What makes a good listener? Most people think is comes down to three components: not interrupting the speaker, following along with facial expressions, and being able to repeat back almost verbatim what the speaker has just said. According to research from Zenger and Folkman, however, we’re doing it all wrong. Instead of thinking of a good listener as a sponge —absorbing everything but providing little feedback — a skilled listener should be thought of as a trampoline who amplifies and supports a speaker’s thoughts by providing constructive feedback. Engaging in a two-way conversation is essential, according to data, and Zenger and Folkman define six levels of listening, all meant to help listeners develop this skill.

When people feel that their career progress is frustratingly slow or has sputtered out, they can become dangerously demoralized. Without a clear understanding of what constitutes a reasonable pace for advancement or why peers are outachieving them, they write off promising paths, downscale their ambitions, or quit altogether. But often these people are simply not giving themselves enough time to succeed. They need to cultivate “strategic patience.” What does that entail? Five things: doing research on what it realistically takes to achieve their goals; recognizing “raindrops,” or small wins that are early indicators of success; abandoning harmful social comparisons and instead leveraging their relationships in a positive way; appreciating how far they’ve come rather than continually moving the goalposts; and understanding that it’s OK for their career goals to shift as long as they keep moving in the right direction.

One oft-cited reason why more female executives don’t advance to top management jobs is their lack of access to informal organizational and industry networks. Some people blame unconscious bias: High-ranking men connect more easily with other men. Others cite professional and personal obligations, from office housekeeping to child-rearing, that disproportionately fall to women, leaving them less time to develop professional relationships.

What are the most common barriers to innovation in large companies? According to a survey of 270 corporate leaders in strategy, innovation, and research and development roles, they are: politics, turf wars, and a lack of alignment; cultural issues; inability to act on signals crucial to the future of the business; lack of budget; and lack of the right strategy or vision — in that order.

Job satisfaction is often directly related to the relationships we have with our bosses. But how can managers help their employees have satisfying work experiences? Start by managing individuals, not teams, which means personalizing your interactions with individuals and being accessible for one-on-one conversations. Next, go big on meaning: inspire your employees with a vision, set challenging goals, and pump up their confidence so they believe they can win. You should also focus on feedback, using regular – at least weekly – conversations to give lots of coaching. Amazing leaders don’t just talk, they listen. Instead of promoting your own views too strongly, ask questions to enlist your team in generating solutions to problems. Finally, be consistent in your management style, vision, expectations, feedback, and openness to new ideas. These five key practices require attentiveness. Put time into helping your team grow, and the pay-off will be worth it.

Management has long been associated with the five basic functions: planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. These default dimensions are sufficient when pursuing a fixed target in a stable landscape. But take away the stability of the landscape, and one needs to start thinking about the fluidity of the target. This is what’s happening today, and managers must move away from the friendly confines of these five tasks. To help organizations meet today’s challenges, managers must move from: directive to instructive, restrictive to expansive, exclusive to inclusive, repetitive to innovative, problem solving to challenging, and employer to entrepreneur.

Work invariably ebbs and flows, cycling between steady states, where we feel more in control of the pace and workload, and peak periods, where the work crunch hits us hard. Maintaining focus and managing energy levels become critical as tasks pile onto an already full load. When you’re in your next work crunch, there are a few things you can do to focus and manage your energy more productively. First, acknowledge that you’re experiencing a work crunch. Observe and label the emotions you’re feeling, such as “pressure” or “stress.” Don’t fall into a victim mentality. Bring greater vigilance to assessing your priorities, making tough trade-offs, and incorporating self-care where you can. Communicate with your colleagues and loved ones about the pressure you’re feeling. Consider how you can renegotiate deadlines, set tighter boundaries, or ask for more support during this time.

Why does luxury brand Balenciaga sell a $2,000 purse modeled after a $1 blue Ikea shopping bag?What’s behind the craze for seemingly distressed and worn-out Gucci sneakers? We tend to think of status symbols starting at the top tiers of society (among the glitterati and trend setters of high society) and then trickling down to the rest of society. But a new trend seems to contradict this pattern. Instead of adopting a new luxury product or embracing fresh high-end tastes, an increasing number of prestigious brands and celebrities are adopting lower-end fashions and items (e.g., duct-taped shoes, plastic shopping bags, street food). Intrigued by these puzzling examples,  we decided to adopt a signaling perspective (that is, to understand how consumers use products and brands to signal who they are) to try to make sense of this phenomenon. Instead of trickling-down, we propose that these peculiar status signals travel in a different direction, trickling-round...

