Why should anyone be led by you?

We all know that leaders need vision and energy, but after an exhaustive review of the most influential theories on leadership--as well as workshops with thousands of leaders and aspiring leaders--the authors learned that great leaders also share four unexpected qualities. The first quality of exceptional leaders is that they selectively reveal their weaknesses (weaknesses, not fatal flaws). Doing so lets employees see that they are approachable. It builds an atmosphere of trust and helps galvanize commitment. The second quality of inspirational leaders is their heavy reliance on intuition to gauge the appropriate timing and course of their actions. Such leaders are good "situation sensors"--they can sense what's going on without having things spelled out for them. Managing employees with "tough empathy" is the third quality of exceptional leadership. Tough empathy means giving people what they need, not what they want. Leaders must empathize passionately and realistically with employees, care intensely about the work they do, and be straightforward with them. The fourth quality of top-notch leaders is that they capitalize on their differences. They use what's unique about themselves to create a social distance and to signal separateness, which in turn motivates employees to perform better. All four qualities are necessary for inspirational leadership, but they cannot be used mechanically; they must be mixed and matched to meet the demands of particular situations. Most important, however, is that the qualities encourage authenticity among leaders. To be a true leader, the authors advise, "Be yourself--more--with skill."     

Thinking about ... leadership. Warts and all

Does using Tyco's funds to purchase a $6,000 shower curtain and a $15,000 dog-shaped umbrella stand make Dennis Kozlowski a bad leader? Is Martha Stewart's career any less instructive because she may have sold some shares on the basis of a tip-off? Is leadership synonymous with moral leadership? Before 1970, the answer from most leadership theorists would certainly have been no. Look at Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tsetung--great leaders all, but hardly good men. In fact, capricious, murderous, high-handed, corrupt, and evil leaders are effective and commonplace. Machiavelli celebrated them; the U.S. constitution built in safeguards against them. Everywhere, power goes hand in hand with corruption--everywhere, that is, except in the literature of business leadership. To read Tom Peters, Jay Conger, John Kotter, and most of their colleagues, leaders are, as Warren Bennis puts it, individuals who create shared meaning, have a distinctive voice, have the capacity to adapt, and have integrity. According to today's business literature, to be a leader is, by definition, to be benevolent. But leadership is not a moral concept, and it is high time we acknowledge that fact. We have as much to learn from those we would regard as bad examples as we do from the far fewer good examples we're presented with these days. Leaders are like the rest of us: trustworthy and deceitful, cowardly and brave, greedy and generous. To assume that all good leaders are good people is to be willfully blind to the reality of the human condition, and it severely limits our ability to become better leaders. Worse, it may cause senior executives to think that, because they are leaders, they are never deceitful, cowardly, or greedy. That way lies disaster.     

Discovering your authentic leadership

The ongoing problems in business leadership over the past five years have underscored the need for a new kind of leader in the twenty-first century: the authentic leader. Author Bill George, a Harvard Business School professor and the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, and his colleagues, conducted the largest leadership development study ever undertaken. They interviewed 125 business leaders from different racial, religious, national, and socioeconomic backgrounds to understand how leaders become and remain authentic. Their interviews showed that you do not have to be born with any particular characteristics or traits to lead. You also do not have to be at the top of your organization. Anyone can learn to be an authentic leader. The journey begins with leaders understanding their life stories. Authentic leaders frame their stories in ways that allow them to see themselves not as passive observers but as individuals who learn from their experiences. These leaders make time to examine their experiences and to reflect on them, and in doing so they grow as individuals and as leaders. Authentic leaders also work hard at developing self-awareness through persistent and often courageous self-exploration. Denial can be the greatest hurdle that leaders face in becoming self-aware, but authentic leaders ask for, and listen to, honest feedback. They also use formal and informal support networks to help them stay grounded and lead integrated lives. The authors argue that achieving business results over a sustained period of time is the ultimate mark of authentic leadership. It may be possible to drive short-term outcomes without being authentic, but authentic leadership is the only way to create long-term results.     

