Leadership

Culture is not aspirational, it's observational. It's not something you and your co-founders sit down, dream-up, put into PowerPoint, and create some posters from. Culture, simply, is how you behave and how you treat your co-founders, employees, and customers.

Co-Founder of Netflix & Streaming Pioneer

Power is relational; we talk about seizing power but ultimately – at least in democratic societies – you need the followers to be powerful, and it's important therefore for us to understand the cognitive biases that mean that we keep gravitating towards people who are clearly unfit for the job.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

If someone is commanding in their presence, it directly correlates to how a group judges their skill level! Someone who is commanding in presence is often followed over someone who is far more effective but who is quiet, hesitant, or timid.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

Our brains are adapted to pick leaders based on characteristics that are no longer adaptive, or necessary today. In times of crisis, we are wired to gravitate towards strong men – strong males who are overconfident and speak of solutions in simplistic terms.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

There's an innate tendency in human-beings to sort ourselves by how much we want power. Some of us don't want it at all, some of us are absolutely obsessed with it. The interaction between the individual and the system is therefore critical.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

You cannot just say to people, 'oh be creative' and then there will be a waste of time. You have to be very clear in what you are looking for and listen to people.

President and CEO of Cirque du Soleil

Being creative is about being a collective. It's not something unique. That's why we can nurture each other's creativity.

President and CEO of Cirque du Soleil

There is no business without creativity. Creativity for me is the first condition to establish yourself as a leader in whatever you do in life.

President and CEO of Cirque du Soleil

What I like the most and essentially is never done is to start off a negotiation by talking about how you'll negotiate, what's the process going to be? And to say things like 'my goal in this negotiation is to reach an agreement with you in which we create a giant pie and split it evenly.'

Co-Author of "Co-opetition" & Yale School of Management Professor

As Carl von Clausewitz said, 'no plan survives first contact with the enemy.' It's not about having a plan, it's about planning. When you are in a fluid situation, things change, and you have to adapt quickly. You cannot freeze into inaction.

It doesn't matter how successful you are, how much market share you have, if you're in your comfort zone you will leave yourself exposed. Courage also links to decisiveness, which is one of the key attributes of great leaders. Cowardice pushes the day of reckoning out, decisiveness brings it closer.

In crises, people need to hear one or two simple messages to act on – not a confusing list. Through your communication, you also need to project certainty – and the fact that you have a plan (even if it's not fully formulated). Your team need to believe that they, and you, are going to get the job done.

There are two different types of founders. A wartime founder – when things are tough, they act and a poor peacetime founder – it is really fun or nice to work for.

The greatest innovators spend a disproportionate amount of their time figuring out how to engage with the decision makers who need to green-light their work early so they can build confidence. Innovation can feel scary to a business- old and stable is less worrisome.

Management theorist & former Dean of Rotman School of Business

If I see a lot of cases where models own their managers, not the opposite. If the model isn't creating value, but you continue using it, then it owns you. This is frighteningly common.

Management theorist & former Dean of Rotman School of Business

Your customers matter, they have the last word, they hold money in their pocket and will either fork it over… or not… A national stores manager should not be trying to control what stores do and instead say, their job should be to help each store do better.

Management theorist & former Dean of Rotman School of Business