Don’t come down too hard on your employees, but confronting the situation is important. Jim Turley, CEO of Ernst & Young, understands that managing people means talking to them personally when things go wrong, knowing that it does more harm than good to ignore flubs.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch entered the 1980s the same way as his competitors—as a publisher who understood publishing—but left that decade as a lover of business itself, reports columnist Michael Wolf. By contrast, the folks at Dow Jones ended the 1980s as they began it—as newspaper people. Stated this way, it’s easier to see how Murdoch helped destroy his competitors.

Wear your heart on your sleeve: Emphasize with customers’ deep-seated concerns by moving from passion to compassion in marketing ... Educate managers with faster, more specific training: The trend is to pick up tailored programs offered by consultancies ... Move beyond traditional risk-management to lead your company through faster times.

Kelly Slater is a world-class surfer with nine titles under his belt. He knows that obsessing on an outcome will only hinder his performance. “When you’re not worried about the outcome, that’s when you can discover things about yourself. You trust your gut,” he says.

It’s tough to admit that your plan isn’t working and hand the project to someone else. But don’t be afraid to delegate to skilled employees who think differently than you do. It can be the greatest sign of leadership to know when to step aside.

This month's collection of real-world quick tips from American business leaders, brought to you by members of The Alternative Board.

It’s not the end of the world, but to your employees, it feels like it could be. How you handle times of trouble for your company will decide whether or not your people come out unscathed.

These common slips-ups were formulated for salespeople, but they apply equally well to CEOs and other executives. For starters: Not seeing the world through your customers’ eyes—that’s most of the game right there ...

New research shows that people who feel powerful possess an illusion of personal control even over random events, suggests a London Business School study, in conjunction with Stanford and Northwestern. Here’s how it works:

Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, stood in front of his staff, knowing there was not much chance he could hang onto all 8,000 of them. He’d already briefed them in an e-mail about the dire situation. “I want to run an idea by you that I think is important,” Levy said. Then he asked for ideas on saving money. In the end, the center reduced layoffs from 600 to 150.

How to reverse a bad situation? Practice three-way respect: 1) Respect yourself. 2) Respect your colleague. 3) Respect the problem. Jack and Mike had been college buddies, and now Jack had inherited his dad’s manufacturing business. Feeling that the business had languished, Jack had some new ideas...

Let’s say you’re good enough to lead your team to success. On top of that, let’s say you’re lucky enough to be recognized for it. This is a case for humility and an opportunity to deflect praise with humor. Here’s how Pete Carril did it.

Health care CEOs know better than anyone what you’re supposed to do in stressful times: Eat right and exercise. But they also have a few other de-stressers to share. For example, when Jim Casanova, CEO of Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee, stresses out, he thinks of a refrigerator magnet he received that consists of a mirror and the words: “Control what you can.”

Jack Stack led an employee buyout of International Harvester’s remanufacturing division in 1982 and grew the company to 22 subsidiaries and sales of $150 million by 2000. He laid out his ideas in The Great Game of Business and A Stake in the Outcome, his manifestos for open-book management. Today we would call his career a drive for financial transparency.

Asked to look back over 30 years in the context of our tumultuous times, Jim Collins, author of the best-sellers Good to Great and Built to Last, offers these thoughts about where we find ourselves and how to proceed.

Serial innovation might be a good way to get ideas flowing again. Two strategies: 1. Cultivate ideas with an “Idea Factory” intranet site. 2. Test new ideas by partnering with other organizations.

A big management axiom is: “It’s not important for my employees to like me; they only need to respect me.” Not true, says management consultant Mike Winstanley. It’s fine—even important—for managers to be liked by their employees, he says. Four ways that managers can increase their “likability":

Misty May already was a volleyball legend in the early 1990s when Kerri Walsh, a high school rival, asked for her autograph. In 2001, the two became partners in beach volleyball and this past August were the first team in Olympic history to win back-to-back gold medals in the sport.

It’s an asset to take risks yourself, but a good leader is secure enough to encourage risk-taking among employees ... The Pathmark supermarket chain uses what employees call a “turtle award,” named from a saying that “a turtle only moves forward when it sticks its neck out.”

Innovation never rests, despite the down economy. Designing applications for mobile phones is the latest way to make money hand over fist. Consider the Bloomberg app, which tracks finances. Consider Mint and Wesabe, which track your finances. Consider Ocarina, which lets you play your phone like a flute.

Everyone in the financial world is stepping back and asking, “What am I supposed to be learning from this?” So says Scott Eblin, who interviewed financial-sector leaders in March for a senior executive client. The leaders had taken away four lessons ...

Prepare for media interviews by reviewing what the reporter has published or aired before. Ask the reporter for draft interview questions in advance. Most of all, know what you want to say and rehearse it. Follow these six tips to get the main idea you want to convey into an understandable story.

We look in mirrors every day. They give us a reflection of ourselves. But what about our inner selves—our attitudes and thoughts? How often do we look there? True leaders look inward every day and take stock of themselves. As simple as it sounds, it’s the step most overlooked by managers in their journey to becoming leaders ...

In 1970, the CEO of Tektronix, a firm based in Oregon and renowned for its measurement and monitoring technology, sat at a desk in the main workspace. When needing privacy, he and any other staff members could use a small, glass-windowed office in full view. His approachability helped the team click.

With employees fretting about layoffs, or reeling from recent workplace cuts, now’s a great time for team-building. You don’t need an expensive round of paintball to gain the benefits of team-building exercises. But you do need to squeeze the most out of them.