Continuous personal development is fundamental to career growth, professional satisfaction, and having a broader impact in the world. Yet, failure rates remain alarmingly high. It may be due to a lack of commitment or to choosing development areas that are overly corrective rather than focusing on strengths. A dangerously flawed assumption undergirds these explanations. They infer that an individual’s development happens…individually. Despite our common cultural notion of “se

Why does social intelligence emerge as the make-or-break leadership skill set? For one, leadership is the art of accomplishing goals through other people. As I’ve written with my colleague Richard Boyatzis, technical skills and self-mastery alone allow you to be an outstanding individual contributor. But to lead, you need an additional interpersonal skill set: you’ve got to listen, communicate, persuade, collaborate. Read this classic article, which dates back to 2011, but is

In a world where the average employee sends and receives 122 emails per day and attends an average of 62 meetings per month, your boss or HR leadership simply doesn’t have the time or bandwidth to properly think through how best to deploy your talents moving forward. Instead, we have to take control of our career planning to ensure we’re putting ourselves in position for long-term growth. Here are four ways to become more strategic about the process. Read more...

Companies deliver superior results when executives manage for long-term value creation and resist pressure from analysts and investors to focus excessively on meeting Wall Street’s quarterly earnings expectations. This has long seemed intuitively true to us. We’ve seen companies such as Unilever, AT&T, and Amazon succeed by sticking resolutely to a long-term view. And yet we have not had the comprehensive data needed to quantify the payoff from managing for the long term — un

Esther is a well-liked manager of a small team. Kind and respectful, she is sensitive to the needs of others. She is a problem solver; she tends to see setbacks as opportunities. She’s always engaged and is a source of calm to her colleagues. It’s strange, though — even with her positive outlook, Esther is starting to feel stuck in her career. She just hasn’t been able to demonstrate the kind of performance her company is looking for. So much for emotional intelligence, she’s

You know that colleague: the one who acts a certain way when your boss is in the room but sings a completely different tune when you’re alone. This can be especially frustrating when your boss is blind to this chameleon-like behavior and gives your colleague praise or even promotions. You may be tempted to call out the inconsistent behavior, but before you do anything, take the time to understand why the person behaves the way they do and what can you do about it. Read more..

I’m in a crunch. This is the month where many important projects and engagements from the year are culminating and converging, and boy am I feeling the pain! In my body, it feels like walls are closing in and blinders are forming alongside of my head. If you can identify with this scenario, you will be relieved to know that there are mechanisms to counter this feeling and keep your sanity. Read more...

Searching for the next generation of business leaders represents one of the biggest headaches for any organization. Most, in our experience, rely on development programs that rotate visible high fliers, emphasizing the importance of leadership attributes such as integrity, collaboration, a results-driven orientation, and customer-oriented behavior. Many, understandably, also look outside the organization. Far fewer, though, scan systematically for the hidden talent that often