Julie Irwin

Professor of Marketing and Business, Government and Society McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin

The other night I watched Raymond Reddington, fictional star of the TV series The Blacklist, pull off another impossible plotline without breaking a sweat, explaining calmly to one of his minions that the key to winning is to “value loyalty above all else.”

The notion of loyalty as a protective force that leads to great success is so much a part of how we think about leadership that it is very easy to accept, even when it is not espoused by someone as exceptionally interesting to watch as James Spader.

I would contend that loyalty is linked with success in many people’s minds because the archetypal successful leader always demands utmost loyalty and in turn this demand is linked with a special competence. Remain loyal, the story goes, things will go well.

Martin Garguilo

Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD

Weak players in organisations can overcome their dependence on powerful actors, but it comes at a cost.

Alexis Tsipras, the new left wing prime minister of Greece, is in a tight spot. Having spent much of his time trying to coerce the powerful countries of Europe into accepting Greece’s rejection of the agreements signed between the EU and the prior Greek government, he’s not getting any closer to achieving his goals. He cannot reduce Greece’s dependence on the “troika” and has been unable to rally allies to his cause. Greece is running out of money, and out of time.

The case of Greece reminded me of my recent paper with Assistant Professor Gokhan Ertug, The Power of the Weak (2014), which examined the strategies weak organisational players can employ to attenuate their dependence on the powerful. Greece is the weak, but has tried to negotiate from an illusory position of strength. Such an approach was unlikely to work. To understand why, I would like to revisit our analysis of how weak organisational members can reduce their dependence on the powerful.

Peter Golder

Marketing Professor at Tuck School of Business

Tuck marketing professor Peter Golder talks about industry pioneers, memory bias, and healthy paranoia.

Brand leadership is extremely important for firms because the academic literature supports the fact that brand leaders are going to be more profitable. There’s also a view that leading brands will be especially long lived.

I’m more in agreement with the first point. Leading brands are profitable, but much of my research shows that the belief of long lived brand leadership is overstated in many ways.

Beth Stoops

Professor of Leadership Communication and Advanced Business Communication; Managing Director, Thunderbird Executive Education

Not all audiences are created equal. The same speaker can start the same speech with the same joke and get laughter on one day and awkward silence on the next. Effective communicators anticipate audience differences and make adjustments before stepping to the pulpit. They also monitor and respond to nonverbal signals that come during their presentations. And they remain aware of cultural preferences that vary by region and demographics.

The message being delivered does not need to change for each audience — only the organizational pattern, delivery style and supporting material. Business communication author Mary Ellen Guffey suggests specific strategies for succeeding with four common audience types.