leadership Archives - GlobalFocus

The brief was as brave as it was wide: take 328 bankers of varying seniority from 20 African countries and help them unlock their untapped potential – as individuals not financiers – through a programme co-designed by two ostensibly rival business schools.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people comprise 3% of Australia’s population and continue to experience high levels of disadvantage. Indigenous men die on average eight years younger than non-Indigenous men. Youth suicide rates are four times higher than in non-Indigenous communities, and employment and literacy rates continue to remain lower than those of non-Indigenous Australians.

Johan Roos says we must learn how to make best use of the input of academics and scholars to recover from an unprecedented pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic is testing every thread in the fabric of humanity – our personal lives, families, jobs, communities, companies, nations and the entire world as we know it. What is…

We do not need to read journals or study research results to know that the world is changing rapidly. We just need to look around and see what is happening. Our lives are being transformed by technology, bringing with it some real benefits and many thorny problems. We are experiencing social change on a…

This is a test

We have arrived in the digital age but we forgot the human factor in our businesses and business schools. How come when we talk about the one thing that makes all the difference in our businesses we talk about mindsets, emotions, passion, identity, purpose? The human factors, as we say. And how come when…

We need to create productive organisations by genuinely empowering employees and allowing them the freedom to choose how they work. We have spent the last 200 years building ever-more complex organisations. We have built up multinational empires blindly assuming that economies of scale are justifying the mega-corporations. Exciting, innovative, organisations have been bought by…

Leadership challenge of talent management

The context of business is undergoing a radical rethink or at least a questioning of the fundamentals. In particular, the role of the leader is being challenged to be more inclusive and to add some form of social responsibility to an already tough job description. Talent management is a key area where leaders are…

Leadershift: Creating the innovation-ready organisation

There is perhaps no greater challenge for modern leaders than to protect their companies from the threats of the near-term future. Companies such as Woolworths, HMV, and Thomas Cook failed to meet the challenge of external threats. In contrast, companies building processes to import innovations developed outside of the organisation are maintaining their relevance…

Tomorrow's Leaders

Everything you always wanted to know about motivating the next generation but might have forgotten to ask. Are we listening to the needs and concerns of our talented professionals who will soon be tomorrow’s leaders? Seven young professionals talk about how they see leadership today, what needs to change and how they would do…

We are in a parlous state and we need a new cohort of leaders to regain people’s belief and faith in the system. Capitalism is believed to be the system that best provides the wealth necessary to lift the standard of living for all people. Yet in the developed world, it is far from…

Leaders of the future who underestimate the importance of “respect” as a central element of their culture do so at their peril. Leadership culture will be the biggest single influence on organisation performance and success. Without appreciation and respect for other people, leaders will struggle to be effective. Business leaders today face pressure for…

Building_new_ecosystems

Interest in ecosystems is back with a vengeance but, say Arnoud De Meyer and Peter J Williamson, setting them up and maintaining them is far from easy. We all know that the world in which businesses operate is changing fast. Agility and speed have become more important for an organisation than stability, predictability and…

The_paradoxical_age_of_me

Jordi Diaz explains why we love personalisation but fret about the technology that makes it possible. “Personalisation” has become one of the principal keys to corporate success in a world of increasing consumer power. In times when the companies that go furthest are those who offer existing and potential clients access to previously exclusive…

Agile_journey

– GOLD WINNER OF THE 2019 EXCELLENCE IN PRACTICE AWARDS – A partnership with purpose! Chola MS (Mitsui Sumitomo, JV), a joint venture that entered the insurance business in 2003 with a vision to be the most respected company providing general insurance in India, sought to provide a career for hi-potential branch managers to evolve into…

Accelerating_leadership_development_at_scale

– SILVER WINNER OF THE 2019 EXCELLENCE IN PRACTICE AWARDS – It’s a substantial undertaking to strengthen an entire global organisation’s performance culture. ING, a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation, can attest to this. In 2014, ING created its Think Forward Strategy under the leadership of CEO Ralph Hamers. The strategy communicates priorities to…

Purposeful_leadership_in_a_digital_world

– SILVER WINNER OF THE 2019 EXCELLENCE IN PRACTICE AWARDS – “The world is changing very fast,” says Olivier Blum, Chief Human Resources Officer of Schneider Electric. “We have to adapt the leadership and culture of the entire company to face this environment.” Such, in 2015, was the daunting challenge faced by Schneider, a global leader…

2_Techno-Humanism

At the EFMD Special Interest Group (SIG) “Innovation in Leadership” kick-off in March 2018, I called for our group to help innovate leadership in the context of rapid digital transformation and ambiguous globalisation. A year later, the SIG facilitators, Nigel Paine and Roger Delves, note that the challenges faced by the 12 companies involved…

3_Leadership_as_a_system

Economic prosperity and disruptive technology have long been intertwined in a generally positive – albeit tumultuous – relationship. Disruptive technologies such as the printing press, the steam-engine, and the transistor were catalysts in creating discontinuities that brought both economic growth and human strife during their respective eras. Each one permanently altered the playing field…

Discovery_journey

Nokia is a giant among technology companies. Long past its phase as the world’s largest producer of mobile phones, it is now a technology company delivering end-to-end networks for the 5G era. It enables digitalisation and automation as well as being a heavy part of the roll-out of IoT (the Internet of Things). It…