Taking time for silence restores the nervous system, helps sustain energy, and conditions our minds to be more adaptive and responsive. For example, silence is associated with the development of new cells in the hippocampus, the key brain region associated with learning and memory. But cultivating silence isn’t just about getting respite from the distractions of office chatter or tweets.  Real sustained silence, the kind that facilitates clear and creative thinking, and quiets inner chatter as well as outer. Try going on a media fast, sitting silently for 2 minutes during the middle of your workday, or taking a long walk in the woods — with no phone. The world is getting louder, but silence is still accessible.

There’s nothing wrong with listing your definitive actions and quantifiable results on your resume — this is standard advice. The problem is, however, that you may not be telling an employer what they really need to know. Details are important, but what’s your story? By telling a story in your resume, employers will be able to see what you can do for them based on what you’ve been able to do in the past.

The difference between living a life of peace and productivity versus a life of stress and resentment could lie in one simple skill: Learning how to say no. Saying no makes the difference between a packed schedule and an open one, but it might also make you a little uncomfortable at first. Here’s how you can say no in three different areas: time commitments, tasks, and time frames. Do the math to see how much time a commitment would cost you. Do you have the time for that right now? If not, respond by thanking them for the invite and respectfully declining. Feel free to delegate the task to someone with more time or better expertise. Try stepping back from volunteering for a bit. Make sure to ask for reasonable time frames that gives you back your evenings and weekends. Communicate with confidence instead of being overly apologetic. By saying no, you are saying yes to giving time to what matters most.

As a manager, it’s human nature to want to hang on to the superstars in your group, department, or division. But ultimately, that’s detrimental to the organization and to the individuals involved. Multiple studies on talent mobility show that actively moving employees into different roles is one of the most underutilized, yet most effective, development and cultural enhancement techniques in companies today. In fact, research has shown that high-performance organizations are twice as likely to emphasize talent mobility versus low-performance companies. Building a culture of mobility is a trait of very healthy organizations, and the benefits are clear. Cross-functional collaboration increases, departmental cooperation is enhanced, innovation improves, and companies begin working more as one cohesive team instead of separate fiefdoms.

Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) make up 90% of businesses in Africa and many of them can be found in Africa’s large, offline marketplaces. Nigeria’s Alaba International Market — the largest electronic market in the country — houses 10,000 merchants alone. To ensure these businesses don’t get left behind and to accelerate digitization on the continent, startups, corporations, and policymakers should encourage digital solutions for consumers and business owners in these marketplaces.  Mobile phone transactions can help create a record of offline payments and informal savings systems, as well as help with inventory management and fulfillment systems. Studying the behavior of these customers and the MSMEs that serve them can make it possible to bridge the gaps that are keeping many offline.

When someone bothers or offends you, it’s natural to say, it’s no big deal and assume the other person had positive intent. But, often, that phrase is used to avoid conflict and is a sign that you should take action. Though speaking up can be difficult, it’s the only way the issue will really get resolved. The best course of action is to schedule a time to talk to the offending party or pull them aside in private. Let time pass, so you’re not emotionally charged. And treat it as an opportunity to gain more information. True inquiry is a respectful way of testing whether something actually is a big deal and is entirely consistent with the notion of assuming positive intent.

If we want less incompetent men in leadership roles, those responsible for judging candidates need to improve their ability to distinguish between confidence and competence. The good news is that, for some time now, we have had at our disposal scientifically valid assessments to predict and avoid managerial and leadership incompetence. There are systematic individual differences in how people present themselves, and these differences predict people’s leadership style and competence. When you are able to put thousands of leaders through the same self-report questionnaires, and you link their responses to their leadership style, performance, and effectiveness, you can identify the key patterns of self-presentation that characterize good and bad leaders. The bad news is that, despite the availability of such tools, very few organizations are using them.

When you’re in the middle of a conflict, it’s common to automatically enter into a “fight or flight” mentality. But it’s possible to interrupt this response and clear a path towards entering into a more productive discussion. Start by taking a deep breath and focusing on your body. Repeat a mantra to yourself such as “This isn’t about me,” “This will pass,” or “This is about the business.” And try to distance yourself from the negative emotion you’re feeling by labeling it: “He is so wrong about that and it’s making me mad becomes I’m having the thought that my coworker is wrong, and I’m feeling anger.” And don’t forget the value of taking a break. The more time you give yourself to process your emotions, the less intense they are likely to be.

