When does a boss become a leader?
Modern leadership differs fundamentally from traditional management: true leaders motivate, coach, and develop their teams toward shared goals, while bosses simply delegate tasks. In today’s mobile, global workforce, companies need leaders who inspire and empower employees, not command-and-control bosses stuck in outdated hierarchies.
How leaders can make their dark side brighter
Leaders with dark personality traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy—typically underperform and damage team relationships. However, research shows that leaders can mitigate these negative effects by actively improving their relationships with followers, particularly when personality traits align.
Why compassionate leaders do come first
Compassionate leaders who practice self-compassion develop greater resilience and motivation while avoiding the harmful effects of chronic self-criticism. Research shows that self-directed anger and resentment trigger prolonged cortisol release, impairing problem-solving and damaging long-term health—making self-compassion essential for effective leadership.
Are you ready for an Alpha workforce?
Generation Alpha workers (born since 2010) will demand instant feedback, direct communication, and individual challenges rather than routine tasks, fundamentally changing management practices and workplace culture as digital-first expectations reshape traditional hierarchies and respect for experience.
Implementation tasks: documents and discovery
Learn how to prepare for successful HR technology implementation through documents and discovery before contract signing. This phase involves legal negotiations, information gathering, and groundwork to ensure smooth project kickoff and avoid costly delays.
Why leaders need to be positive thinkers
Positive thinking is essential for effective leadership because it enables leaders to overcome challenges, inspire teams, and create lasting change. Rather than fake optimism, genuine positive leadership involves managing negative thoughts, speaking truth to self-doubt, and maintaining resilience when facing adversity.
Fostering a leadership pipeline: a springboard for long-term success
Building a strong leadership pipeline requires a long-term hiring strategy focused on retention and development rather than quick-fix recruitment. With the UK skills gap costing £63 billion annually and replacing a manager costing 2.5 times their salary, organizations must prioritize finding adaptable talent with leadership potential over simply filling vacancies fast.
Employee perspectives: an accountant’s view on KPMG’s HR team
A former KPMG accountant shares her perspective on working in finance and HR practices, discussing the mental stimulation of the role, challenges with changing regulations, and how employers can support employee development through qualifications and work-life balance initiatives.
Six reasons why people analytics will be central to the future of HR
People analytics is shifting from the HR periphery to its core as organizations embrace digital transformation. This article explores six key reasons why analytics will become central to HR strategy within the next three to five years, including its role in digital HR and AI implementation.
One size does not fit all when it comes to engagement
Modern workplace communication requires tailored, targeted approaches rather than one-size-fits-all methods. Traditional tools like email are increasingly ineffective as employee attention spans shrink and expectations for personalized content grow, making organizations rethink their internal communication strategies to engage and retain talent.
A wake-up call to HR: GDPR is right around the corner
GDPR compliance requires HR to take an active role in cybersecurity. With data breaches triggering mandatory reporting and employees representing the weakest link in corporate defenses, HR must implement comprehensive cyber-risk awareness training and governance policies organization-wide.
Compassion – great at work, but for whom?
Compassion in healthcare and social care improves patient outcomes and job satisfaction, but can lead to compassion fatigue among professionals. Research shows that while compassionate care benefits both service users and caregivers, practitioners must prioritize self-compassion to prevent burnout and maintain wellbeing.
Ensuring your data is readable and actionable in talent acquisition
Most companies struggle to turn recruiting data into actionable decisions. Recruiters need better interpretation skills and human oversight to identify bias in analytics and connect insights to hiring outcomes, ensuring data drives real business results rather than remaining numbers on a screen.
Internalised sexism: an unconscious bias that is kept out of the spotlight
Internalized sexism—where women unconsciously adopt sexist attitudes—is an overlooked contributor to workplace gender bias. While external discrimination receives attention, research shows women often internalize societal biases that limit their own advancement and perpetuate inequality.
Do the best leaders have big mouths?
Research reveals an unexpected predictor of leadership success: mouth width. Studies show people perceive wider mouths as more leadership-capable, and this bias correlates with real-world outcomes like CEO profitability and electoral success.
Book review: Pivoting – a coach’s guide to igniting substantial change
Pivoting offers coaches a comprehensive guide to igniting substantial change through understanding the psychological phenomena behind coaching engagements. Authors Clancy and Binkert blend academic rigor with practical insights to explore how “aha moments” and genuine insight create transformative pivot points for clients, drawing on appreciative coaching principles and Theory U.
Working twice as hard to get half as far: the truth behind differential payoffs and penalties
Research shows that career success strategies produce vastly different outcomes depending on employees’ race and gender. Studies reveal that behaviors like networking, innovation, and job changes yield greater rewards for white men while penalizing women and minorities disproportionately, even when the same actions are taken.
How to make change easier and smoother
Organizations underestimate resilience when managing change. While wellbeing programs help, sustained resilience requires developing personal thinking, learning, and social strategies alongside supported education and tools to help employees thrive amid ongoing transformation.
Why businesses need to reimagine the bonus structure
Traditional large bonuses fail to sustain employee motivation long-term. Forward-thinking organizations are shifting toward continuous feedback, real-time coaching, and year-round recognition that better address fundamental human needs for esteem and belonging.
Reality v aspiration: women in senior roles
While boardroom diversity is widely acknowledged as important, a significant gap remains between aspiration and reality for women in senior roles. Companies must build long-term pipelines of female talent and use targeted relationship-building approaches rather than traditional executive search, as women are less likely to self-nominate for roles they perceive themselves as unqualified for.
