German Gen. Erwin Rommel earned a reputation during World War II as a brilliant field tactician whose aggressive strikes often dazed and confused larger enemy forces....
The Roman emperor Hadrian, who ruled just after 100 A.D., is a model for leaders to this day. Examples of his good governance: wisdom, tolerance, modesty, legacy.
Here’s something to consider when disciplining a supervisor or manager: She probably won’t be able to get away with blaming a subordinate for her own poor...
Managers and HR pros can’t empower employees, but they can create an environment that motivates them to want to act in an empowered way. Here is a 10-step model...
An Oscar-winning director whose films bring in billions, James Cameron is known for exacting top performances from talent. Among his rules for leading: Motivate with a...
Harry Truman didn’t go to college but educated himself through reading widely, from Plutarch and Shakespeare to Dickens and the Koran. His favorite author was Mark...
This recession seems to have an upside: Employees are behaving better. Don’t get too excited; the uptick in ethical behavior is probably temporary. Still, HR pros...
It’s a myth that good work makes a good career—rather, good office politics makes a good career, says career columnist Penelope Trunk. Here’s are four...
As a high school junior, future media magnate Ted Turner led the debate team to its first state championship in 30 years, and he did it by finding a unique angle ......
John S. Barry staked his entire claim on WD-40 and the motto of keeping it simple. When he took over his father-in-law's small company—$1 million in annual...
Legendary football coach Bill Walsh remembers that quarterbacks Joe Montana and Steve Young came to the San Francisco 49ers with supremely high expectations of...
While investigating the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986, physicist Richard Feynman pondered what had caused a disconnect between managers and leaders that...
The hallmark of a good leadership story? Inspiring, motivational, memorable and short—like, two minutes short. In the age of Twitter, people don’t have time...
Many leaders at larger companies fancy themselves too busy or important to do the messy work of managing, says Henry Mintzberg, management professor at McGill....
Insight is so central to invention that legend has Archimedes, who suddenly realized how to calculate density and volume, jumping from his bath and running naked through...
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...
Jim Steen looks like your absent-minded professor, losing track of his eyeglasses and forgetting to eat. He wears flip-flops to work. Appearances can be deceiving. Steen...
Surveys of U.S. workers consistently show that employees want more than a paycheck from their jobs—they want to feel safe, secure and appreciated at work. Here are...
Ford’s chief executive, Alan Mulally, was mocked in 2006 for gathering more than 400 bankers into a ballroom and asking them to mortgage the company’s assets...
While cleaning out his attic, a British business leader stumbled upon some notes on leadership from the ’50s. The notes were handed out at Eaton Hall near Chester,...
