Leaders & Managers
From the nitty gritty of daily management to addressing your aspirations of leadership, this section for leaders & managers tells you how to make strong leadership decisions, build effective teams, delegate and stay above the everyday management muddle.
Get tips, strategies, tool and advice on: performance reviews, preventing workplace violence, best-practices leadership, team building, leadership skills, people management and management training.
Unless you’ve spent time on the playground lately, or have kids of your own, you may know nothing about the latest schoolyard craze: Silly Bandz. The story of Robert Croak, the man behind them, holds lessons for entrepreneurs in search of the next big thing.
When Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang hired Terry Semel in 2001 to rescue his web portal, eyebrows arched. Semel had barely used a computer. What he had done was prove himself as a dealmaker and people person. Semel even claimed his lack of technical knowledge was good because it made him a “typical user.”
"Great leadership is not a solo act. It’s a group performance. You need to connect through the heart to lead effectively," says Robert Vanourek, chairman emeritus of the Vail Leadership Institute and co-author of Triple Crown Leadership.
In 1940, Britain was on the verge of surrender. Winston Churchill exhorted the public to stay the course. “It is in adversity that British qualities shine the brightest.”
After flying 61 combat missions in World War II and winning military honors, Robert McDermott didn’t bask in the glow of his military heroics. Instead, he helped build the Air Force Academy into a model of military education and then shifted to the private sector to become CEO of USAA.
Crocs, a global apparel and accessories company that began as a shoemaker, has grown quickly in recent years. Why? "We’ve become an $850 million global business by putting our customers first," says John McCarvel, president and chief executive.
When it comes time to writing performance evaluations, it’s best to stay away from broad generalizations about the employee’s work. Instead, provide concrete examples that support your stated performance rankings. Follow these guidelines for writing evaluations.
When The Wall Street Journal interviewed Denise Morrison in 2007, she was president of Campbell USA. Senior executives usually downplay their ambitions, but Morrison boldly told the reporter that she wanted to become CEO of a large corporation. In 2011, she became Campbell's CEO.
Born into a life of privilege in New York City in 1897, Margaret Rudkin learned to bake bread from her Irish grandmother. Marrying a broker, she began a life in high society. Then two calamities hit: the Depression and an accident that laid up her husband for months. Here's how Rudkin proved it's possible to bounce back from adversity to achieve success.
When Jeffrey Ashby, a former NASA space shuttle commander, learned in 2002 that he would lead a mission to the International Space Station, NASA had already picked his crew. To bond as a team, Ashby asked the crew to join him in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park for an 11-day trek, which paid off when they went into space.
