Joseph Plumeri, chairman and chief executive of insurance brokerage Willis Group Holdings, once was a command-and-control leader. “Being too exciting and too motivational is overbearing, and it turns people off,” he says. So he revamped his leadership style to focus on collaboration and debate.

It’s up to employers to determine which job functions are essential and which are not. When a disabled employee challenges an employer’s list of essential functions, courts generally won’t second-guess the employer if the list of functions passes muster against a few simple guidelines. When deciding whether job functions are essential, courts consider these factors:

Test your knowledge of recent trends in employment law, comp & benefits and other HR issues with our monthly mini-quiz ...

We’ve all heard the good news about the economy: that the recession is crawling to a resolution and things will slowly get back to normal. Most of the executives I know don’t believe it. Now that we have reduced our workforces, frozen salaries, eliminated bonuses and suspended 401(k) matches, the question remains: When the recovery does occur, is any of that going to change?