Author: Sean Reid

By Erin WickhamBroadly, leadership is largely about making decisions. All day long. Every day.By the end of the week, or in the lead-up to big strategy sessions (like the start of a new calendar year), my brain battery is usually flashing red.This isn’t just a metaphor. It’s biology.As I looked across what’s coming for 2026,…

By David RockAs AI continues its steady march into workplaces, leaders are seeing mixed results in terms of productivity and effectiveness. According to an MIT study released earlier this year of business leaders and employees, only 5% of initiatives had seen a financial return at an organizational level. The remaining 95% reported no such positive…

The climate for the energy and utilities industry is changing, in more ways than one. Not only are companies continuing to transition from fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, to renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, but they’re also adjusting to the uncertainty of a new U.S. administration with dramatically…

By 9 a.m., you’ve already handled seven anxious emails from team members concerned about yesterday’s layoff announcement. A dark cloud of worry hangs over the workplace, leaving everyone feeling overwhelmed. You find yourself in a challenging but common situation. While you aim to keep your team calm and focused, the updates from leadership are sparse…

Workplaces today are facing a breakdown of civility — defined as a shared standard of politeness and respect for others. While incidents of incivility have declined slightly since a peak in late 2024, rudeness in the workplace and society remains alarmingly high, according to a recent survey by the Society of Human Resource Management. The…

We’ve all been there — dull, never-ending training webinars. After 30 minutes, our focus fades, and we find ourselves doodling, checking email, or playing games on our phone just to stay awake. When it finally wraps up, we retain a vague memory of the topics but none of the details or how to put them…

Decades of research support the positive impact of psychological safety — the shared belief that people will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes — on team performance. However, this concept is often misunderstood, and there’s been a recent call from leaders for clarity around specific and actionable…

The diversity and inclusion (D&I) landscape in the U.S. is facing a perfect storm of challenges. The For decades, artificial intelligence was little more than a quirky concept from science fiction or, at best, a fringe technology. Then, seemingly overnight, the advent of generative AI allowed the technology to become a go-to resource for organizations.…

The diversity and inclusion (D&I) landscape in the U.S. is facing a perfect storm of challenges. The multifaceted attack — political, social, and legal — demands a multifaceted response. To navigate this turbulent environment and advance diversity and inclusion, organizations must focus on three key actions: tying D&I to business outcomes, creating systems that focus…

In today’s dynamic workplace, effective leaders are more important than ever. But traditional leadership development, which prioritizes individual skills and knowledge, falls short in one key area: inclusion. Leaders of the future must be inclusive leaders, which calls for rethinking not only how we define leadership development, but also how we think of inclusion itself,…

If there’s a single behavioral shift employees can make to unlock performance, it may be changing from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. This simple change — from seeing mistakes as failures to seeing them as chances to improve — has been found in numerous studies to tilt entire organizational cultures toward better outcomes. …

Creating an inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and heard is essential but challenging. A major barrier is the “broken feedback loop” — when employees share their thoughts and ideas prior to a big decision, but then company leaders make the decision without any explanation or transparency. When this happens, employees can’t anchor in the…

Casey, a product lead, was tasked with leading a team to build and quickly roll out a new product. She emailed each team member the project plan and their individual list of deliverables, signing off with a quick, “Let me know if this isn’t clear.” If all deadlines are met, they should be able to…

Accenture reports that the rate of change in businesses has accelerated 183% since 2019, with a 33% rise in the past year alone. This evolution is faster than ever before and shows no signs of slowing down. Factors like hybrid workplaces, increased polarization, global conflicts, and AI transformation have contributed. With all this change, it’s…

Many topics were on leaders’ minds this year, but several stood out from the rest. Accountability, psychological safety, learning and development, and understanding leadership all captured people’s attention in 2024. Below, we’ve collected the 10 most popular articles on the Your Brain at Work blog this year. They reflect the most pressing issues within organizations…

Over the past several years, the healthcare industry has witnessed unprecedented change. Hospitals, care facilities, and their parent organizations are adapting to technological innovation, inequities in care, aging populations, and the burnout that comes from ever-increasing workloads. In short, the healthcare industry needs help adapting quickly and sustainably. Executives, administrators, and leaders must embrace new…

Everybody likes getting praised, but there may come a time when your manager has some thoughts they’d like to share with you. Some … not-so-complimentary thoughts. In these moments, how equipped are you to handle their feedback? For most people, negative or “constructive” feedback is highly stressful. But it’s also crucial for preventing future mistakes,…

Speaking up is hard enough on its own. Speaking up to a senior leader when you’re relatively new to a managerial role is even more challenging. However, it’s also necessary. Between 50%-60% of an organization’s managers are front-line managers, and together, they manage about 80% of all employees. These front-line managers play a vital role…

Think about the last time you went to see live music. Who’d you go with? Did you meet new people? Did you share pictures and stories with friends or on social media? When you think about those experiences, what stands out most: Who you went with or the music you heard? Recent research explores how…

In a two-day, all-virtual global event, this year’s NeuroLeadership Summit explored what organizations need to focus on to stay adaptable — in all facets of business. Topics ranged from leadership development to artificial intelligence and skill-building in an age of rapid change. More than 5,000 participants attended this year’s Summit, many of them reporting strong…