In my role as a professor at the Brandeis International Business School, I teach a course each fall about acting outside your comfort zone. Each student in the class chooses a behavior outside their comfort zone to work on. For some, it’s public speaking; for others, it’s networking, making small talk with strangers, or being assertive. Students have to go to actual networking events or give speeches in front of real audiences. After the fact, they compile a diary about their experiences, and we discuss and debrief as a class.

As you can imagine, it’s a pretty terrifying experience for most of them. One of my students, an Indian MBA learning to make small talk with strangers, described it like this: “The nervousness, anxiety, thumping heartbeats, and panic attacks I got before the event were similar to if someone asked me to walk on a tightrope.” She’s not alone. For many of my students it’s terrifying to step outside their comfort zones in these...

Henrik Bunge, the CEO and self-titled “Head Coach” of the Swedish sports fashion company Björn Borg, has a unique approach to leadership: he’s built his business like a gym. In fitness, there is a straightforward relationship between the effort you put in and the results you achieve. He aims to replicate this in the office. His employees are required to participate in weekly fitness activities, and they also take many lessons from sports culture and adapt them to office work. In this piece, the authors discuss whether CEOs like Bunge are really onto something in thinking that lessons from the gym can be seamlessly transferred into their companies — or if this leap is a mere fantasy.

You hear a lot of advice about how to reduce stress at work. But most of it is about what to do over the long term — take up yoga, eat a healthy diet, keep a journal, or get more sleep. But what do you do when you’re overcome with stress in the moment — at your desk, say, or in a meeting? Perhaps you’ve heard bad news from a client or were assigned yet another project. How can you regain control?

What the Experts Say Eighty percent of Americans are stressed at work, according to a recent study by Nielsen for Everest College. Low pay, unreasonable workloads, and hectic commutes were the top sources of tension, followed closely by obnoxious coworkers. What exacerbates the problem is that “people walk into work already laden with stress,” says Maria Gonzalez, the founder and president of Argonauta Strategic Alliances Consulting and the author of Mindful Leadership. “If there is a hardship at home, you bring that to the office and it gets...

We overcommit ourselves because it’s easier in the moment to say yes instead of no. But then we feel overwhelmed — and so at the last minute, we decide to cancel. It feels like no big deal. After all, everyone does it, and it’s easy to send a text or an email asking to reschedule. But what is actually happening here is that we’re being untrustworthy. Instead of giving in to the urge to cancel, push on. When you meet your commitments, you build trust, gain confidence — look, you really can do it! — and grow the kind of backbone needed to say no when you truly can’t take something on.

Disagreements are an inevitable, normal, and healthy part of relating to other people. There is no such thing as a conflict-free work environment. And you shouldn’t want to work in one. Disagreements – when managed well – have lots of positive outcomes, such as better work products, opportunities to learn and grow, better relationships, and a more inclusive work environment. To reap these benefits, you have to get over any fear you have of conflict. Start by letting go of wanting to be liked. Instead of trying to increase your likability, focus on respect, both giving it and earning it. Don’t think of disagreement as unkind. Most people are willing to hear a different perspective if you share it respectfully. You might also try to emulate someone who is comfortable with conflict. If you’re not yet good at dealing with tense conversations, try on the persona of someone who is. Whichever tactic you decide to try, practice in small doses. Be direct in a low-stakes...

Stress comes to us all in tiny little assaults throughout our day — what we call “micro-stresses” — for example, the frustration of a colleague missing the mark on a joint project, or the emotional toll of a trusted work colleague moving on. These micro-stresses come at us all day long, through relationships and interactions that are too numerous and high velocity to easily shake off.  The problem is that most of us have come to accept micro-stresses as just a normal part of a day. We hardly acknowledge them, but cumulatively they are wearing us down. And what’s worse is that the sources of these micro-stresses are often the people — in and out of work — with whom we are closest. We don’t have to accept micro-stresses as destiny. This article discusses the tools we need to mitigate these stresses in our lives. Stress patterns are often predictable, and if we see them for what they are, we can build the support network, mindset, and constructive responses that we...

If you’re thinking about quitting your job, first do a quick analysis. Is the organization you work for the source of your concern? Then, you might look for a similar job with another employer. Is the job the problem? Then, you should consider making a move within your company before you decide to leave. And, finally, are you prepared to make your next move? Build your personal career assets to position your career for the future.

While it’s uncomfortable to resign without another opportunity lined up, there are two times when it’s important to just let go: 1) When you believe something illegal or unethical is going on at work and you are concerned it will reflect badly on you, and 2) When your current job is negatively affecting your health and your life outside of work. Before you quit, however, you should put together a plan that includes when and how you are going to resign, whom you are going to use as references, and, most importantly, what you are going to say about why you are resigning.

