HBR On Leadership

Becoming a manager for the first time can be stressful. Sometimes it’s because of others, but often it’s because of the misconceptions many people bring into the job.

In this episode, three  new managers speak candidly about the surprises, the rewards, and the challenges of leading.

“When I was offered this position, the first thing I said was, ‘Wow, that’s a scary thought,’” one manager tells Women at Work hosts Amy Bernstein and Amy Gallo. “I knew I could do it on a day-to-day basis, but I was totally not prepared to have a vision, to have a strategy on how I would do this long term. And I think I’m still trying to figure it out.”

If you’re a new manager yourself, you’ll hear ideas for building trust across your new team and getting feedback from your direct reports. And if you’re not a manager yet, you’ll learn how to prepare for a leadership role.

Key episode topics include: leadership, managing people, management, personal growth and transformation, building trust, first-time boss, getting feedback, new manager.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original Women at Work episode: The Ups and Downs of Being a First-Time Manager (Oct 2022).
• Find more episodes of Women at Work.
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.

Cynthia Carroll was only a few months into leading the global mining firm Anglo American when she suspended operations in their South African platinum mine. She was concerned about worker fatalities there. But it was an unprecedented move, and it came at a huge cost for the company.

Harvard Kennedy School of Government research fellow Gautam Mukunda explains how Carroll, who he profiled in a business case, used that temporary shutdown to make changes to the company culture at Anglo American.

“This is the most complex environment I have ever studied for a corporate leader to operate in,” Mukunda tells Cold Call host Brian Kenny. “All of the stakes here are about as high as they can get.”

Key episode topics include: leadership, managing people, cross-cultural management, cultural awareness, managing yourself, culture change, managing stakeholders, energy and natural resources, decision making, unconventional leaders, ethics.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original Cold Call episode: Dangerous Mines: Saving Lives Through Leadership (Sept. 2016)
• Find more episodes of Cold Call
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.

Some managers are like teachers, sharing their skills and experience with their teams. Others are more like cheerleaders who encourage their direct reports to learn on their own. But Sari Wilde explains that the best managers are “connectors” who facilitate peer-to-peer coaching to help their people learn and grow.

Wilde is part of a team at Gartner Research that surveyed 5,000 managers around the world to understand how management style affects the success of a team. And they found that employee performance improves when you have a connector manager, she tells IdeaCast host Curt Nickisch.

Wilde explains what the best connector managers do, how to be one, and how to work for one. With Jaime Roca, Wilde wrote the book The Connector Manager: Why Some Leaders Build Exceptional Talent — and Others Don’t.

 Key episode topics include: leadership, developing employees, managing people, teams, building trust, networking.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: Why “Connector” Managers Build Better Talent (2019).
• Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast.
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.

Managing a team in good times is one skill set. But how do you motivate people when things aren’t going well?

Toto Wolff is the team principle and CEO of the Mercedes team, one of the most successful teams in the history of Formula One racing. But when the team’s eight-year winning streak unexpectedly ended, Wolff had to adjust his leadership style to get them back on track.

“This year, I got it wrong on several occasions, and probably to an effect where my control freakishness and trying to solve it myself annoyed some of the people that were actually in charge of the science,” Wolff admits. “There are certain areas where I have to just dial myself back a little bit and trust.”

He tells Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse about the difference between directing and leading, and how to help a struggling team learn from mistakes and move forward.

Key topics include: leadership, managing people, organizational culture, motivating people, and leadership qualities.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Watch the original HBR Quick Study episode: How to Fix a Broken Global Team (October 2016)
• Find more episodes of the HBR Quick Study series on YouTube.
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.

Do you feel like your true self at work, or is going to work like putting on a mask? As leaders, we know we’re supposed to be authentic, but that is often easier said than done.

Babson College management professor Tina Opie explains how leaders can bring their best selves to work and help others do the same – by focusing on good communication and expressing emotion effectively.

“Humans automatically categorize other people. We automatically think, ‘OK. This kind of person is going to be more professional. This kind of person is not going to be,’” she tells Women at Work hosts Amy Bernstein, Sarah Green Carmichael, and Nicole Torres. “If you happen to fall into the latter category, you may have some additional work that you have to do to demonstrate that you are in fact fierce, professional, amazing.”

Key topics include: leadership, gender, authenticity, emotion at work, and interpersonal communication.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original Women at Work episode: Lead with Authenticity (February 2018)
• Find more episodes of Women at Work.
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.

In this era of global business and hybrid work, managers must find ways to unify teams that are geographically and culturally separated.

Harvard Business School professor Tsedal Neeley explains how one real-life manager, who she profiled in a business case, approached the challenge of leading a hugely diverse, underperforming group back to success.

