Many executives risk getting demoted or dismissed because they rate their leadership skills higher than their boss or co-workers do, several recent studies have found. Even those considered high performers by their bosses risk losing promotions or their jobs if they fail to recognize—and address—their faults.

Experts say ambitious executives should pay closer attention to fixing flaws because businesses, after trimming leadership-development efforts during the downturn, have lately raised the bar on management performance.

Click here to read the entire article from the Wall Street Journal.

Working with someone you hate can be distracting and draining. Pompous jerk, annoying nudge, or incessant complainer, an insufferable colleague can negatively affect your attitude and performance. Instead of focusing on the work you have to do together, you may end up wasting time and energy trying to keep your emotions in check and attempting to manage the person’s behavior. Fortunately, with the right tactics, you can still have a productive working relationship with someone you can’t stand.

Click here to read the entire article from the Harvard Business Review.

Making succession planning a relevant process for your organization requires a comprehensive approach that hinges on business strategy. A multilevel and layered approach can help your organization create a succession plan that ensures the right talent will be available when you need them. With the input of I/O psychology, you can build better performance, potential, and readiness evaluations that map to business objectives, and provide relevant, actionable information for better people decisions.

Click here to read the entire white paper from PDI Ninth House.

Sydney Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, published “Why Smart Executives Fail” 8 years ago.

In it, he shared some of his research on what over 50 former high-flying companies – like Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, Rubbermaid, and Schwinn – did to become complete failures.  It turns out that the senior executives at the companies all had 7 Habits in common.  Finkelstein calls them the Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives.

Click here to read the entire article from Forbes.com.

It’s tough to get talent management right, particularly when market conditions
and strategy are in constant flux. But take a ‘whole systems’ approach to talent
management that’s tightly linked to your business strategy, and improved
people performance can feed straight through to the bottom line.

Click here to read the entire white paper from the Hay Group.

It’s rare to find a corporate human resources function that accelerates change by actively finding ways to help drive new strategies. Most HR groups sit back and wait for requests from the business for administrative people transactions. In their role of stewards of policy compliance, they can tend to be a brake on change.

But not at IBM. Its HR function has been instrumental in the $100 billion company’s metamorphosis from a floundering computer manufacturer in the 1990s to a prosperous software and consulting services company today. HR has helped the organization absorb more than 125 acquisitions since 2000, and integrate globally, saving $6 billion since 2005.

Click here to read the entire article from Bloomberg Businessweek.

“Our firm is often called upon to recruit senior level functional executives including human resources, financial, engineering, or information technology leaders. This recruiting work provides us a perfect vantage point to observe why the most senior level business people are either successful or unsuccessful in these functional roles. More than half of the searches that we do for functional leaders are to replace a person who is leaving because they were unsuccessful.

“Like good engineers, two years ago we conducted a careful failure analysis of these cases. Why were some seemingly well-qualified people unsuccessful in these sought-after positions? Our reason to study this was simply to improve our ability to evaluate candidates. But this is useful knowledge for other reasons. Any young business person who aspires to a senior functional leadership role might use the insight that we gained to tailor their own development actions and grow their careers.”

Click here to read the entire article from the Chicago Sun-Times LakeForester.

A new Deloitte report, “Global Business Driven HR Transformation: The Journey Continues,” explores the current trends shaping the way many companies are leveraging the HR function and their people to improve competitiveness, profitability and growth.

“Clients are constantly seeking information on the latest in HR transformation,” says Jason Geller, Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and global and U.S. human resources (HR) transformation leader.  “Working closely with 40 of my colleagues globally, we’ve identified the leading practices that top companies are using to drive the most value from their HR organizations.”

Click here to read the entire report from Deloitte.

“It’s hard to find leaders of the human resources function who are active in helping their organization improve the way it works. I asked dozens of people who are in HR or in process improvement to share examples of HR change leaders, and I only found a few. Though it’s rare, here’s an indicator of what is possible…”

Click here to read the entire article from the Harvard Business Review.

The business case for having more women in senior positions at corporations is clear. Quite simply, women bring a different perspective to the work world. Multiple studies have found a correlation between corporate performance and the percentage of women on boards, regardless of the industry.

However, in order to achieve real progress in gender parity, corporations must have a commitment at the top that enables them to not only find, but retain and promote female talent.

Click here to read the full Forbes article.