How EI makes your board more effective and benefits the whole organisation

Following the Lord Davies review in 2011 to increase gender diversity in UK boardrooms, 26% of FTSE 100 companies have successfully reached the required quota. But a new target has now been set of 33% by 2020. More women in the boardroom is just one aspect of increasing diversity and I would argue that rather […]
When culture kills the killer app

This article was co-authored by Helen Rosethorn, Partner, Practice Leader – Culture, Capability & Engagement, London, and Josh Feldmeth, Senior Partner, New York, at brand marketing consultancy Prophet. Every industry has been disrupted by a technology-enabled alternative promising faster delivery, lower costs, and delightfully better user experiences. In many sectors, these former disruptors now occupy […]
Book review: The Collaborative Leader by Ian McDermott & L. Michael Hall

HRZone has a range of books available for review. If you would like to receive one of our business books, free of charge, please contact the editor on editor at hrzone dot com and we can send you a list of what’s available. In return, we ask for a 400-700 word review of the book, […]
Book review: Leading With Vision by Bonnie Hagemann & John Maketa

HRZone has a range of books available for review. If you would like to receive one of our business books, free of charge, please contact the editor on editor at hrzone dot com and we can send you a list of what’s available. In return, we ask for a 400-700 word review of the book, […]
“In my view, organisations change through tiny adjustments in local climates.”

Mark Cole is Leadership Development Programme Manager, London Leadership Academy, NHS. He is also Head of Learning and Development at Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust. Mark will be speaking at the CIPD Annual Conference 2017 on Wednesday November 8th on equipping line managers with coaching and mediation skills. Jamie Lawrence, Managing Editor, HRZone: Can you […]
Are we setting our leaders up to fail?

Among the challenges HR have to contend with are the ones that arise from old-fashioned, top-down leadership cultures. These generally expect one person, the one at the head of the organisation, to do the lot, and to know everything there is to know. Leaders are held up as the source of all knowledge, assumed to be […]
How to harness the power of critical thinking

While most business leaders are willing to acknowledge publicly that their staff are their most important asset and resource, as we know in practice it’s often something they pay lip service to, preferring instead the comfort of the boardroom, the bottom line and dealing with shareholders. That’s not to say that progress hasn’t been made […]
“I’m looking forward to helping empower people across North’s business to reach their full potential.”

Dawn Robinson has recently been appointed as Global Director of People at North P&I Club, a leading global marine insurance company. Here Dawn speaks about delivering a new leadership and development programme that will equip North’s employees with the skills and experience to become brilliant leaders. Becky Norman, Deputy Editor, HRZone: Congratulations on your new […]
Get ready for the ‘Day After Tomorrow’!

Peter Hinssen is Chairman & Co-Founder at Nexxworks, a company that helps businesses to look further ahead to their ‘Day After Tomorrow’. In this interview, he argues that organisations need to overcome their fear of radical ideas and risk in order to successfully transition to future thinking. Peter will be presenting a talk, ‘Get ready for the […]
Promoting a thinking environment creates inclusion

There are a whole lot of new words being created to explain the impact of bias and sexism which comes with it. Words like: Manterrupting: Unnecessary interruption of a woman by a man. Mansplaining: Explaining without regard to the fact that another person in the group knows more than the explainer, often done by a […]
Even feminists show bias against female leaders

Consider this and notice the images in your mind’s eye. The visit to my doctor from earlier that morning was still on my mind when I found myself slamming the brakes of my car to avoid a collision. A driver was pulling out onto the roundabout just in front of me. Still shaking I carried […]
Menopause is not a women’s issue, at work or anywhere else

There’s so much rich insight coming out of the academic sector that HR professionals need to know. At Academics’ Corner we feature the best HR researchers that tell you what they’ve found and what you need to do differently on the back of the research. Get connected to the academic sector through Academics’ Corner and […]
Attachment in the workplace: do you understand how it works?

“Children are born with a range of innate behaviours to maximise their survival. Among these is attachment behaviour, which allows the child to draw their primary caregivers towards them at moments of need or distress.” Attachment difficulties include insecure attachment patterns and disorganised attachments that often develop into coercive controlling or compulsive caregiving. This theory […]
The 7 best leaders of the 21st century- and what you can learn from them

Seven well-known 21st century leaders, seven key lessons learned from their words. Take a look below! 1. Warren Buffet on mistakes Hailing from Omaha, Nebraska, Buffet is (according to the Forbes 2017 List of Billionaires) the world’s second richest man after buying his first shares at just eleven years of age and going on to […]
Leaders must avoid bad thinking leading to bad leadership

Martin Winterkorn seemed to be on track to make Volkswagen the world’s biggest car company. Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was among America’s most admired bankers. Yet both got stuck in bad thinking that led to tragedy for their companies. They were, in a word, clueless. But they didn’t realize it, so they kept doing more of […]
“Organisations focus too much on performance being purely on what is in people’s goals.”

Paul Corke is Leadership Development Manager at MBNA. He was previously Learning Manager at Bank of America and before that Training Manager at Barclaycard. In this interview he lets us know his views on leadership today, the future of leadership and best practice when it comes to developing leaders. Jamie Lawrence, Managing Editor, HRZone: What […]
How to get on the HR speaking circuit

Trying to get on the HR speaking circuit can feel like being at the back of a long queue of a VIP nightclub. If your name’s not on the list, you’re not getting in until you build your professional profile, become a subject expert and attract the attention of event organisers. It may be a […]
Leaders must stay human in a digitizing world

Automation and AI are already changing many of our daily experiences. From automated supermarket check-outs to real-time Google translation, the world of work is most certainly changing. In Japanese, the word “henn” meaning “to change”, has inspired The Henn-na Hotel in Tokyo to imagine a totally different type of hotel, where 95% of its staff […]
How to adopt the mindset of a great leader

Our experiences shape us and the kind of person we become. No less so than on the journey to becoming a leader. After all, despite what many think, leaders aren’t born, they are formed over many years. There might be those we class as “natural leaders”, but in reality there is nothing natural about them. […]
HR and leadership design for the modern workplace

Leadership is the most important factor influencing organisational performance and effectiveness. And yet a Fortune survey found that only 7% of CEOs believe their companies are building effective global leaders, with just 10% saying that their leadership development initiatives have a clear business impact. Leadership programmes would be easy to design if leadership were a single, […]