Are leaders born or made?

University of Michigan Ross School of Business professor Sue Ashford has studied leadership for decades—what makes people see themselves as leaders and how groups choose leaders among them. She says that leadership does come more easily to some than others, but that leadership is dynamic and only as real as a group decides. It’s a state that everyone can reach, whether they’re officially in charge or not.

“People grant a leader identity by their willingness to follow someone. So, if you take the chalk and go to the board and start writing things, or am I following along, adding to your structure, your list? And by doing that, I’m reinforcing that I’m willing to go with you for this bit of time,” Ashford explains.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to cultivate leadership within yourself and those you manage. You’ll also learn about alternative models, like shared leadership, that can benefit any team.

Key episode topics include: leadership, managing people, managing employees, managing yourself, leadership qualities, leading teams.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

Do you trust the people you work with?

Without trust, organizational psychologist Liane Davey says it’s hard to have the two key ingredients for any healthy team: effective communication and productive conflict.

Davey takes questions from listeners who are struggling to build trust at work. She offers advice for what to do when your new boss doesn’t trust you, or when you want to earn the trust of people who work for you.

Key episode topics include: leadership, emotional intelligence, managing people, managing yourself, trustworthiness, managing up, communication, conflict.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

When you think of good leadership, what comes to mind?

Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter argue that good leadership isn’t rooted in power or public speaking skills. They say that, in fact, mindfulness, selflessness, and compassion are the key components.

“If [you are] focused on things that are going to feed [your] ego, [you’re] not necessarily going to be doing the things that will be most helpful to other people,” Carter explains. “[And] what the research and our field work really showed us is that in the long term, people don’t want to follow you.”

In this episode, you’ll learn how to cultivate selflessness as a leader without being a pushover. You’ll also learn a simple ritual that could help you start you day with more focus and a clearer sense of your priorities.

Carter and Hougaard are the coauthors of The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results.

Key episode topics include: leadership, managing people, managing employees, managing yourself, psychology, self-awareness, mediation, mindfulness, compassion, selflessness.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

Are you struggling to motivate your team?

Professor and author Richard Boyatzis says there’s a motivation crisis in workplaces. “And the responsibility for that lies with the managers and leaders—the people who are supposed to be energizing people and engaging them,” he argues.

Boyatzis takes questions from listeners who are struggling to retain their employees and motivate their teams.

Key episode topics include: leadership, developing employees, motivating people, organizational culture, psychology.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

As the head of science at NASA, Thomas Zurbuchen managed an $8.6 billion dollar budget. A typical Monday, for him, might have involved hitting an asteroid with a space craft or trying to launch a rocket.

Zurbuchen left that role in 2022, but he’s still the longest continually serving head of science in NASA’s history. He and his team accomplished a lot in that time.

In this episode, he shares what he learned about leading extremely technical, complex, and expensive projects with a high risk of failure. You’ll learn how to manage your time, how to balance high-level strategy work with overseeing operations, and how to manage failure in a way that encourages learning and innovation.

Key episode topics include: leadership, teams, talent management, innovation, NASA, managing risk, collaboration, engineering, project management, government.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

When was the last time you disagreed with your boss? Did you tell them you had a different opinion — or did you just let it go?

HBR contributing editor Amy Gallo says it’s much easier to just agree with your boss. But sometimes it’s important to speak up. In this episode, you’ll learn how to weigh the risk of a negative reaction against the risk of not voicing your opinion: What could happen later if you don’t raise this issue now? What do you stand to lose? What opportunities could you or your team be missing out on?

You’ll also learn best practices to keep in mind if you do decide to say something — like avoiding certain judgment words and first asking permission, instead of offering an unsolicited opinion.

Gallo is an expert in workplace conflict and communication. She also cohosts HBR’s Women at Work podcast, and her most recent book is Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People).

Key episode topics include: leadership, difficult conversations, managing conflicts, managing up, interpersonal communication.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

Most of us think of mentoring a colleague as a one-way street—a gift of professional guidance and advice. But Sylvia Ann Hewlett says sponsorship needs to be a reciprocal relationship.

“[T]he younger person has to display a great deal of value. And oftentimes the senior person is looking for a value add, a skill or an experience in the younger person that they don’t have themselves,” she explains. “So it’s very reciprocal…and it’s really about progression for both of the individuals.”

Hewlett is an economist, consultant, and the author the book The Sponsor Effect: How to Be a Better Leader by Investing in Others.

In this episode, she breaks down the building blocks, risks, and potential rewards of sponsorship. She also offers advice for choosing the right protégé and effectively launching and managing these long-term relationships.

Key episode topics include: leadership, leading teams, power and influence, managing people, talent management, sponsorship, mentorship, relationships, development.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

When Rosalind Fox took over as manager of John Deere’s largest factory in Des Moines, Iowa, the plant employed 1,600 workers and included four major product lines. It was far bigger and more complex than the factory she’d been managing in North Carolina before her promotion. She had to shift from being a more operational, tactical manager to a more strategic role.

But Fox was also the first Black female manager at the Iowa factory, and her employees there were mostly white men. So she also had to figure out how to engage with her staff and build credibility with them. And that meant Fox had to decide how much of herself to bring to work.

“[T]he more authentic that you are, the greater sense of wellbeing you have, the greater sense of satisfaction you have, and that leads to greater engagement in the organization,” Harvard Business School senior lecturer Tony Mayo tells Cold Call host Brian Kenny. “[T]he key thing to know is that not everybody has the license to be authentic.”

Mayo interviewed Fox for his case study on her leadership at the agricultural equipment company.

In this episode, you’ll learn how Fox balanced the pressure to assimilate into the factory’s dominant cultures with her own sense of authenticity.

Key episode topics include: leadership, managing people, organizational culture, diversity and inclusion, race, authenticity, communication, agriculture, manufacturing, employee engagement.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

Management decisions almost always involve uncertainty. But what if you just can’t get the facts you need—or if your colleagues disagree about what you should decide?

Harvard Business School professor Joseph Badaracco calls these “gray area problems.” He offers a framework for addressing these problems in his book, Managing in the Gray: Five Timeless Questions for Resolving Your Toughest Problems at Work.

“Get expert advice. Look at options with other people, work the process. Be a good manager. And sometimes, you get an answer,” he explains. “But if [you don’t], then you’ve got to make the decision. And you can’t rely on analytics or frameworks. You make that judgment call as who you are. And then you live with it afterwards.”

In this episode, you’ll learn which questions to ask yourself as you work through your own gray area problems. You’ll also learn how to balance your business acumen with the needs of your organization and your human instincts.

Key episode topics include: leadership, decision making and problem solving, business ethics, uncertainty, disagreement, tough decisions, complexity.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

Delegating is an essential part of leadership. Without it, how can you rise above the tactical grind and focus on strategic thinking?

But leadership coach Deborah Grayson Riegel says delegating effectively is harder than it may seem.

“People delegate poorly defined tasks to other people where they’re not clear of the expectation. They’re not clear on the goal. They’re not clear on what success would look like, and they pass that on,” she explains. “And as you can imagine, it’s like a giant game of telephone. It just leaves you a mess.”

In this episode, you’ll learn how to decide which tasks to delegate and how to handle the specific challenges that come with delegating to peers in your organization, in addition to direct reports.

Key episode topics include: leadership, delegating, interpersonal communication, receiving feedback, business services sector, business consulting services, aerospace and defense sector.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.