digital era.”

In a survey of 715 senior executives worldwide, including 680 from Forbes Global 2000 companies and 35 public sector organizations, 80% said it’s never been this difficult to plan for future talent requirements.

Overall, 92% of senior executives said they’ll need a more flexible workforce in the next two years. They pointed to several strategies to build this flexibility, including sectoral talent pools, a skill-based approach to hiring, online talent platforms, higher use of contingent workers, more internal flexibility through inter-department secondments or job rotations and talent from other countries.

Notably, employers are increasingly looking to contingent workers for in-demand skills and talent, with 79% saying that employing these workers with knowledge of AI and new technology is an effective way to spread understanding to employees.

Ultimately, AI literacy will be key for workforce transformation, according to a CompTIA report. To build this literacy, employers can offer learning and development opportunities such as short online programs about AI basics, targeted training for specific job roles and hands-on experiences across a company’s existing workflows.

About 90% of HR leaders believe that up to half of their workforce will need to be reskilled in the next five years due to AI shifts, according to a PeopleScout and Spotted Zebra report. Incremental reskilling and upskilling could help, with employers communicating what the future of AI looks like in the company, addressing fears and ensuring employees receive the skills they need to meet those changes.

As AI reshapes the workplace, career development and learning opportunities will drive business agility and innovation, according to a LinkedIn Learning report. Although several barriers continue to exist for L&D, such as budget, C-suite leaders appear to be listening and are more open to conversations due to skill gaps around AI and other tools.

Source: ciodive.com

A Simple Phrase for Getting Better Help

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by Ko Kuwabara, INSEAD; Yejin Park, Stern School of Business; and Kelly Nault, IE Business School

 

Making generalised, not personalised, help requests can improve the quality of help received.

Giving and receiving help are essential aspects of organisational life, whether that’s providing career advice or soliciting a colleague’s input on a tricky technical problem that you just can’t solve on your own. Through help exchange, individuals gain access to ideas, resources and relationships that help them complete tasks more efficiently and effectively than if working alone.

However, a growing body of research has documented various ways in which people routinely fail to seek or offer help due to systemic misperceptions – namely, discrepancies in what help requesters and requestees believe are expected from each other. Individuals could be reluctant to ask for help because they think they are bothering others or due to a fear of being perceived as needy, entitled or incompetent. People may also fail to provide their assistance as they believe that offering unsolicited help may come off as insulting or presumptuous.

In our research, recently published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, we examine why these misperceptions might prevent us from accessing and leveraging indirect ties who can potentially offer better help, ideas or opportunities than our direct contacts. We propose solutions to facilitate better help exchange across networks and overcome referral aversion – the fear of negative judgment for offering an unsolicited referral instead of direct help.

Referral aversion in third-party help exchange.

Continue reading →