Why Great Leaders Need More Than Good Judgment

When a company is small, maintaining a strong culture can feel relatively easy. But as organizations grow, layers of management, geographic distance, and pressure for efficiency can make it much harder to preserve what made the company special in the first place. Restaurateur Danny Meyer has spent decades figuring out how to do just that. He founded Union Square Cafe and built Union Square Hospitality Group, then helped scale Shake Shack from a single location in New York City into a global restaurant chain. Along the way, he’s learned that culture isn’t what happens when the CEO is in the room—it’s what happens when they’re not. He explains how he turned his philosophy of “enlightened hospitality” into a set of specific behaviors that employees can understand and practice. He discusses why companies should hire for both technical expertise and emotional skills, how to identify people with a high “hospitality quotient,” and why promotions are one of the most powerful tools leaders have for reinforcing culture. Meyer is the author of What Could Possibly Go Right? The Essential Journey to Scale an Enduring Culture.

How much does a leader actually matter to an organization’s success? We tend to credit CEOs, founders, and other powerful figures with shaping the institutions they lead, but historian Jared Diamond argues that we often underestimate the role of timing, circumstance, industry, and plain luck. Diamond explains his “Hamlet test,” which asks whether someone else could have achieved the same outcome or whether the leader was uniquely qualified to do it, and how it applies to many business leaders. He also explains why some leaders are able to seize a fleeting moment of opportunity, why founders can have an outsized influence on institutions, and why boards may overestimate the impact of replacing a struggling CEO. Diamond is author of Prophets, Profits, Coaches, and Kings: (When) Do Leaders Matter?

In today’s increasingly decentralized workplaces, leaders often need to get things done without having direct authority over the people they depend on. So how can you influence colleagues, clients, vendors, and even senior executives without simply telling them what to do? Pamela Meyer, founder and CEO of Calibrate, says the answer is learning to read the room—and understanding the informal networks, emotional dynamics, and hidden sources of power that shape decisions. She explains five paths to indirect influence: becoming an influence spotter, a backchanneler, a precision mover, a connector, and a pulse reader. Meyer also explains why the best influencers focus less on how they’re performing and more on what the people around them need. Meyer is the author of How to Read the Room: The Art and Science of Social Observation and the HBR article “Five Ways to Wield Influence When You Lack Authority.”

People are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. But many of our assumptions about executive careers—from climbing the corporate ladder to retiring at 65—haven't caught up. London Business School professor Lynda Gratton says we need a new way of thinking about work and life, and argues that traditional career paths are giving way to more flexible, multi-stage journeys that require greater personal agency, continuous learning, and a long-term perspective. She explains why leaders should think of their lives less as a ladder and more as a fabric they actively weave over time, and offers up practical advice for balancing productivity and personal well-being, preparing for career pivots before they're necessary, and developing the skills that will matter most in an AI-powered future. Gratton is the author of the upcoming book Living the 100-Year Life: How to build a career that lasts and a life you love.

Companies often build products for wealthy markets first and then try to adapt them for the rest of the world. But according to Dartmouth Tuck professor Vijay Govindarajan and MIT professor Amos Winter, designing for the toughest constraints first—whether that's affordability, portability, or limited infrastructure—can lead to products that perform better everywhere. They explain how leaders can identify high-impact opportunities, uncover customer needs through deep field research, and design solutions that balance performance with cost. They also discuss why organizational mindset—not technology—is often the biggest obstacle to global innovation, and where AI can (and can't) accelerate the design process. Together they wrote the book Global by Design: How to Create Innovations That Scale, Travel, and Transform.

In an era of constant disruption, successful turnarounds require more than a new strategy—they demand a new culture. Dan Schulman, former CEO of PayPal, came out of retirement to tackle the challenge of taking over the helm of Verizon as it entered the AI age. He explains how they needed to put customers—not engineering—at the center of the business, how he reshaped company culture, and what it really took to prepare employees for an AI-native future. He explains why leaders need to embrace change, invest in reskilling, and balance optimism about AI with honesty about the disruption it will bring.

What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur in today's uncertain world? How do you balance risk, decision-making, and curiosity? We’re sharing an episode from The Founder Mindset with Reza Satchu, the new podcast from Harvard Business School Foundry about what it truly takes to be a founder now. Hosted by Harvard Business School senior lecturer Reza Satchu, the show features intimate conversations with some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, including Reese Witherspoon, Kevin O’Leary, Galen Weston, and more. Satchu himself has built multiple high-profile companies and mentored thousands of students and founders as they start and scale ventures, and he pushes his guests to break down exactly how they commit, decide, and build for impact. In this episode, Tim Ferriss—entrepreneur, investor, bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, and host of one of the world’s most influential podcasts—reflects on experimentation, calibrated risk-taking, decision-making under uncertainty, and why curiosity and learning have shaped nearly every chapter of his career. Listen to more episodes of The Founder Mindset with Reza Satchu, follow the podcast here: https://play.megaphone.fm/zbmkcqmbqhymul1logpega

To compete in business anywhere today, leaders at all levels need to learn about the culture and mindset that sets Chinese businesses apart. Stanford research fellow Dan Wang argues that they've built an edge that goes well beyond lower labor costs or government subsidies. He explains how dense manufacturing ecosystems, relentless internal competition, deep process knowledge, and an engineering-first mindset have helped these companies become global leaders; what those in the United States and Europe can learn from them; and where they still fall behind. Wang is author of the book Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future.

Most leaders are asking the same question about AI: Will it make their teams more productive—or slowly erode the very skills they're trying to build? In this special episode, as part of the recent HBR Leadership Summit 2026, University of Pennsylvania's Angela Duckworth says her long-standing research on grit—and the fact the most successful people aren't simply persistent, they stay committed to long-term goals while adapting their tactics as the world changes—is more relevant than ever in the age of generative AI. Rather than replacing human capability, she explains, AI can become a powerful coach that accelerates learning, if people treat it as something to learn from, not simply something that does the work for them. Duckworth’s new book is Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best.

What if the key to success in today's business world wasn't about making difficult decisions quickly—but about broadening the scope through which you make decisions? Leaders Alliance CEO Cornelia Choe and executive coach Marshall Goldsmith argue that being open to more perspectives can help leaders navigate an increasingly complicated world and lead better. They share their framework for this mindset shift, and examples of leaders who have done this well. Choe and Goldsmith are the authors of the book The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently.