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HBR has constantly produced mediocre content on leadership. The last good bits were when Clayton Christensen was alive. Maybe just me but between these article

HBR has constantly produced mediocre content on leadership. The last good bits were when Clayton Christensen was alive. Maybe just me but between these articles, the audiobooks, and the YouTube videos, HBR has really lost me as a regular reader.

djbusby 4y ago
Some manager is trying to juke the stats for their next career step. They choose quantity over quality, numbers bigger, line goes up... Promotion! The after effects (decline) are the next fools problem
lolinder 4y ago
Would you mind including more details about why this comment applies to this particular piece? I feel like a comment like this shows up every time an HBR article lands, and I rarely see the criticism fleshed out to be meaningful in any way. Sometimes commenters seem to only have read the headline. With HBR, it seems like some people only read the URL.
- langsoul-com 4y ago
  Yeah, comments underneath this are similar. Doesn't make sense, it's a fairly short article that starts with a story and how to resolve it, adding some explanation as well. Very good formula.
  - exodust 4y ago
    Formula? There are many ways to resolve situations. In this one, both parties apparently agreed the paper was "rubbish". The problem that needed resolving was the paper, not the interaction. And since they were co-authoring said paper, why on Earth would the "rubbish" man not want to help? She could have simply said "can you please help fix the paper, you are a co-author after all?". And he most likely would have helped. There is no connection to leadership from her actions that I can see. Only the one an article wishes to make up.
- thenerdhead 4y ago
  I have read many HBR articles & purchase-able HBR content on leadership over the last 10 years. Every once and awhile you’ll come across an author who has especially gone down the path of exaggerating leadership tendencies. This article reads like a conversation that was largely made up. The examples of leaders not being “good students” is far fetched and very exaggerated given 27 years in prison can change any man or walking many miles to loan a book to study by candle light might just be a better teacher of leadership than any formal means. It then talks about energy and action with some random definitions and framework. These can be summed up as character traits than some fancy words like disarm or fuse opposites. Like imagine a leader out on the battlefield or in congress using this framework: > Every action starts as an inner action — directing your intentions, feelings and thoughts to activate the right energy within. You can then engage in the outer action of using the right facial expression, tone, and words in your dealings with others. It feels like a robot leader who has to go through a series of if statements to produce the right action. It’s just dumb to even think about. Finally it summarizes saying > This “small steps, big leaps” approach may in fact be how Gandhi, Lincoln, Mother Teresa, Mandela and others went from being ordinary people to extraordinary leaders. After using these characters as counter examples having no training, it tries to tell the reader they used this framework all along? Bullshit. I just see these same articles over and over again on here and they have little to no actual substance to them. I’ve since moved on.

djbusby 4y ago

Some manager is trying to juke the stats for their next career step. They choose quantity over quality, numbers bigger, line goes up... Promotion! The after effects (decline) are the next fools problem

lolinder 4y ago

Would you mind including more details about why this comment applies to this particular piece? I feel like a comment like this shows up every time an HBR article lands, and I rarely see the criticism fleshed out to be meaningful in any way. Sometimes commenters seem to only have read the headline. With HBR, it seems like some people only read the URL.

langsoul-com 4y ago
Yeah, comments underneath this are similar. Doesn't make sense, it's a fairly short article that starts with a story and how to resolve it, adding some explanation as well. Very good formula.
- exodust 4y ago
  Formula? There are many ways to resolve situations. In this one, both parties apparently agreed the paper was "rubbish". The problem that needed resolving was the paper, not the interaction. And since they were co-authoring said paper, why on Earth would the "rubbish" man not want to help? She could have simply said "can you please help fix the paper, you are a co-author after all?". And he most likely would have helped. There is no connection to leadership from her actions that I can see. Only the one an article wishes to make up.
thenerdhead 4y ago
I have read many HBR articles & purchase-able HBR content on leadership over the last 10 years. Every once and awhile you’ll come across an author who has especially gone down the path of exaggerating leadership tendencies. This article reads like a conversation that was largely made up. The examples of leaders not being “good students” is far fetched and very exaggerated given 27 years in prison can change any man or walking many miles to loan a book to study by candle light might just be a better teacher of leadership than any formal means. It then talks about energy and action with some random definitions and framework. These can be summed up as character traits than some fancy words like disarm or fuse opposites. Like imagine a leader out on the battlefield or in congress using this framework: > Every action starts as an inner action — directing your intentions, feelings and thoughts to activate the right energy within. You can then engage in the outer action of using the right facial expression, tone, and words in your dealings with others. It feels like a robot leader who has to go through a series of if statements to produce the right action. It’s just dumb to even think about. Finally it summarizes saying > This “small steps, big leaps” approach may in fact be how Gandhi, Lincoln, Mother Teresa, Mandela and others went from being ordinary people to extraordinary leaders. After using these characters as counter examples having no training, it tries to tell the reader they used this framework all along? Bullshit. I just see these same articles over and over again on here and they have little to no actual substance to them. I’ve since moved on.