The seven ages of the leader

Leaders go through many transitions in their careers. Each brings new crises and challenges--from taking over a damaged organization to having to fire somebody to passing the baton to the next generation. These moments can be wrenching--and can threaten your confidence--but they're also predictable. Knowing what to expect can help you get through and perhaps emerge stronger. In this engaging article, Warren G. Bennis, professor and founding chairman of the University of Southern California's Leadership Institute, reflects on leadership, recounting his own experiences as a young lieutenant in the infantry in World War II, as the new president of a university, and as the mentor to a unique nursing student. Bennis also describes the experiences of other leaders he has known throughout his career. Drawing on more than 50 years of academic research and business expertise--and borrowing from Shakespeare's seven ages of man--Bennis says the leader's life unfolds in seven stages. "The infant executive" seeks to recruit a mentor for guidance. "The schoolboy" must learn how to do the job in public, subjected to unsettling scrutiny of every word and act. "The lover with a woeful ballad" struggles with the tsunami of problems every organization presents. "The bearded soldier" must be willing--even eager--to hire people better than he is, because he knows that talented underlings can help him shine. "The general" must become adept at not simply allowing people to speak the truth but at actually being able to hear what they are saying. "The statesman" is hard at work preparing to pass on wisdom in the interests of the organization. And, finally, "the sage" embraces the role of mentor to young executives.     

Making judgment calls. The ultimate act of leadership

According to the traditional view, judgment is an event: You make a decision and then move on. Yet Tichy, of the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, and Bennis, of the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, found that good leadership judgment occurs not in a single moment but throughout a process. From their research into the complex phenomenon of leadership judgment, the authors also found that most important judgment calls reside in one of three domains: people, strategy, and crisis. Understanding the essence of leadership judgment is crucial. A leader's calls determine an organization's success or failure and deliver the verdict on his or her career. The first phase of the judgment process is preparation--identifying and framing the issue that demands a decision and aligning and mobilizing key stakeholders. Second is the call itself, And third is acting on the call, learning and adjusting along the way. Good leaders use a "story line"--an articulation of a company's identity, direction, and values--to inform their actions throughout the judgment process. Boeing CEO Jim McNerney, for instance, focused on a story line of Boeing as a world-class competitor and ethical leader to make a judgment call that launched the company's recovery from a string of ethical crises. Good leaders also take advantage of "redo loops" throughout the process, reconsidering the parameters of the decision, relabeling the problem, and redefining the goal in a way that more and more people can accept. Procter & Gamble's A.G. Lafley and Best Buy's Brad Anderson have both used redo loops--in preparation and execution, respectively--to strengthen not only support for their calls but also the outcomes.     

The work of leadership

More and more companies today are facing adaptive challenges: changes in societies, markets, and technology around the globe are forcing them to clarify their values, develop new strategies, and learn new ways of operating. And the most important task for leaders in the face of such challenges is mobilizing people throughout the organization to do adaptive work. Yet for many senior executives, providing such leadership is difficult. Why? One reason is that they are accustomed to solving problems themselves. Another is that adaptive change is distressing for the people going through it. They need to take on new roles, relationships, values, and approaches to work. Many employees are ambivalent about the sacrifices required of them and look to senior executives to take problems off their shoulders. But both sets of expectations have to be unlearned. Rather than providing answers, leaders have to ask tough questions. Rather than protecting people from outside threats, leaders should let the pinch of reality stimulate them to adapt. Instead of orienting people to their current roles, leaders must disorient them so that new relationships can develop. Instead of quelling conflict, leaders should draw the issues out. Instead of maintaining norms, leaders must challenge "the way we do business" and help others distinguish immutable values from the historical practices that have become obsolete. The authors offer six principles for leading adaptive work: "getting on the balcony," identifying the adaptive challenge, regulating distress, maintaining disciplined attention, giving the work back to people, and protecting voices of leadership from below.     

7 transformations of leadership

Most developmental psychologists agree that what differentiates one leader from another is not so much philosophy of leadership, personality, or style of management. Rather, it's internal "action logic"--how a leader interprets the surroundings and reacts when his or her power or safety is challenged. Relatively few leaders, however, try to understand their action logic, and fewer still have explored the possibility of changing it. They should, because leaders who undertake this voyage of personal understanding and development can transform not only their own capabilities but also those of their companies. The authors draw on 25 years of consulting experience and collaboration with psychologist Susanne Cook-Greuter to present a typology of leadership based on the way managers personally make sense of the world around them. Rooke and Torbert classify leaders into seven distinct actionlogic categories: Opportunists, Diplomats, Experts, Achievers, Individualists, Strategists, and Alchemists-the first three associated with below-average performance, the latter four with medium to high performance. These leadership styles are not fixed, the authors say, and executives who are willing to work at developing themselves and becoming more self-aware can almost certainly move toward one of the more effective action logics. A Diplomat, for instance, can succeed through hard work and self-reflection at transforming himself into a Strategist. Few people may become Alchemists, but many will have the desire and potential to become Individualists and Strategists. Corporations that help their executives and leadership teams to examine their action logics can reap rich rewards.     

