Matthew Smith While the business press tends to focus attention on macro strategic forces such as AI, geopolitics, and climate change, one of the biggest trends among experts in leadership development today is perhaps surprisingly a focus on building deeper, more “human” capacities. The call for leaders to embrace their humanity is not new. Next year will mark the thirtieth anniversary of Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence, which popularized competencies such as self-regulation, empathy, and social skills as critical to leadership success. More recently, however, many leading thinkers on leadership development have suggested the need for leaders to undertake even…

Chris Westfall Passive-aggressive leaders specialize in hiding their true feelings, and making you question your own. Instead of taking a direct approach, and fostering clarity, passive aggressive leaders lack the courage (or the interpersonal skills) to confront workplace challenges. In a report from the Harvard Business Review, researchers identified passive-aggressive leadership as a key factor in low employee engagement and reduced organizational performance. PwC says that a passive-aggressive organizations will suffer from an inability to execute, experiencing ineffective decision making and an “information disconnect” - something that no one can afford in the age of AI. Rather than addressing issues…