Even the most confident speakers find ways to distance themselves from their audience. It’s how our brains are programmed, so how can we overcome it? Human generosity. The key to calming the amygdala and disarming our panic button is to turn the focus away from ourselves — away from whether we will mess up or whether the audience will like us — and toward helping the audience. Showing kindness and generosity to others has been shown to activate the vagus nerve, which has the power to calm the fight-or-flight response. When we are kind to others, we tend to feel calmer and less stressed. The same principle applies in speaking. When we approach speaking with a spirit of generosity, we counteract the sensation of being under attack and we feel less nervous.

Although experts recommend eight hours of sleep a night, many of us don’t get that. A recent study of leaders across the world found that 42% average six hours of shut-eye or less.

Insufficient rest leads to poor judgment, lack of self-control, and impaired creativity. And the author’s research shows that sleep-deprived bosses hurt their teams along with themselves: They are more likely to mistreat employees and create a workplace where people feel less engaged and may even behave less ethically.

Fortunately, there are ways to get more and better rest. These include sticking to a regular bedtime and wake-up time; avoiding caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and screen time before bed; tracking your sleep patterns and adjusting your habits accordingly; getting treatment for sleep disorders; and napping during the workday. If you make sleep a priority, you’ll probably be a more productive—and inspiring—leader.

People don’t quit a job, the saying goes — they quit a boss. But that’s not what Facebook found in a recent engagement survey. When the company wanted to keep people and they left anyway, it was because they didn’t like the work, their strengths were underused, or they weren’t growing in their careers. So people at Facebook do quit a job. But who’s responsible for what that job is like? Managers. If you want to keep your people — especially your stars — customize their experiences in three ways. First, craft roles that they’ll enjoy. This can involve hiring impressive candidates and then writing their job descriptions, for instance, or rotating current employees out of roles where they’re excelling but not feeling motivated. Second, allow them to draw on a wider range of their skills and passions. And third, minimize work-life trade-offs by carving a path for career development that accommodates their personal priorities.

While many organizations talk the talk of sustainability — doing things like integrating environmental and societal concerns into their business models — very few walk the walk. Unsurprisingly, carbon emissions by the world’s largest companies are increasing, and only one-third of the 600 largest companies in the U.S. have any systematic sustainability oversight at the board level. Based on interviews with CEOs and other executives, companies that are winning the sustainability battle have created the conditions for their stakeholders to own sustainability. In these companies, sustainability is not someone else’s problem. A three-phase model of incubation, launching, and entrenching can help companies move beyond rhetoric and take ownership of sustainability.

When we equate work we love with “not really working,” it propagates a belief that if we love it so much, we should do more of it — all of the time, actually. But this mentality leads to burnout, and the impact on our mental health can be profound. Recently, the concept of burnout was legitimized when The World Health Organization (WHO) included it in its International Classification of Diseases, which should increase the number of healthcare providers and insurers who acknowledge, treat, and cover the symptoms. Mission-driven executives, non-profit employees, teachers/principals, nurses, and physicians are some of the people most at-risk for burnout. So, what can leaders do to prevent it in their own organizations? Teach people that setting healthy boundaries is OK. It’s not selfish. It’s actually selfless. It allows you to be more effective at what you do, and to better help those you wish to help.

Sigmund Freud is often quoted saying, a century ago, that to live a good life we need to be able to love and work. These days, it seems, we must be able to love to work. We no longer want just respect, security, or money from our jobs. We want passion, fulfillment, and surprise too. We want, in a word, romance. But what do you do when the romance has cooled? If it’s time to leave a job you’ve loved, think about what you need to let go of, and what you cannot leave behind. Then make sure you mourn the former, and take the latter with you. And as you go, let your job teach you one last thing: to savor loss. You will need it again. In the mobile workplace of our day and age, being able to move on is as important as being able to commit. It’s not enough to be able to love our jobs, then. We must also learn to leave them. And if loving well is hard, leaving well is harder still.

When employees share novel ideas and bring up concerns or problems, organizations innovate and perform better. But managers do not always promote employees’ ideas. In fact, they can even actively disregard employee concerns and act in ways that discourage employees from speaking up at all. While much current research suggests that managers are frequently stuck in their own ways of working and identify so strongly with the status quo that they are fearful of listening to contrary input from below, new research offers an alternative perspective: managers fail to create speak-up cultures not because they are self-focused or egotistical, but because their organizations put them in impossible positions. They face two distinct hurdles: They are not empowered to act on input from below, and they feel compelled to adopt a short-term outlook to work.