Managing authenticity: the paradox of great leadership

Leaders and followers both associate authenticity with sincerity, honesty, and integrity. It's the real thing--the attribute that uniquely defines great managers. But while the expression of a genuine self is necessary for great leadership, the concept of authenticity is often misunderstood, not least by leaders themselves. They often assume that authenticity is an innate quality--that a person is either genuine or not. In fact, the authors say, authenticity is largely defined by what other people see in you and, as such, can to a great extent be controlled by you. In this article, the authors explore the qualities of authentic leadership. To illustrate their points, they recount the experiences of some of the authentic leaders they have known and studied, including the BBC's Greg Dyke, Nestlé's Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, and Marks & Spencer's Jean Tomlin. Establishing your authenticity as a leader is a two-part challenge. You have to consistently match your words and deeds; otherwise, followers will never accept you as authentic. But it is not enough just to practice what you preach. To get people to follow you, you also have to get them to relate to you. This means presenting different faces to different audiences--a requirement that many people find hard to square with authenticity. But authenticity is not the product of manipulation. It accurately reflects aspects of the leader's inner self, so it can't be an act. Authentic leaders seem to know which personality traits they should reveal to whom, and when. Highly attuned to their environments, authentic leaders rely on an intuition born of formative, sometimes harsh experiences to understand the expectations and concerns of the people they seek to influence. They retain their distinctiveness as individuals, yet they know how to win acceptance in strong corporate and social cultures and how to use elements of those cultures as a basis for radical change.     

In praise of the incomplete leader

Today's top executives are expected to do everything right, from coming up with solutions to unfathomably complex problems to having the charisma and prescience to rally stakeholders around a perfect vision of the future. But no one leader can be all things to all people. It's time to end the myth of the complete leader, say the authors. Those at the top must come to understand their weaknesses as well as their strengths. Only by embracing the ways in which they are incomplete can leaders fill in the gaps in their knowledge with others' skills.The incomplete leader has the confidence and humility to recognize unique talents and perspectives throughout the organization--and to let those qualities shine. The authors' work studying leadership over the past six years has led them to develop a framework of distributed leadership. Within that model, leadership consists of four capabilities: sensemaking, relating, "visioning," and inventing. Sensemaking involves understanding and mapping the context in which a company and its people operate. A leader skilled in this area can quickly identify the complexities of a given situation and explain them to others. The second capability, relating, means being able to build trusting relationships with others through inquiring (listening with intention), advocating (explaining one's own point of view), and connecting (establishing a network of allies who can help a leader accomplish his or her goals). Visioning, the third capability, means coming up with a compelling image of the future. It is a collaborative process that articulates what the members of an organization want to create. Finally, inventing involves developing new ways to bring that vision to life. Rarely will a single person be skilled in all four areas. That's why it's critical that leaders find others who can offset their limitations and complement their strengths. Those who don't will not only bear the burden of leadership alone but will find themselves at the helm of an unbalanced ship.     

Developing your leadership pipeline

Why do so many newly minted leaders fail so spectacularly? Part of the problem is that in many companies, succession planning is little more than creating a list of high-potential employees and the slots they might fill. It's a mechanical process that's too narrow and hidebound to uncover and correct skill gaps that can derail promising young executives. And it's completely divorced from organizational efforts to transform managers into leaders. Some companies, however, do succeed in building a steady, reliable pipeline of leadership talent by marrying succession planning with leadership development. Eli Lilly, Dow Chemical, Bank of America, and Sonoco Products have created long-term processes for managing the talent roster throughout their organizations--a process Conger and Fulmer call succession management. Drawing on the experiences of these best-practice organizations, the authors outline five rules for establishing a healthy succession management system: Focus on opportunities for development, identify linchpin positions, make the system transparent, measure progress regularly, and be flexible. In Eli Lilly's "action-learning" program, high-potential employees are given a strategic problem to solve so they can learn something of what it takes to be a general manager. The company--and most other best-practice organizations--also relies on Web-based succession management tools to demystify the succession process, and it makes employees themselves responsible for updating the information in their personnel files. Best-practice organizations also track various metrics that reveal whether the right people are moving into the right jobs at the right time, and they assess the strengths and weaknesses not only of individuals but of the entire group. These companies also expect to be tweaking their systems continually, making them easier to use and more responsive to the needs of the organization.     

