Abbey Lewis, Author at Harvard Business Publishing

Six Ways to Scale Corporate Leadership Development Quickly for Strategic Advantage

Abbey Lewis — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 08:10:14 +0000

IN BRIEF: Scaling corporate leadership development quickly is crucial due to rapid changes and challenges such as COVID and technological advancements. Effective scaling of corporate leadership development programs offers benefits including faster competency building, enhanced engagement, improved agility, and broader inclusivity. Six proven methods for optimizing corporate leadership development programs: small group learning at scale, personalization and learner choice, practice with feedback, adaptable solutions, combining synchronous and asynchronous learning, and facilitated debriefs. Scaling leadership development across the enterprise is vital to any company’s future success; scaling leadership development quickly is even more imperative. That’s because the pace of change […]

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New to Leadership? Here’s How to Address Loneliness

Abbey Lewis — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 14:00:13 +0000

The adage, “It’s lonely at the top” is often used to describe the isolation that accompanies being at the highest rank of a traditional organizational structure. And while it’s true that over 70% of new CEOs report feelings of loneliness,[i] they don’t have a lock on that human emotion. Leaders, of all levels, experience a sense of aloneness from time to time. And no group feels it more keenly than individual contributors who have been recently promoted to frontline leaders. Given that loneliness, if left unchecked, can have the same negative health impact as smoking 15 cigarettes a day,[ii] it’s […]

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Good Leadership? It All Starts With Trust.

Abbey Lewis — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 13:00:15 +0000

Trust is one of the most vital forms of capital a leader has today. Amid economic turbulence and global uncertainty, people are increasingly turning to their employers and business leaders as a source of truth, rather than their institutions and government officials, according to a new global survey by Harvard Business School’s Institute for the Study of Business in Global Society and the Edelman Trust Institute.[1] Trust, which can be defined as a belief in the abilities, integrity, and character of another person, is often thought of as something that personal relationships are built on, but according to recent […]

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Know – And Use – Your Organization’s Business Strategy

Abbey Lewis — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 14:00:03 +0000

One of the hallmarks of a successful organization is having a well thought out and clearly articulated business strategy that informs the day-to-day work of the entire organization. This doesn’t mean that everyone spends every waking hour thinking about strategy. Most of us have too many “got to get it done” tasks for that to happen. But throughout an organization, up and down the ranks, employees should understand what their company’s forward-looking focus is. And when they’re making decisions at the tactical level, they should be holding those decisions up to the light of strategy, and asking themselves how their […]

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Let’s Do Better: Supporting Employee Mental Health

Abbey Lewis — Tue, 04 Jan 2022 14:00:34 +0000

While we may not be explicitly aware of it, most of us “will experience a diagnosable mental health condition” at some point during our lives. As many as 80% of us, in fact. This figure was cited by Kelly Greenwood in “How to Talk About Your Mental Health,” a July 2021 Harvard Business Review digital article. Greenwood is the Founder and CEO of Mind Share Partners, a non-profit dedicated to changing corporate culture so that mental health challenges are out in the open, and not discounted, ignored, or hushed up. After all, mental health issues have an enormous impact on […]

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Agile Learners: The Foundation for an Organization That Thrives

Abbey Lewis — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 10:39:05 +0000

Organizations know they need to upskill their employees. Transformation efforts are continuing at a breakneck pace, even while workforces are adapting to the realities of hybrid work environments. The future of work demands new skills and employees who can adapt and pivot, as we saw in the Harvard Business Publishing and Degreed “How the Workforce Learns” 2019 report, where eight out of ten CEOs surveyed by PwC said skill shortages threaten their companies’ growth. But when it comes to addressing this trend, there is a readiness gap. To overcome those shortages, organizations must find ways to help their workforce acquire […]

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Coaching for Human Skills: Fresh Approaches from Top Learning Leaders

Abbey Lewis — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 13:52:10 +0000

Through our learning leader discussions at the Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning 2021 Partners’ Meeting—Learn, Lead, Illuminate—we identified 5 key human skills that are crucial for leaders if they are to succeed in a rapidly changing digital future. High on the list were empathy, communication, and trust-building skills. These all serve as a foundation for building deep connections at work with colleagues and customers, which ultimately translates to positive business outcomes. Our conversation with organization development leaders led to the trickier question: How do we develop human skills in the current and future digital age—and in a way that’s actually […]

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5 Key Human Skills to Thrive in the Future Digital Workplace

Abbey Lewis — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 16:06:56 +0000

We often hear that human skills (or soft skills) are important to create thriving and high-performing teams. But the changing nature of work—with fully remote to hybrid arrangements—makes these skills even more crucial to develop now. What exactly are human skills? Sometimes known as “soft skills,” they constitute our ability to relate to one another and refer to aspects such as empathy, compassion, and authenticity. People with strong human skills can form deeper connections with colleagues and customers. This ultimately serves as a strong foundation for positive workplace performance in terms of innovation, adaptive thinking, collaboration, and more. This surfaced […]

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Digital Intelligence Series Part Five: Acting on Digital Opportunities

Abbey Lewis — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 15:15:24 +0000

For today’s leaders, Digital Intelligence is simply a requirement. No matter which industry you are in, technology is continually reshaping it. A critical part of building Digital Intelligence is adopting a digital mindset that opens one up to the opportunities new tools and technologies can offer. Leaders must also foster a digital culture in their teams, ensuring that team members are continually upgrading their capabilities. The ability to draw insights from data is another key dimension of Digital Intelligence. Armed with these capabilities leaders and their teams are empowered to act on digital opportunities to improve processes and accomplish more […]

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Digital Intelligence Series Part Two: Adopting a Digital Mindset

Abbey Lewis — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 15:00:36 +0000

In an article published last spring by the Harvard Business Review, Becky Frankiewicz and Tomas Charmorro-Premuzic argued that, “Contrary to popular belief, digital transformation is less about technology and more about people.” Technology matters—It’s what’s enabling the profound changes that we’ve seen over the last several decades in the ways we live and work. It’s technology that will continue to evolve, and continue to support change. But it’s people who’ll be leading the charge. And these people will need to be Digitally Intelligent. Digital Intelligence is not about becoming an expert in all things digital. Rather, it means having a […]

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