Every organization has its rituals and behavioral patterns. While many of those rituals and patterns indeed have a positive impact on the organization and its people, some of them do more harm than good. One of these patterns you have to worry about is casually called the "cover your ass" or CYA phenomenon. Driven by fear and a toxic work environment, it undermines performance and drives away high performers.
Leadership is a phenomenon that has interested people for hundreds of years. One rather outdated explanatory approach still plays a prominent role in practice and the media in particular: The so-called Great Man Theory. In this blog we present what this theory is all about and why it is time to look for alternative approaches.
The aviation industry has reached an unprecedented safety level. This is an outstanding achievement taking into consideration that global air traffic is on the rise and every new aircraft becomes technically more sophisticated. Of course, one of the reasons for this achievement is superior technology. However, without a crew that performs well technology would be useless. A considerable body of evidence indicates that one reason for this strong safety track record in aviation is due to airlines conducting Crew Resource Management trainings as means to improve team performance. Initially inspired by management as a team development intervention, Crew Resource Management has become a de-facto standard in the aviation industry. Is it time for management to re-adapt what the aviation industry has developed to the next level?
Since its first discovery in December 2019 in Hubai, China, the new Coronavirus - now called SARS-CoV-2 - has spread out across the globe. The still increasing number of confirmed COVID-19 (the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2) cases requires governments, business and non-governmental organizations to switch from day to day operations into crisis mode. Leadership is one of the key determinants to succeed in times of crisis (Fred Garcia, 2006). We provide you a practical management guide what to consider when leading your project, team or organization during the coronavirus crisis.
Successful management arguably involves constant re-evaluation and seeking of new methods when challenges arise. One of the most recent trends that has grabbed the attention of practitioners has been the idea of “nudging” in management. Based on a groundbreaking book in behavioral economics, “nudging management” promises to help solve organizational problems by relying on subtle “nudges” or shoves to behavior, which promise to better align worker behavior with organizational goals.
Anthony Giddens' Structuration Theory is one of a set of grand social theories that are capable of describing the very foundation of social systems: these include teams, organizations, and society as a whole. One of the key characteristics of Giddens's theory is the understanding of structure as duality: On the one hand, structures of social systems such as norms, symbols, and physical objects etc. enable social practices. On the other hand, these very structures are reproduced by agents and thus are also result of social practices. This understanding opens up a variety of new perspectives for managing organizations. In this blog post we have a look at some of those perspectives, such as Strategy as Practice, and derive key take-aways for managers and working professionals.
In recent years, there has been a focus on the destructive side of leadership and how dysfunctional leaders can undermine an organization’s value. In fact, empirical research has focused on the personality characteristics of flawed leaders and have pointed to negative personality traits as predictors of leadership derailment (Hogan & Hogan, 2001; Kippenberger, 1997). There appear to be several personality traits that are related to leader failure yet the three that are consistent across all studies are narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, referred to as the “Dark Triad” (Paulhus & Williams, 2002).
Research findings across a variety of industries and organizations indicate that a strong management team is a key ingredient of organizational performance. While this claim might sound straight-forward, recent examples from the corporate and public sector show that it is incredibly difficult to build and develop a management team that functions well. In this blog post, we take a look at six signs of an ineffective management team that threatens organizational performance in this article.
When we speak informally about an individual’s personality, we may be referring to any number of qualities, from their temperament to their sense of humor, even the kind of media they like. However, in the social sciences, the study of personality focuses on enduring, reliable traits about a person that can be measured, and which are useful in predicting behavior (Saucier & Srivastra, 2015). The leading perspective on personality within the social sciences is the Five Factor Model, or the “Big Five”, which describes individuals in terms of their openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeability, extroversion, and neuroticism.
Have you already completed your organization’s agile transformation? Where do you apply SCRUM in your organization? Agility and agile frameworks such as SCRUM are the new Holy Grail for private and public sector organizations. As a manager and professional you might wonder whether you should jump on the agility bandwagon, or whether it is just another management fad you can confidently ignore. We take a closer look at the scientific foundation of agility and one of the most popular agile frameworks called SCRUM in this blog post.
