{"title":"DIALECTICAL LEADERSHIP: NEW LEADERSHIP CALLING IN AN ERA OF POLYCRISES","authors":"Yabome Gilpin-Jackson","doi":"10.1002/ltl.20895","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.20895","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The author is an executive leader, consultant, and educator in Leadership and Organization Development (OD), and founder of SLD Consulting, writes about of “polycrises, a time when multiple, compounded and complex crises are happening simultaneously.” She notes that the concept of “polycrisis” was identified by historian Adam Tooze. And she contends that even with our severe challenges and disruptions of today, she is “convinced that this is a time for new forms of leadership to support systems everywhere to make the transition to a new world that is beckoning—a more just, equitable and sustainable world, where we address the economic, social and planetary issues of these times.” Her thinking, “based on a couple of theoretical perspectives and leadership experiences in the midst of this complexity has led me to what I call dialectical leadership.” She defines this as a “process through which leaders model practices that inspire positive transformative actions and outcomes, in a context of multiple, conflicting and compounded forces.” She proposes six shifts in ways of thinking; involving, in her words: engaging dialectical thinking, going a step further than polarity management; a change in the leader’s role; cognitive and emotional space for forward movement; engage the logic of attraction as opposed to the logic of replacement; storytelling and galvanizing action.</p>","PeriodicalId":100872,"journal":{"name":"Leader to Leader","volume":"2025 117","pages":"53-58"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ltl.20895","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144289271","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"LEADING WITH PERSONAL POWER: GAINING RESPECT THROUGH COURAGE, VISION, AND TRUST","authors":"Chris Lipp","doi":"10.1002/ltl.20893","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.20893","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The author is a professor of management communication at Tulane University, where he teaches both power and persuasion. He starts by contrasting servant leaders with people who have a dominant leadership style, noting that the “problem with the dichotomy between servant leadership and dominance is that it is fabricated.” He defines personal power as “our belief in our own capability to create impact. Unlike formal power, which focuses on external qualities like authority and resource control, personal power is an internal psychological state that radiates outward to influence those around us.” He then delineates The Psychology of Courage (Individual Power); Personal Responsibility; Internal Orientation; and the Big Picture (Group Power). Within the latter, he writes: “Research led by Pamela Smith at University of California, San Diego found that those with personal power think and speak more abstractly.” He also writes about status roles in teams, curiosity, and leadership trust. Citing the work of C. Shawn Burke in <i>The Leadership Quarterly</i>, he says leadership trust boils down to “three features: trust in the leader’s integrity, trust in the leader’s ability, and trust in the leader’s benevolence.” The author concludes that “in the end great leaders serve the group and so we respect them.”</p>","PeriodicalId":100872,"journal":{"name":"Leader to Leader","volume":"2025 117","pages":"59-64"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ltl.20893","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144289275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"THREE PRINCIPLES FOR LEADERS IN THE AGE OF AI","authors":"Nada R. Sanders","doi":"10.1002/ltl.20896","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.20896","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The author, Distinguished Professor at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University, writes about smart and productive ways leaders can think about and apply generative AI/artificial intelligence. Rather than the common fear of replacing humans with AI, she foresees “augmenting human activity with AI.” She contends that “this duality is explained by Moravec’s Paradox, developed by Hans Moravec, who was a pioneering AI researcher in the 1980s. The paradox is based on his extensive work and highlights a counterintuitive observation: tasks that are easy for humans are often hard for machines, and tasks that are difficult for humans can be easier for machines.” She explains three ways leaders can utilize Moravec’s Paradox. In her words: 1. Leverage AI for Analytical Tasks, Keep Humans for Creativity; 2. Augment, Don’t Replace, Human Judgment; 3. Recognize the Importance of Context and Adaptability. She invokes the chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who “concluded that human judgment and models integrated via the <i>right process</i> result in better decisions than a strong model alone or even a strong model paired with a brilliant human but employing a weaker process of working together.” This “conclusion became known as Kasparov’s Law.” For leaders to apply Kasparov’s law, she outlines three steps, in her words: 1. Build Strong Human-AI Teams; 2. Design Processes that Optimize Collaboration; 3. Foster Continuous Feedback Loops.