“When you have this level of diversity, this many nationalities represented in a group, you have to have policies to make people effective,” Neeley tells Cold Call host Brian Kenny.

Key topics include: leadership, managing people, cross-cultural management, cultural awareness hybrid work, global teams, managing others, globalization, and motivation.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original Cold Call episode: How to Fix a Broken Global Team (October 2016)
• Find more episodes of Cold Call.
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.

Filmmakers are the ultimate team leaders. Every auteur — think of Stanley Kubrick, Wong Kar-wai, Robert Altman — must manage tens of millions of dollars, staffs of hundreds, and intense deadlines, all while executing a creative vision.

“It’s exciting when you can keep refreshing the talent pool for a television show,” legendary actor, producer, and director Ron Howard tells IdeaCast host Alison Beard. “What’s going on behind the camera, it does affect the outcome of a film. And so casting the crew is vitally important.”

Howard has made popular and critically acclaimed movies, like A Beautiful Mind (2001), Apollo 13 (1995), and Frost/Nixon (2008). He’s directed Hollywood A-listers like Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, Jay-Z, and even Bette Davis.

He reveals how he vets top acting talent for his movies and how he manages creative differences on set — including what he learned about handling temperamental collaborators from coaching kids basketball.

Key topics include: leadership, film making, cinema, fulfilling a creative vision, mentorship, leadership lessons from unexpected places, careers, creativity, and talent management. 

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: Ron Howard on Collaborative Leadership and Career Longevity (December 2022)
• Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast.
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.

What does it take to get to the C-suite? Venture capitalist and former tech CEO Mike Troiano has direct experience with that journey.

“The most important thing you want to do to get to the next level is to be effective at the level you’re at,” he tells Dear HBR hosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn. “Yes, dress for the job you want, but perform the job you have.”

Troiano takes questions from Dear HBR listeners about what to do if you’re falling off the executive track, or if you’re moving up but don’t believe in the company’s strategy. He also offers advice for interacting with a rival who could block your path to the C-suite.

Key topics include: leadership, leadership development, career planning, personal purpose and values, the realities of ambition, and managing up.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original Dear HBR episode: Executive Ambitions (May 2019)
• Find more episodes of Dear HBR.
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.

What can jazz great Miles Davis teach us about leading for innovation?

“I love Miles Davis’s quote. He says, if you’re not making a mistake, it’s a mistake,” says jazz pianist and management professor Frank Barrett. “So if everything you play is clean and fresh and slick, that means you’ve given up experimentation. And so, for jazz improvisation to work, there’s going to be mistakes and wrong notes.”

Barrett tells IdeaCast guest host Jeff Kehoe that jazz also teaches leaders the importance of forgiving mistakes that happen as part of exploration and experimentation, as well as why it’s important to move beyond problem-solving and embrace an improvisational mindset.

Key topics include: leadership, creativity, experimentation, collaboration and teams, and innovation.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: What Leaders Can Learn from Jazz (August 2012)
• Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast.
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.

Rachel Carson is known as a gifted science writer and a trailblazing environmental activist. Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn argues that she also should be remembered as a great leader.

Carson’s 1962 classic book Silent Spring revealed the dangers of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) and led to an almost global ban on organic synthetic pesticides within 15 years of its publication.

“She exercises such a profound impact on other people. That’s what leaders do,” Koehn tells IdeaCast guest host Adi Ignatius. “She was an introvert. She was shy. And yet she had more impact than most presidents.”

Carson’s story has lessons for any leader facing an overwhelming challenge that requires resilience and real-time skill-building. In addition, Carson’s ability to carry out her work, despite family commitments shows that caretaking is an act of leadership.

Key topics include: leadership, leadership qualities, personal productivity, overcoming obstacles, introverts, personal purpose and values, and personal resilience. 

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: Real Leaders: Rachel Carson Seeds the Environmental Movement (March 2020)
• Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast.
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more and HBR.org.

Popular stereotypes of successful CEOs as charismatic white men with Ivy League degrees who never falter under pressure are often misleading.  

“The CEOs I get to know up close and personal really look nothing like this image of perfection. And so we decided to dig into this with the data,” says Elena Botelho, who co-leads the CEO Genome Project and advises top leaders.  

Botelho tells IdeaCast host Sarah Green Carmichael that actual success in the C-suite has more to do with being decisive, staying adaptable, and delivering reliable results. 

Key topics include: leadership development, leadership transitions, decisiveness, adaptability, and results. 

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week. 

Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: 4 Behaviors of Top-Performing CEOs (May 2017) 

Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast

Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more: HBR.org