Coercion and Attraction/Pursuasion | Joseph Nye By Joseph S. Nye Understanding of leadership is often limited by stereotypes about power, role and gender. In an information age where networks become more important, the soft power of attraction and persuasion becomes as important as the hard power of coercion and payment. The enormous potential of human leadership ranges from Attila the Hun to Mother Teresa, yet we often succumb to simple stereotypes about leadership and power. Smart generals today know how to lead with more than just the use of force. Many autocratic rulers – in Zimbabwe or Belarus, among others — still lead in the old fashion today. To continue reading, subscribe using the link on the homepage to our digital edition for £4.99 for three months or purchase one article for $1 per day.
Creating the Best Workplace on Earth Suppose you want to design the best company on earth to work for. What would it be like? For three years we’ve been investigating this question by asking hundreds of executives in surveys and in seminars all over the world to describe their ideal organization. This mission arose from our research into the relationship between authenticity and effective leadership. Simply put, people will not follow a leader they feel is inauthentic. But the executives we questioned made it clear that to be authentic, they needed to work for an authentic organization. What did they mean? We call this “the organization of your dreams.” These principles might all sound commonsensical. Yet, few, if any, organizations possess all six virtues. So the company of your dreams remains largely aspirational. Let People Be Themselves When companies try to accommodate differences, they too often confine themselves to traditional diversity categories—gender, race, age, ethnicity, and the like.
Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance The Idea in Brief What most influences your company’s bottom-line performance? The answer will surprise you—and make perfect sense: It’s a leader’s own mood. Executives’ emotional intelligence—their self-awareness, empathy, rapport with others—has clear links to their own performance. Emotional intelligence travels through an organization like electricity over telephone wires. Emotional leadership isn’t just putting on a game face every day. The Idea in Practice Strengthening Your Emotional Leadership Since few people have the guts to tell you the truth about your emotional impact, you must discover it on your own. 1. Example: Sofia, a senior manager, often micromanaged others to ensure work was done “right.” 2. 3. Juan, a marketing executive, was intimidating, impossible to please—a grouch. 4. Tom, an executive, wanted to learn how to coach rather than castigate struggling employees. 5. Managing one’s inner life is not easy, of course. No Way!
10 TED Talks That Will Change the Way You Communicate August 1st, 2012 By: Alvina Lopez Even the most eloquent of public and private speakers could always stand to tweak their communication skills just a little bit. After all, the ability to convey feelings and facts stands as essential to keeping the human species rolling along. Both the Internet and bookshelves sport advice a-go-go on how to get points across as clearly as possible, and the venerable open source lecture series TED does not disappoint in this regard. Elizabeth Lesser: Take "the Other" to lunch: If communications with people on opposite sides of political, cultural, religious and other common divides so often proves extremely problematic, try Elizabeth Lesser’s simple-but-effective approach. Joan Halifax’s Buddhism and extensive work providing care and comfort to dying individuals in various institutions offers her an intense glimpse at how small, compassionate gestures bring almost supernova levels of light to one person’s world.