The harder they fall

The past decade may well be remembered as the era of the high-flying, aggressive leader. Corner-office titans like Kenneth Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, and Bernard Ebbers graced the covers of business magazines. They captured the public's fascination with their bold business moves and charismatic sound bites. Then scandal set in, and the stars fell to earth. In this article, social psychologist Roderick M. Kramer asks an important question: Why do so many leaders--not just in business, but also in politics, religion, and the media--display remarkable adeptness and ability while courting power, only to engage in even more remarkable bouts of folly once that power has been secured? Kramer, who has spent most of his career researching how leaders get to the top, says there is something about the process of becoming a leader that changes people in profound ways. The systems through which we select our leaders force executives to sacrifice the attitudes and behaviors that are essential to their survival once they have reached the top. Society has learned to consider risk taking and rule breaking as markers of good leadership. As a result, CEOs and other leaders lack the modesty and prudence needed to cope with the rewards and trappings of power. They come to believe that normal limits don't apply to them and that they are entitled to any spoils they can seize. The leaders who do remain grounded--who get to the top and stay there--exhibit five common psychological and behavioral habits: They simplify their lives, remaining humble and "awfully ordinary." They shine a light on their weaknesses instead of trying to cover them up. They float trial balloons to uncover the truth and prepare for the unexpected. They sweat the small stuff. And they reflect more, not less.     

Making yourself indispensable

Peter Drucker and other leadership thinkers have long argued that leaders should focus on strengthening their strengths. How should they do that? Improving on a weakness is pretty easy and straight forward: You can make measurable progress by honing and practicing basic techniques. But developing a strength is a different matter, because simply doing more of what you're good at will yield only incremental improvements. If you are strong technically, becoming even more of a technical expert won't make you a dramatically better leader. If, however, you use what the authors call "nonlinear development"--similar to an athlete's cross-training--you can achieve exponential results. Your technical expertise will become more powerful if, for instance, you build on your communication skills, enabling you to explain technical problems both more broadly and more effectively. The authors, all from the leadership development consultancy Zenger Folkman, present a step-by-step process by which developing leaders can identify their strengths (through either a formal or an informal 360-degree evaluation), select appropriate complementary skills (the article identifies up to a dozen for each core strength), and develop those skills to dramatically improve their strengths--making themselves uniquely valuable to their companies.     

What leaders really do

Leadership is different from management, but not for the reasons most people think. Leadership isn't mystical and mysterious. It has nothing to do with having "charisma" or other exotic personality traits. It is not the province of a chosen few. Nor is leadership necessarily better than management or a replacement for it. Rather, leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action. Each has its own function and characteristic activities. Both are necessary for success in today's business environment. Management is about coping with complexity. Its practices and procedures are largely a response to the emergence of large, complex organizations in the twentieth century. Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change. Part of the reason it has become so important in recent years is that the business world has become more competitive and more volatile. More change always demands more leadership. Most U. S. corporations today are overmanaged and underled. They need to develop their capacity to exercise leadership. Successful corporations don't wait for leaders to come along. They actively seek out people with leadership potential and expose them to career experiences designed to develop that potential. Indeed, with careful selection, nurturing, and encouragement, dozens of people can play important leadership roles in a business organization. But while improving their ability to lead, companies should remember that strong leadership with weak management is no better, and is sometimes actually worse, than the reverse. The real challenge is to combine strong leadership and strong management and use each to balance the other.     