Managing a defiant employee isn’t easy. To get the best from them, try three tactics. You might be able to adjust their job responsibilities to leverage their strengths. If they have deep technical expertise but lack management skills, for example, try putting them into a subject matter expert role. Some employees become oppositional when they feel insecure, especially if their role is changing. You might temporarily overlook their negative style while they adjust to their new circumstances and then work on stylistic problems once they’ve settled in and feel more familiar with the new expectations. Lastly, consider whether their resistance is appropriate. Perhaps they are pointing out process changes that need to be made or alerting you to problems no one else is willing to raise. Don’t outright dismiss negative behavior but also don’t let it go on too long. If none of these tactics work, it might be time for the person to move on.

It’s a fabled story about a janitor’s exchange with President Kennedy during the early days of NASA: “What do you do?” the president supposedly asked the man with a broom during a visit to Cape Canaveral. “Well, Mr. President, I’m helping to put a man on the moon.”

This meeting may not have actually taken place. But there’s a good reason it’s one of the most commonly-repeated management anecdotes: it illustrates the idea that a workforce motivated by a strong sense of higher purpose is essential to engagement. A survey by Calling Brands found that working for an organization with a clearly defined purpose is second only to pay and benefits in importance for employees, and ranks ahead of promotion opportunities, job responsibilities, and work culture. Two-thirds said a higher purpose would motivate them to go the extra mile in their jobs. A similar study by Net Impact showed that almost half of today’s workforce would take a 15% pay cut to work for an organization...

B players can be selfless and dedicated employees, but they often don’t get the attention from managers they deserve. To retain and motivate your B’s, get to know and appreciate them as the unique individuals they are. This is the first step to drawing out their hidden strengths and skills. Reassess job fit to make sure they’re in roles that draw on those strengths. Make sure you’re not overlooking someone’s talents because they’re quiet or reserved, or because they don’t fit your mental model of what a “leader” should look like. And give them permission to lead. While A players don’t wait for permission, B’s often do — but they can be just as effective once they know they have your support.

Every year around this time, there’s a burst of new sign-ups from workers seeking new skills. Unfortunately, the initial commitment to learning often fizzles out. Those who give up miss out on reported career benefits such as doing their current job more effectively or finding a new one. Four crucial habits can help you follow through on your intentions to develop in your career: (1) Focus on emerging skills needed for rapidly evolving job requirements. (2) Find a live course or a “synchronous cohort” of learners taking the same course at the same time — the camaraderie can serve as a huge motivator. (3) Implement learning immediately to increase “stickiness.” (4) Set a specific career goal and keep that front of mind as you learn.

The authors of "Burnout" might seem an unlikely pair to tackle the issue — they're twin sisters who work as a sex educator and a professor of music. But each has her own reason for being personally invested in the topic. Amelia Nagoski wrote a book about women's sexuality and found that the chapter on managing stress was by far the most popular. Emily Nagoski wound up in the hospital twice with stress-induced symptoms that she ignored for too long.

Burnout, the authors argue, is a problem that disproportionately affects women and that too many women feel is either their fault or something to just accept. They take an all-encompassing look at both the systemic causes of burnout among women and the best ways to challenge the influence of those forces.

One such cause is what they call "human giver syndrome," or the expectation that women should be in constant service to others, which many women have internalized to the point of drowning out their individual...

In the face of rapid, disruptive change, companies are realizing that managers can’t be expected to have all the answers and that command-and-control leadership is no longer viable. As a result, many firms are moving toward a coaching model in which managers facilitate problem solving and encourage employees’ development by asking questions and offering support and guidance rather than giving orders and making judgments.

The authors explain the merits of different types of coaching—directive, nondirective, and situational—and note that sometimes no coaching at all is appropriate. They describe how managers can use the four-step GROW model to become more skilled at listening, questioning, and drawing insights out of the people they supervise. The article concludes with recommendations for making coaching an organizational capacity—effecting a cultural transformation by articulating why coaching is valuable for the firm as well as individuals, ensuring that...

Conventional wisdom says it takes three to five years and tens of millions of dollars to digitize a corporation’s supply chain. However, a few companies have reaped major benefits—including higher revenue and customer retention—with a faster, cheaper approach. It involves assembling available data; using analytics to understand and predict customers’ and suppliers’ behavior and optimize inventory, production, and procurement; and adding automation to revamp or introduce processes. The transformation requires three main initiatives: replacing consensus forecasts with one unified view of demand, changing one-size-fits-all supply strategies to segmented ones, and creating a plan to continually balance supply and demand and manage deviations or disruptions.