</p>","PeriodicalId":100872,"journal":{"name":"Leader to Leader","volume":"2025 117","pages":"46-52"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ltl.20896","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144289270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"FUTURE LEADERS OR FORTUNATE ELITES? RETHINKING LEADER DEVELOPMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION AND BEYOND","authors":"Aaron L. Pomerantz, Ryan P. Brown","doi":"10.1002/ltl.20892","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.20892","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The authors (Pomerantz, the Doerr Institute’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow) and Brown (Managing Director for Measurement and Associate Director at the Doerr Institute for New Leaders) discuss leadership development in higher education, and its relationship to traditional (and somewhat controversial and contested) published college rankings. This affects not only the higher education institutions, but its students and prospective students, who need accurate information about the schools they might want to attend. They write that “the Doerr Institute for New Leaders, based at Rice University (and the place where both authors work) has been dedicated to developing students in a way that doesn’t just teach leadership theories or train students in specific leadership skills, but that changes <i>who</i> those students are and <i>how</i> they see themselves—developing the identity, self-awareness, and self-efficacy necessary to lead.” In addition, the “Institute partnered with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the American Council on Education to create the Leadership for Public Purpose (or LPP) elective classification.” They stress that the LPP is not a ranking, which makes it unique. They conclude that “Our collective vision of leadership and how we develop leaders will determine whether the leaders we <i>need</i> are the leaders we <i>have</i>.”</p>","PeriodicalId":100872,"journal":{"name":"Leader to Leader","volume":"2025 117","pages":"72-78"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144289294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: MAXIMIZING IMPACT THROUGH DISTINCTIVE VOICE AND AUTHORITATIVE POINTS OF VIEW","authors":"Cindy W. Anderson, Anthony Marshall","doi":"10.1002/ltl.20903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.20903","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The authors, leaders at the IBM Institute for Business Value, write about thought leadership, an often-misunderstood subject. Their article is based on their research, including determining the return on investment. They note that many executives spend a considerable amount of time consuming this type of content, such as “research reports, PowerPoint presentations, blogs, or podcasts.” Not only is the topic often misunderstood, it is rarely defined precisely. “In its broadest sense,” they write, “thought leadership content is defined as distinctive, evidence-based intelligence that gives leaders the insights they need to make better decisions—and the inspiration to take action.” Even if the terminology has only become used in the past few decades, the practice is older. They note that the consultancy McKinsey and Company “has been publishing its <i>McKinsey Quarterly</i> since 1964.” In the authors’ research, executives told them that five attributes in particular helped determine the thought leadership they consumed. In the authors’ words, they are quality, uniqueness, reach, independence, and trust. Along with this, they advocate for executives to also become thought leaders: “With data augmented with your expertise, you can begin authoring thought leadership reports, hosting a podcast or webinar series, writing a book, or speaking at relevant events. You can become a source of trusted intelligence that people feel inspired to follow.”</p>","PeriodicalId":100872,"journal":{"name":"Leader to Leader","volume":"2025 117","pages":"65-71"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144289298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"DIAGNOSING AND STRATEGICALLY IMPLEMENTING A CHARACTER-BASED CULTURE","authors":"Mary Crossan, Bill Furlong, Corey Crossan","doi":"10.1002/ltl.20898","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.20898","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Mary Crossan is a Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Strategic Leadership at the Ivey Business School, Western University. Corey Crossan is a research and teaching fellow at The University of Oxford with The Oxford Character Project. Bill Furlong is an executive in residence at the Ivey Business School, and a co-founder with Mary Crossan of Leader Character Associates Inc. They write that “organizations struggle mightily to get their aspirational culture to match their actual culture.” They write about the importance of character, and first “consider four underlying issues that make defining, shaping, measuring, and maintaining an aspirational culture challenging.” In their words, the issues are: 1. Achieving Common Understanding, 2. Shaping Consistent Behavior, 3. Measuring Culture, 4. Top-Down Approaches. An antidote to these four issues is “elevating character alongside competence.” In their words: 1. Common Understanding of Culture, 2. Shaping Culture, 3. Measuring Culture in Real Time, 4. Inside-Out Approach. They “propose three steps to strategically achieve and sustain an aspirational, resilient culture that can withstand the inevitable pressures that arise.” In their words: Step 1—Strategically cultivate awareness of character as the foundation for culture. Step 2—Strategically invest in leader character development to transform behavior that defines culture. Step 3—Strategically embed leader character into organization practices.</p>","PeriodicalId":100872,"journal":{"name":"Leader to Leader","volume":"2025 117","pages":"15-22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ltl.20898","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144289306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"LEADING ACROSS GENERATIONS: PROMOTING COLLABORATION, INCLUSIVITY, AND RESPECT","authors":"Stefanie Adams","doi":"10.1002/ltl.20899","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.20899","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The author, a leadership consultant, keynote speaker, and former elected official and educator; writes about how different generations can best co-exist in workplaces, and how leaders can provide optimum leadership in this new reality: “understanding what makes someone the way they are, and the intricacies of generational differences is paramount to fostering an inclusive environment and culture of belonging for all employees.” She provides concise paragraphs describing these generations: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z, plus the span of years for each generation. For efforts in bridging the generation gap, she suggests, in her words: 1. Immerse yourself in things you don’t understand, and when you do, 2. Practice active listening, 3. Become a change agent, 4. Create opportunities for shared experiences. As she writes, “In general, every employee seeks meaning and purpose in the work they do; they want to feel valued, have supportive leaders, and desire professional growth.” Practical suggestions are provided throughout, and she emphasizes two important factors, in her words: 1. We need to get comfortable being uncomfortable, and 2. Different doesn’t mean wrong. As she concludes, “It’s time to stop trying to ‘fix’ each other; let’s work to understand and connect.”