Timeless leadership

The historian David McCullough, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and well-known public television host, has spent his career thinking about the qualities that make a leader great. His books, including Truman, John Adams, and 1776, illustrate his conviction that even in America's darkest moments the old-fashioned virtues of optimism, hard work, and strength of character endure. In this edited conversation with HBR senior editor Bronwyn Fryer, McCullough analyzes the strengths of American leaders past and present. Of Harry Truman he says, "He wasn't afraid to have people around him who were more accomplished than he, and that's one reason why he had the best cabinet of any president since George Washington....He knew who he was." George Washington--"a natural born leader and a man of absolute integrity"--was unusually skilled at spotting talent. Washington Roebling, who built the Brooklyn Bridge, led by example: He never asked his people to do anything he wouldn't do himself, no matter how dangerous. Franklin Roosevelt had the power of persuasion in abundance. If McCullough were teaching a business school leadership course, he says, he would emphasize the importance of listening--of asking good questions but also noticing what people don't say; he would warn against "the insidious disease of greed"; he would encourage an ambition to excel; and he would urge young MBAs to have a sense that their work maters and to make their good conduct a standard for others.     

Are you picking the right leaders?

When it comes time to hire or promote, top executives routinely overvalue certain skills and traits while overlooking others. Intuitively, for example, they might seek out team players, people who shine operationally, dynamic public speakers, or those who are demonstrably hungry for greater responsibility. But some attributes that seem like good indicators of leadership potential are, paradoxically, just the reverse. Team players and those who excel operationally often make better seconds in command. Many a great public speaker lacks the subtle one-on-one persuasive powers that a top leader needs. And shows of raw ambition may be more an indicator of ego than of leadership talent. Unfortunately, few organizations have the right procedures in place to produce complete and accurate pictures of their top prospects. Assessments are often based on hearsay, gossip, and casual observation. Many companies spend too much effort trying to develop leaders and not enough effort trying to identify them. A new evaluation process will help you avoid that trap. Candidates are assessed by a group of people who have observed their behavior directly over time and in different circumstances. Using a carefully crafted series of questions, the group can probe a wide range of leadership criteria, including such "soft" attributes as personal integrity, that are difficult to assess. Without such information, senior management will remain vulnerable to misidentifying leadership talent, and the wrong people will continue to make their way up the corporate ladder.     

Leading clever people

In an economy driven by ideas and intellectual know-how, top executives recognize the importance of employing smart, highly creative people. But if clever people have one defining characteristic, it's that they do not want to be led. So what is a leader to do? The authors conducted more than 100 interviews with leaders and their clever people at major organizations such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Cisco Systems, Novartis, the BBC, and Roche. What they learned is that the psychological relationships effective leaders have with their clever people are very different from the ones they have with traditional followers. Those relationships can be shaped by seven characteristics that clever people share: They know their worth--and they know you have to employ them if you want their tacit skills. They are organizationally savvy and will seek the company context in which their interests are most generously funded. They ignore corporate hierarchy; although intellectual status is important to them, you can't lure them with promotions. They expect instant access to top management, and if they don't get it, they may think the organization doesn't take their work seriously. They are plugged into highly developed knowledge networks, which both increases their value and makes them more of a flight risk. They have a low boredom threshold, so you have to keep them challenged and committed. They won't thank you--even when you're leading them well. The trick is to act like a benevolent guardian: to grant them the respect and recognition they demand, protect them from organizational rules and politics, and give them room to pursue private efforts and even to fail. The payoff will be a flourishing crop of creative minds that will enrich your whole organization.     

How leaders create and use networks

Most people acknowledge that networking-creating a fabric of personal contacts to provide support, feedback, insight, and resources--is an essential activity for an ambitious manager. Indeed, it's a requirement even for those focused simply on doing their current jobs well. For some, this is a distasteful reality. Working through networks, they believe,means relying on "who you know" rather than "what you know"--a hypocritical, possibly unethical, way to get things done. But even people who understand that networking is a legitimate and necessary part of their jobs can be discouraged by the payoff--because they are doing it in too limited a fashion. On the basis of a close study of 30 emerging leaders, the authors outline three distinct forms of networking. Operational networking is geared toward doing one's assigned tasks more effectively. It involves cultivating stronger relationships with colleagues whose membership in the network is clear; their roles define them as stakeholders. Personal networking engages kindred spirits from outside an organization in an individual's efforts to learn and find opportunities for personal advancement. Strategic networking puts the tools of networking in the service of business goals. At this level, a manager creates the kind of network that will help uncover and capitalize on new opportunities for the company. The ability to move to this level of networking turns out to be a key test of leadership. Companies often recognize that networks are valuable, andthey create explicit programs to support them. But typically these programs facilitate only operational networking. Likewise, industry associations provide formal contexts for personal networking. The unfortunate effect is to give managers the impression that they know how to network and are doing so sufficiently. A sidebar notes the implication for companies' leadership development initiatives: that teaching strategic networking skills will serve their aspiring leaders and their business goals well.     

