4 Top Lessons In Leadership From John Sculley

By Jack Zenger

The success of Apple is often attributed to Steve Jobs, and clearly he deserves much credit. But it was another CEO, John Sculley, who took Apple from a million dollars to a billion in revenue.

I recently had the privilege of speaking with John Sculley for a podcast series we produce. Our conversation was a vivid reminder that Sculley is a gifted marketer who truly understands how to focus on customers’ needs. From his vast experience running some of the world’s successful companies, I would like to highlight a few of the leadership lessons he gained from his distinguished career and which he describes in his new book Moonshot. Sculley has profound advice for those just beginning their careers and equally insightful wisdom for those of us at the opposite point in the age spectrum. Continue reading

Global Service Delivery Director


Position Objective:

The successful candidate will have responsibility for managing the delivery of services to maximize contribution to the success of major global clients. Services include Credit, AR and Collections management, Cash Applications, Billing, and back office finance processing and customer services.

You will have considerable and proven operational management skills and also possess the stature to effectively represent the business to clients, and a flexibility of approach to respond to changing demands across the business.  You will drive and work collaboratively with colleagues across sites to achieve organizational and client goals. Continue reading

A First-Time Manager’s Guide to Leading Virtual Teams

by Mark Mortensen

In the past, new managers often had the luxury of cutting their teeth on traditional collocated teams: groups of people, sitting down the hall from one another, who met up in conference rooms to hash out what they were trying to achieve and how to get there. Unfortunately, today’s increasingly global work environment does not always afford that luxury. Many first-time managers find themselves assigned to a team of subordinates scattered far and wide.

Managing a distributed team can feel overwhelming as it requires you to navigate many different types of distance: geographic, temporal, cultural, linguistic, and configurational (the relative number of members in each location). Every one of these dimensions affects team dynamics and, therefore, has an impact on effectiveness and performance as well. Daunting as that may seem, there is good news in the form of a large and ever-increasing body of research and best practices on how to increase your odds of success. But first, it’s important to understand which aspects of team dynamics are, and are not, affected by distance. Continue reading

3 Things Managers Should Be Doing Every Day

by Linda A. Hill and Kent Lineback

“When are we supposed to do all that?” That’s the question we constantly get from new managers, only weeks or months into their new positions, when we describe the three key activities they should be focusing on to be successful as leaders: building trust, building a team, and building a broader network. To their dismay, most of them have found they rarely end a day in their new positions having done what they planned to do. They spend most of their time solving unexpected problems and making sure their groups do their work on time, on budget, and up to standard. They feel desperately out of control because what’s urgent–the daily work–always seems to highjack what’s important–their ongoing work as managers and leaders. Continue reading

7 Things That Make Great Bosses Unforgettable

by Travis Bradberry

Some bosses are harder to forget than others. While bosses can be unforgettable because they make life miserable, the most memorable bosses stick with us because they change us for the better.

When I ask audiences to describe the best and worst boss they ever worked for, people inevitably ignore innate characteristics (intelligence, extraversion, attractiveness, and so on) and instead focus on qualities that are completely under the boss’s control, such as passion, insight, and honesty. Continue reading