Publications

29 Sep 2022
Op-Ed

Inclusive Leadership Advice: Get Comfortable With the Uncomfortable

disapproval takes the form of silence—“the death pause,” as Pixar’s Ed Catmull describes it. Improv comedy teaches us to keep an open mind, understanding that communication drives insight and that closed conversations generally fail.... View Details

Keywords: by Francesca Gino

10 Nov 2015
Op-Ed

Authentic Leadership Rediscovered

of one’s leadership, being rude and insensitive, refusing to change, or not adapting to one’s style to the situation. These arguments appear to demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of what constitutes an authentic leader.... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

10 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Top Scholars Say About Leadership

styles would be regarded as leader-like and other styles would not being regarded as leader-like. Leadership is also complex from an economic perspective because the consequences of leadership can't always... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

17 Jun 2011
HBS Case

KFC’s Explosive Growth in China

restaurant company in mainland China. The case describes how Yum! China succeeded and expanded by staying local on many levels. It keeps close ties to the Chinese government, hires local management, sources food from within the country, and changes the menu to suit... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Food & Beverage

18 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

Pulpit Bullies: Why Dominating Leaders Kill Teams

When Harvard Business School Associate Professor Francesca Gino invites high-powered business leaders to address her class, she often observes an interesting phenomenon. The guest speakers announce that they are just as interested in learning from the students as... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
Case

School of Rock: Tuning into Structured Empowerment (A)

By: Tatiana Sandino, Jeffrey Rayport, Samuel Grad and Stacy Straaberg

In summer 2021, School of Rock was a youth-oriented music education company with 291 franchise- and company-owned schools globally. Before CEO Rob Price’s hire in 2017, School of Rock’s nonconformist rock ‘n’ roll culture led to variability in teaching styles,... View Details

January 2004 (Revised June 2004)
Case

Friendly Fire

By: Scott A. Snook, Leslie J. Freeman, L. Jeffrey Norwalk and Bridget Gurtler

On April 14, 1994, two U.S. Air Force F-15 fighters accidentally shot down two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters over Northern Iraq, killing all 26 peacekeepers onboard. Describes the initial investigation and response to this accident and raises questions about the... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Style; Management Skills; Behavior; Spoken Communication; United States; Iraq

May 1992 (Revised August 1996)
Case

NIKE in Transition (A): The Ascendancy of Bob Woodell

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Explores Bob Woodell's tenure as Nike's first COO. Describes development of Woodell's management style, his attempts to develop the organization, and his responses to unforeseen business problems. Changing market forces, new competitors, a build-up of low-end... View Details

Keywords: Conferences; Crisis Management; Management Style; Marketing Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Evaluation; Competition

16 Mar 2023
Research & Ideas

Why Business Travel Still Matters in a Zoom World

languages and possess unique cultural norms around meeting styles would benefit from in-person meetings, whereas people who speak the same language and operate meetings similarly won’t realize the same benefit. Choudhury hopes business... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Air Transportation

23 Feb 2010
First Look

First Look: Feb. 23

submission reduces the probability of achieving top rank, it increases the community value of the submission. Code structures that are more nonconforming to commonly accepted programming conventions similarly increase the probability of... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 2010 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Sheikh Mohammed and the Making of 'Dubai, Inc.'

By: Anthony Mayo, Nitin Nohria, Umaimah Mendhro and Johnathan Cromwell

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has converted Dubai from a sleepy little coastal village into a world-class city, famous for its ambition, drive, and economic promise. He is the founder, part-owner, and visionary behind companies such as Emirates Airlines, a... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Leadership Style; Emerging Markets; Personal Development and Career; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Dubai

29 Oct 2019
Sharpening Your Skills

Robots in the Boardroom

Learning Teaches Us about CEO Leadership StyleResearchers turn to machine-learning technology to look for links between a CEO's communications style and company performance. Use Artificial Intelligence to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

11 May 2009
Research & Ideas

The IT Leader’s Hero Quest

relatively little about IT? A: Among a few key differences between the management styles of Jim Barton (trained as a general manager) and his predecessor Bill Davies (trained as an IT specialist), the most important is arguably in their... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

March 2017 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Facebook Fake News in the Post-Truth World

By: John R. Wells and Carole A. Winkler

In January 2017, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, was surrounded by controversy. The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States in November 2016 had triggered a national storm of protests, and many attributed Trump’s victory to... View Details

September 2013 (Revised August 2015)
Background Note

Leadership and Teaming

By: Ethan Bernstein

Small differences in the leadership of teams can have large consequences for the success of their efforts. Many initiatives fail not because of a fatal error in judgment or insufficient ideas, knowledge, motivation, or capabilities to deliver a solution. They fail... View Details