Harvard Business Publishing

How to Help Gen Z Early-Career Professionals Navigate Their Careers

John Hall — Wed, 15 May 2024 08:30:31 +0000

IN BRIEF: Helping Gen Z workers find fulfillment at work to attract and retain this generation involves creating a positive company culture and taking a human-centered approach. Asking questions about how to best support Gen Z early-career professionals and encouraging them to define what success looks like to them are key. In the end, Gen Z workers should take responsibility for their personal and professional growth and understand that they are in the driver’s seat when it comes to managing their career. Who Are the Early-Career Professionals? Early career typically refers to the initial stage of a person’s professional journey […]

The post How to Help Gen Z Early-Career Professionals Navigate Their Careers appeared first on Harvard Business Publishing.

The Ladder of Inference: Building Self-Awareness to Be A Better Human-Centered Leader

Craig Dickerson — Thu, 09 May 2024 08:15:01 +0000

IN BRIEF: Human-centered leadership requires self-awareness, which can be difficult to teach. The Ladder of Inference provides a model for raising leaders’ self-awareness and has several additional practical applications. The Ladder of Inference supports leadership fitness by developing balance and flexibility. “Contrary to popular belief, studies have shown that people do not always learn from experience, that expertise does not help people root out false information, and that seeing ourselves as highly experienced can keep us from doing our homework, seeking disconfirming evidence, and questioning our assumptions.”[i] Boost Self-awareness with the Ladder of Inference A recent study by Harvard […]

The post The Ladder of Inference: Building Self-Awareness to Be A Better Human-Centered Leader appeared first on Harvard Business Publishing.

How to Develop Leadership Fitness in Your Organization

Diane Belcher — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 10:36:47 +0000

IN BRIEF: Research shows that the four dimensions of leadership fitness: Balance, Strength, Flexibility, and Endurance, can be cultivated over time. The learning cycle for leadership fitness development: Challenge Thinking, Develop Strategies, and Test Approaches, differs from traditional skill building. The importance of ongoing intentional development of leadership fitness at both individual and organizational levels, aiming for leaders to thrive in the dynamic landscape of modern leadership. In the previous post, we introduced you to the four dimensions of leadership fitness that were uncovered in our recent research—Balance, Strength, Flexibility and Endurance.[i] We referred to these dimensions as “capacities”—underlying qualities […]

The post How to Develop Leadership Fitness in Your Organization appeared first on Harvard Business Publishing.

How to Assess Leadership Skills for a Leadership Development Program

Deanna Foster — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 08:41:39 +0000

IN BRIEF: When designing a leadership development program, your audience should feel seen and heard in the assessment process. Their insights and feedback improve program relevance, engagement, and trust. Assessment isn’t just for learners. Examining the organizational capacity for change can help remove obstacles to individual success. Mid-program assessment during a pilot allows L&D teams to course correct and monitor the path to realizing goals and impact. Employers predict that 44% of workplace skills will be disrupted in the next five years, and the rapid rise of AI this year alone might make that a conservative estimate. What we know […]

The post How to Assess Leadership Skills for a Leadership Development Program appeared first on Harvard Business Publishing.

Leadership Fitness: Four Capacities Leaders Must Develop

Diane Belcher — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 12:08:42 +0000

IN BRIEF: The most significant barrier to human-centered leadership—and to effective leadership in general—is that leaders may lack certain underlying capacities required to operate in this new environment. We identified four capacities leaders must develop—what we call the four dimensions of Leadership Fitness: Balance, Strength, Flexibility, and Endurance. Each dimension has an aspect of seeing differently, making sense of what is happening all around, as well as leading differently, and taking purposeful action. Even those of us who don’t watch much (or any) college basketball have probably heard of Caitlin Clark. She recently broke the all-time NCAA basketball scoring record […]

The post Leadership Fitness: Four Capacities Leaders Must Develop appeared first on Harvard Business Publishing.

How to Define Impactful Leadership Development Goals

Gregg Kober — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 09:00:04 +0000

IN BRIEF: Choose one key business priority to drive your learning initiative and use it as a filter for determining targeted leadership development goals. For maximum impact, focus on a limited number of highly impactful behaviors and outcomes. Choose specific and measurable success indicators to track before, during, and after the program. When organizations come to Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning, they are usually in the process of transformation. They know that although transformation sounds lofty, its success is largely determined by day-to-day actions. A recent McKinsey study concurs: “Organizations with successful transformations are more likely than others to embed transformation […]

The post How to Define Impactful Leadership Development Goals appeared first on Harvard Business Publishing.

How to Create a Successful Leadership Development Program

Deanna Foster — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 09:38:12 +0000

IN BRIEF: Leadership development initiatives are most effective when they focus on performance outcomes that support a key business priority, like revenue increase. Leadership development program content and design should be tailored to different leadership levels for maximum relevance and engagement. Data should be collected before, during, and after the program to measure progress and optimize for impact. As organizations evolve in response to technological advancement, external events, and generational paradigm shifts, it can feel like the only constant for leaders is change. If so, there is no greater leadership asset than the drive to keep learning. And there […]

The post How to Create a Successful Leadership Development Program appeared first on Harvard Business Publishing.

The Case for Leadership Character

Diane Belcher — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 12:30:00 +0000

IN BRIEF: Research shows that organizations with leaders who achieve high character scores have an average return on assets five times higher than those with low character scores. Leadership character extends beyond just ethics and includes traits like compassion, willingness to serve others, and forgiveness. Character plays a significant role in decision making and performance, and it’s important for leaders at all levels, not just those in senior roles. When we think of leaders who possess character, we typically envision ethical behaviors such as telling the truth, standing up for what’s right, and treating others fairly. The notion of “ethics” […]

The post The Case for Leadership Character appeared first on Harvard Business Publishing.

The Vicious Cycle Preventing Your People from Adapting to Change—and How Human-Centered Leadership Can Help

Mark Marone, PhD — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 09:54:29 +0000

IN BRIEF: The stress and negative emotions people experience resulting from change initiatives and transformations create stress and burnout. By increasing employees’ confidence, sense of well-being, and resilience to stress, human-centered leadership has the potential to help people adapt more easily to ongoing change and disruption. Human-centered leadership means finding the right balance between leadership behaviors that may even seem contradictory and then effectively demonstrating those behaviors to making people feel valued, connected, and confident in their professional growth. Threat rigidity and the change-resistance cycle are the enemies of rapid transformation As a leader, it can sometimes feel that […]

The post The Vicious Cycle Preventing Your People from Adapting to Change—and How Human-Centered Leadership Can Help appeared first on Harvard Business Publishing.

Empathetic Leadership: How to Go Beyond Lip Service

Michelle Bonterre — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 15:54:49 +0000

IN BRIEF: Empathy in the Workplace: Empathy is recognized as a crucial element for building trust and supporting mental health in the workplace. However, research suggests that many leaders struggle to consistently display empathy toward their teams, indicating a need for improvement. Challenges in Demonstrating Empathy: While 78% of senior leaders acknowledge the importance of empathy, only 47% believe their companies are effectively practicing it. A gap exists between leaders’ perceptions of their empathy and employees’ experiences, highlighting an opportunity for leadership development. The Need for Action Beyond Empathy: Empathy alone is not sufficient for effective leadership. Leaders must take […]

The post Empathetic Leadership: How to Go Beyond Lip Service appeared first on Harvard Business Publishing.