MIT Lessons in Leadership Styles, Companies That Put Purpose Ahead of Profits, Why Values are Very Important for Innovation And Delegating Effectively #FridayFinds

Ready for another round of inspiring #FridayFinds? This week’s finds are focusing on leadership styles, company vision and values and management tactics.

Here’s what caught our attention this week:

MIT for Managers: Lessons in Effective Leadership Styles

Part of the series by the MIT Leadership Center, under the direction of Deborah Ancona, the Seley Distinguished Professor of Management, and a professor of organization studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, this video talks about the new styles in leadership.

As distributed leadership, flat organizational structures, servant leadership and social leadership are becoming more popular — and more accepted — companies have to make sense of how these new styles translate into their day-to-day operations and strategies.

-> Read more

Lessons from Companies That Put Purpose Ahead of Short-Term Profits

Purpose is one of the most important workplace engagement drivers. In his article for Harvard Business Review, Andrew White is citing some impressing stories of companies that are embracing responsibility and long-term thinking and integrating them into business decisions that might seem shocking.

The lines between doing the “right” thing and commercial success seem to be blurring. According to White, the fundamental challenge is how to use such paradoxes to inform creative tensions – which lead to innovation and growth – rather than succumb to paralyzed indecision or poor judgment calls.

-> Read more

Find out how you can use people analytics to predict, manage and measure the impact of HR operations by downloading our new white paper.

Why Values are Very Important for Innovation

When we do work that matters to us, for an employer whose values match our own, our happiness levels and performance rise.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. I strongly recommend this article, as it dives into the impact of communicating and living your company values, on employee engagement and business success, as well as some of the risks involved in putting this into practice.

-> Read more

The 7 Secrets to Delegating Effectively

As clear-cut and easy to understand as the theory behind delegating is, practice puts a lot of managers to shame. Being as this is, delegation remains a critical skill in the workplace, one that has a crucial impact both on employee engagement and on business outcomes.

According to Larry Alton, the biggest obstacle to successful delegation is the persistent urge to not delegate anything at all–ever. And he’s right. The failure to delegate is oftentimes born out of an optimistic if not delusional sensation that “I can do all of this myself. And better.”

-> Read more

Join us next week as we share more of our favorite articles. We’d also love to know what articles made your week and what topics you’d like us to talk about next week so comment away.

Happy weekend!

Download the white paper and see how you can create an integrated, engaging employee experience using people analytics!