1.

The Three Key Ingredients of Leadership You Need

To succeed, management and leadership must collaborate. In a time of accelerating disruption, the art and science of collaborating to enable change is more important than ever. In his Forbes article, Steve Denning describes the three sets of tools available to those aspiring to induce change: inspiration, information and power. Leaders need to master all three, if they are to be effective.

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2.

The Difference Between Feeling Safe and Being Safe

How is it that some people felt safe, despite the mortal danger nipping at their heels for all to see? In her The Atlantic story, Amanda Mull takes a look at this misperception as it has played out in homes and workplaces around the globe, and as regular people make good-faith efforts to grapple with the swiftly changing circumstances of life. Things that used to be safe such as visiting grandparents and attending a friend’s wedding, are now potentially deadly. Things that used to be foreboding, such as the sight of many masked strangers in public, are now a source of comfort.

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3.

What Should Crisis Leadership Look Like?

For several months after the Boston Marathon bombing, researchers with the Harvard National Preparedness Leadership Initiative interviewed key participants. They wanted to know how, in a city famous for its political and law-enforcement rivalries, so many people had worked together so seamlessly, and how that kind of behavior might be encouraged in the future. In this article, Douglas Starr of The New Yorker discusses how the animal kingdom offers some unexpected guidance for how we might respond to the pandemic.

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4.

How the Best Leaders Answer “What Are We Here For?”

In a crisis, the possibility of failure feels close. This often drives leaders into command-and-control mode ... more-rigid schedules, tighter budgets, exaggerated targets, and hyperbolic promises. In her Harvard Business Review article, Margaret Heffernan argues that during a crisis of deep ambiguity and uncertainty, what’s more important than the rhetorical demonstration of certainty is the formulation of a strong, shared sense of meaning. Leaders can’t impose this from above. Their role is to become activists who convene people to explore and define that meaning together.

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5.

Write Down Your Team’s Unwritten Rules

Every workplace has unwritten rules. In this Harvard Business Review article, Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy offer the advice that during stressful times, it is good practice to write down the unstated cultural and emotional norms that exist within your team or company. They might have changed since you started working from home, or perhaps they’ve never been explicit to everyone. These seemingly small uncertainties can become major stressors. Combating them is crucial to helping everyone on your team feel secure and supported, especially in the current climate.

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