Don't hire the wrong CEO

A disturbing trend is going on in corporate America--CEO churning. Top executives are rapidly coming and going, keeping their jobs for increasingly shorter periods of time. The reason? Most boards are so unclear about the definition of leadership, they are picking the wrong people. CEO churning needn't be, say leadership experts Warren Bennis and James O'Toole. Boards can reverse the trend by following several guidelines. First, boards must come to a shared, accurate definition of leadership. Simply put, leaders must be able to move human hearts--to challenge people and make them want to scale steep peaks. Second, boards should strengthen the CEO selection process by resolving strategic and political conflicts amongst themselves. An agreed-upon strategic direction will make choosing the CEO with the right vision for the company that much easier and can clarify the job for the new CEO. Third, the board needs to measure every CEO candidate's soft qualities. Economic measures are important, but integrity, the ability to provide meaning, and the talent for creating other leaders are critical. Fourth, boards should beware of candidates who act like CEOs. Charisma and glossy pitches can be enticing, but they're rarely the stuff of true leadership. Fifth, boards should accept that real leaders will more than likely overturn the status quo. Sixth, boards need to know that insider heirs usually aren't apparent, and finally, boards should always avoid making a hasty decision. Hiring the right CEO is a slow process at best. Ultimately, the surest way for boards to pick the right CEO is to cultivate and nurture talent in the making.     

Personalize your management development

Most organizations struggle with leadership development. They promote tope performers into management roles, put them through a few workshops and seminars, then throw them to the wolves. Managers with the ability to survive and thrive are rewarded; those without it are disciplined or reassigned. The problem is, an alarming number of people fall into the second category. This happens not because managers lack skills but because companies fail to realize that there is no single kind of leader-in-training. In this article, Natalie Shope Griffin, a consultant in executive and organizational development at Nationwide Financial, describes four kinds of manager-in-training, each embodying unique challenges and opportunities. Reluctant leaders appear to have all the necessary skills to be excellent managers but can't imagine themselves succeeding in a leadership role. Arrogant leaders have the opposite problem; they believe they already possess all the management skills they'll ever need. Unknown leaders are overlooked because they don't develop relationships outside of a small circle of close colleagues. Finally, there are the workaholics who put work above all else and spend 100 hours a week in the office. The author outlines specific training approaches tailored to each type of prospective leader. By focusing on the unique circumstances of individual managers, investing in them early in their careers, offering effective coaching, and providing real-life management experiences, Nationwide's leadership-development program has produced hundreds of successful leaders.     

Social intelligence and the biology of leadership

A decade ago in these pages, Goleman published his highly influential article on emotional intelligence and leadership. Now he, a cochair of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, and Boyatzis, a professor at Case Western, extend Goleman's original concept using emerging research about what happens in the brain when people interact. Social intelligence, they say, is a set of interpersonal competencies, built on specific neural circuits, that inspire people to be effective. The authors describe how the brain's mirror neurons enable a person to reproduce the emotions she detects in others and, thereby, have an instant sense of shared experience. Organizational studies document this phenomenon in contexts ranging from face-to-face performance reviews to the daily personal interactions that help a leader retain prized talent. Other social neurons include spindle cells, which allow leaders to quickly choose the best way to respond to someone, and oscillators, which synchronize people's physical movements. Great leaders, the authors believe, are those whose behaviors powerfully leverage this complex system of brain interconnectedness. In a handy chart, the authors share their approach to assessing seven competencies that distinguish socially intelligent from socially unintelligent leaders. Their specific advice to leaders who need to strengthen their social circuitry: Work hard at altering your behavior. They share an example of an executive who became socially smarter by embracing a change program that comprised a 360-degree evaluation, intensive coaching by an organizational psychologist, and long-term collaboration with a mentor. The results: stronger relationships with higher-ups and subordinates, better performance of her unit, and a big promotion.