Great Leaders Use Tough Love to Improve Performance

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Frances Frei, professor at Harvard Business School, says that trust, empathy - and even a bit of tough love - are all essential ingredients to strong leadership in today's world. Successful managers focus on the effect they have on others, not themselves. They also define a strategy and create a culture that drives employee behavior in their absence. Frei is the coauthor, along with Anne Morriss, of the book "Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You" as well as the HBR article “Begin with Trust.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	How do you navigate gender in your workplace?
0:04.0	HBR's fan favorite podcast Women at Work is back with personal stories, the newest research,
0:09.2	and practical advice on navigating disability, career failures, and joining a board.
0:14.0	Listen for free to H-BRA's women at work wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the HPR Ideacast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Allison Beard.
0:36.0	What are all the hallmarks of an effective leader? Would you say clear vision,
0:47.2	infectious charisma, strong communication skills, the ability to stay calm in a crisis. All of that might be true, but today's guess
0:56.0	says that actually to best understand leadership we need to approach it from a
1:00.2	different angle. Instead of focusing on what individual leaders do,
1:04.8	we should instead think about what effect they have
1:07.2	on the people around them,
1:08.9	how they elevate talents, expand capacities,
1:12.0	and empower others to succeed.
1:14.0	She says this starts with trust.
1:16.0	It also involves a little tough love
1:18.0	and ultimately when you're in charge of teams beyond your direct span of
1:22.0	control it requires you to think very
1:24.2	carefully about crafting a strategy and culture that offers leadership in your
1:28.6	absence. Francis Fry is a professor at Harvard Business School and advisor to many companies.
1:34.6	She served as Uber's first senior vice president of leadership and strategy and is the co-author
1:39.7	along with Ann Morris of the HBO article,
1:42.6	Begin with Trust, and the book,
1:44.5	Unleached, The Unapologetic Leaders Guide
	...

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