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The researchers explored how organizations decide to invest in different innovations by studying a large professional service firm with offices in 37 countries. They analyzed all of the R&D project proposals submitted by its staff, including information about which projects received funding, and found that managers don’t always carefully weigh the pros and cons of each project and that biases can creep into the decision-making process. They found that there is a sweet spot of novelty that makes R&D committees more likely to fund a project, and that certain characteristics of the R&D selection committee can also influence funding decisions.

Mentorship can be life changing. Staying in the driver’s seat and being proactive about your relationship with your mentor is key to its success. These simple principles will help develop strong mentoring relationships, no matter where you are in your career.

Imagine that you’re looking at your company-issued smartphone and you notice an e-mail from LinkedIn: “These companies are looking for candidates like you!” You aren’t necessarily searching for a job, but you’re always open to opportunities, so out of curiosity, you click on the link. A few minutes later your boss appears at your desk. “We’ve noticed that you’re spending more time on LinkedIn lately, so I wanted to talk with you about your career and whether you’re happy here,” she says. Uh-oh.

It’s an awkward and Big Brother–ish scenario—and it’s not so far-fetched. Attrition has always been expensive for companies, but in many industries the cost of losing good workers is rising, owing to tight labor markets and the increasingly collaborative nature of jobs. (As work becomes more team-focused, seamlessly plugging in new players is more challenging.) Thus companies are intensifying their efforts to predict which workers are at high risk of leaving so that managers...

Being a “fixer.” From an early age, people with this type of capability naturally see how things in their organization could run better. They instinctively rethink systems, processes, and reporting structures — even before they have the authority to change anything. Being a “relationship maven.” Leaders with this skill have a natural curiosity about other people, which starts early in their careers. As they progress in their careers and their network of “friends” grows, these leaders instinctively start bringing different people together in rooms to pull off deals and collaborations that get bigger over time — yielding results others have a difficult time replicating. Being a “passion player.” These leaders believe that accomplishing something significant is what matters, and they use that belief to recruit and motivate others to their cause. They are often deep experts in a particular area, bringing tremendous business knowledge and/or strategic thinking to a...

Leaders often rely on the carrot vs. the stick approach to motivate employees, where the carrot is a reward for compliance and the stick is a consequence for non-compliance. But this is an outdated approach that never really works well. Motivation is less about employees doing great work and more about employees feeling great about their work. There is no stronger motivation for employees than an understanding that their work matters, and is relevant to someone or something other than a financial statement. To motivate your employees, start by sharing context about the work you’re asking them to do. Recognize that challenges can materially impact motivation. Be proactive in identifying and addressing them. What might make an employee’s work difficult or cumbersome? What can you do to ease the burden? And remember that if you’re not engaged and enthusiastic about the work you do, it’s unlikely that your team will be. So, check in with yourself about how motivated you are...

Research shows that when employees are willing to go beyond their formal roles by helping out coworkers, volunteering to take on special assignments, introducing new ideas and work practices, attending non-mandatory meetings, putting in extra hours to complete important projects, and so forth, their companies are more efficient and effective. As a result, a critical task for successful managers is to motivate their employees to engage in these extra-role behaviors, which researchers refer to as “citizenship behaviors.” Given the importance of citizenship behavior for organizational success, it is important that managers help employees find the best possible ways to go beyond the call of duty in order to help make work more meaningful and less depleting. One potentially effective way of doing this is something called “citizenship crafting,” where people redesign their work by altering aspects of the job itself (task crafting), the people with whom they work (relationship...

A new study suggests that while some men still fall back on the classic identity of a breadwinner, others adopt a modern identity of a “breadsharer.” In-depth interviews with 42 heterosexual male consultants showed that more than half (about 60%) value their wives’ careers. These men, the breadsharers, described their wives’ work in glowing terms, regarding it as high status, worthy of respect, and financially important to their families. For the 40% of the men who identified as traditional breadwinners, it was another story. These men accorded low social status to their wives’ work and minimized their financial contributions — even when their wives earned six-figure salaries, and even when their wives earned most of the family income. In our conversations about work, career, and couples, we often focus on earnings and work hours. This study shows that status plays a vital role as well (notably, no wife who was a doctor or a lawyer...

It’s very common among young adults between the ages of 18 and 35, because the part of the brain that deals with uncertainties is still developing during this time in our lives. To overcome catastrophic thinking, avoid dwelling in your past or present. Try to stay right where you are. Imagine your best- and worst-case scenario. You’ll realize that both are just childlike fantasies. Understand that reality is not black or white. It’s usually someone in the middle. To stay motivated, remind yourself of all the times in the past when you’ve actually overcome crises.