</p>","PeriodicalId":100872,"journal":{"name":"Leader to Leader","volume":"2025 117","pages":"79-85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144289295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"INSPIRING LEADERS AREN’T BORN, THEY’RE MADE","authors":"Adam Galinsky, Chloe Levin","doi":"10.1002/ltl.20894","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.20894","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The authors (Galinsky, a Columbia Business School professor), and Levin (research associate at Columbia University specializing in the dynamics of power and status), write about “three insights about leadership, and about human nature.” Their research focused on leaders who were inspiring, as well as, on the opposite side, those who were infuriating. In their words, the first insight is that inspiring and infuriating leaders exist on an enduring continuum that is made up of three universal factors. They begin with an anecdote about an airline pilot, Tammie Jo Shults, who captained her passengers to safety in 2018 when the plane’s left engine exploded. “As Tammie Jo Shults illustrates,” the authors write, “an inspiring leader is Visionary, an Exemplar, and a Mentor.” For the second insight, they write “<i>Visionary</i> fulfills the need for meaning and purpose. <i>Exemplar</i> fulfills the need for protection and passion. <i>Mentor</i> fulfills the need for belonging and status.“For insight three, as to the longstanding question of whether leaders are born or made: they write that ”this universal set of inspiring behaviors can be taught, developed, and nurtured.” “To be visionary,” they write, “you need to a) craft a big picture, values-based, optimistic vision of the future, b) simplify and visualize into its core and c) repeat it again and again.”</p>","PeriodicalId":100872,"journal":{"name":"Leader to Leader","volume":"2025 117","pages":"33-39"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144289308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"THE FOUR PATHS FOR ADVANCING WOMEN ON CORPORATE BOARDS","authors":"Jovina Ang","doi":"10.1002/ltl.20900","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.20900","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Singapore-based author is Managing Director of Communicatio, a privately held consultancy, and a longtime corporate executive. She writes about how women can have a greater presence on corporate boards of directors. She notes the crucial nature of sponsorship, and writes: “Sponsorship occurs when there is a more powerful and influential leader who is willing to invest and spend their political capital for a younger talented leader to progress ahead.” The importance of sponsorship programs is also stressed, with examples such as Deutsche Bank’s ATLAS program. She says the acronym stands for “Accomplished Top Leaders Advancement Strategy.” She describes her involvement with BoardAgender, “an initiative that was launched in March 2011 by the Singapore Council of Women’s Organization.” She describes in detail four paths to the boardroom: becoming a Chief Executive Officer/CEO; the skills-based path; Towkay’s Daughter; and recognized expert. Within path 1, an example is “Tan Su Shan, who became the first female CEO of DBS Bank in March 2025.” From path 2, Tan Yee Peng, a former partner at KPMG; in path 3, Chew Gek Khim, a “successful businesswoman, a chairman of two boards, and an independent director of multiple boards in Singapore and abroad.” In path 4, Jessica Tan, a “technology veteran who had stellar careers at IBM and Microsoft.”</p>","PeriodicalId":100872,"journal":{"name":"Leader to Leader","volume":"2025 117","pages":"40-45"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144289280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"LEADERS FACE MAJOR ETHICAL QUESTIONS ON AI—AND THE ANSWERS THEY COME UP WITH MATTER","authors":"Tom Kirkham","doi":"10.1002/ltl.20901","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.20901","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The author, CEO and founder of Kirkham IronTech, writes about the responsibility of executives to prioritize data security within their organizations, especially in our still-new age of generative artificial intelligence. “In recent years,” he writes, “AI has shifted from being a futuristic novelty toy to an essential tool for teams and individuals.” He discusses AI tools such as ChatGPT that have become known and widely used since 2022, but also companies that are less familiar to leaders beyond the tech industry, such as Dataiku, BigID, and Polygraf AI. The concept of ethics comes into play when executives make decisions about how to receive, store, and send out data, as he notes the “often-overlooked ethical responsibility for senior leaders, a responsibility to ensure that their organizations adopt AI in a way that respects privacy, maintains security, and protects both employees and customers/end users.” All of this relates to his own executive work, as he founded the firm twenty five years ago “to help leaders improve Information Technology/IT processes, improve the customer experience, and reduce or eliminate the costs associated with managing and training internal personnel for IT management and cyber defense.”</p>","PeriodicalId":100872,"journal":{"name":"Leader to Leader","volume":"2025 117","pages":"92-97"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144289283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}