Digital Experience Management Rising: Practice, Issues & Platforms

Curt Hall
This Advisor explores the rise of digital experience management (DXM). When implemented successfully, DXM can facilitate better engagement with existing customers, assist in acquiring new customers, and help differentiate a brand from its competition.

What Is Character & Why Does It Matter in Leadership?

Kimberley Young Milani
This Advisor delineates how character is defined and positioned within a leadership context. Based on extensive research conducted by the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership, character can be understood through two foundational frameworks: the Effective Leader framework and the Ivey Leader Character Framework (ILCF).

Case Study: A Nuclear Power Plant Digital Twin

Jason Radel
This Advisor examines a digital twin framework that was used to create, adjust, and deploy a digital twin of a nuclear power plant in the Middle East.

Reframing Responsible Decision-Making

Kanina Blanchard
The course “Leading Responsibly” at the Ivey Business School in Canada teaches individuals to become more responsible by helping them unpack their lived experiences. This Advisor offers key insights gleaned from the course.

Immersive Commerce: How Retailers Are Using AR/VR, GenAI & Digital Twins

Curt Hall
In this Advisor, Cutter Expert Curt Hall examines how retailers like Walmart, Wayfair, and Savage X Fenty are using GenAI, AR, VR, computer vision, digital twins, and social collaboration to improve the shopping experience.

To Avoid Unethical Decisions, Be Aware of Sneaky Cognitive Biases

Barbara Carlin
In this Advisor, Barbara A. Carlin delves into sneaky problems commonly faced by leaders. These problems are sneaky because cognitive biases that creep into our decision-making cause us to overlook their ethical implications. The biases detected in the decision-making problems illustrated here include nonmonetary transactions, the framing effect, and ill-conceived goals.

The Strategic CIO: Unlocking the Value of Cloud Computing

Myles Suer
The cloud has revolutionized the way businesses operate, offering unprecedented agility, innovation, and resilience. In this Advisor, Myles Suer stresses that the key to leveraging cloud investments isn't solely in cost-cutting but in enhancing the ROI by accelerating business outcomes and value delivery.

Preparing Agile-Adaptive Leaders of the Future

Jim Highsmith
Leaders who demonstrate agility may be the cornerstone of our future — be it for a team, a company, or a nonprofit organization. In this Advisor, Cutter Fellow Emeritus Jim Highsmith offers some advice for preparing these agile-adaptive leaders.

Agile-Adaptive Voices from the C-Suite: Jeff Smith, Former IBM & Suncorp CIO

Jim Highsmith
Jeff Smith dreamed of making an Agile culture something you could learn, practice, measure, and improve. In this Amplify Update, the second in a series, we follow Smith as he moves from Suncorp to IBM and then World Kinect, defying conventional wisdom to lead these companies on a digital transforming journey. Even as Smith communicated the journey’s purpose simply and clearly, mandated culture change, radically reformed the middle management layer, and modernized delivery, he never forgot the importance of balancing performance with people.

Using IT to Manage Carbon Assets

Enrique Castro Leon
As we explore in this Advisor, information technology can be leveraged to maintain real-time inventories of carbon assets and could be used to create a system designed to meet specific GHG-mitigation goals.

Embedding Character Leadership into Organizational DNA — Opening Statement

Dusya Vera, Ana Ruiz Pardo
This Amplify issue portrays the various levels in which character resides — individuals, groups, and organizations — and the processes that show how character manifests in organizations. It crosses three themes: (1) well-being and stress management, proposing that character leadership development and mindfulness training help individuals navigate complex organizational environments more effectively; (2) the strategic embedding of character to advance DEI initiatives and foster a culture of inclusivity; and (3) character resides in strategic leadership teams and high-performance teams, which has important implications for decision-making, the pursuit of excellence, and performance. Our aim is to bring character to the forefront of what it takes for organizations to be prosperous and sustainable, by elevating character alongside competence and commitment in the practice of leadership.

Infusing Leader Character into Workplace DEI Practices

Natacha Prudent, Mary Crossan
Natacha Prudent and Mary Crossan propose embedding leader character into organizations, asserting that the sustainability of DEI efforts depends on leaders reaffirming their commitment to character, suggesting it as a foundational element for both organizations and DEI initiatives: “corporate DNA.” The authors underscore the financial benefits of gender and ethnic diversity in leadership roles and use the Ivey Leader Character Framework (ILCF) as a tool aimed to guide leaders in introspection and development, emphasizing the role of character in driving comprehensive, sustainable change in DEI.

CEO Humility, Narcissism & Competitive Advantage

William Spangler
William Spangler delves into how CEOs’ humility and narcissism influence their behavior, focusing on dysfunctional behavior like fraud, crime, corruption, and bribery. With a sample of 190 CEOs and data collected from interviews and public sources, Spangler introduces a set of diverse CEO archetypes. The article differentiates between professional CEOs and entrepreneurial CEOs. Spangler describes how humility and narcissism can coexist in CEOs and shows how humility moderates narcissistic tendencies, reducing the propensity to engage in dysfunctional and negative leader behaviors.

Humanity, Social Intelligence & High-Performance Teams: Character Lessons for the Public Sector

James Rychard
James R. Rychard explores the essence of high-performance teams, emphasizing the role of collaboration and how it is rooted in social intelligence as part of the character dimension of humanity. After examining the threat of “dark triad” personalities to team dynamics, the article presents an exemplary case of socially intelligent leader Kazuo Inamori, former CEO of Japan Airlines, and extracts important lessons for the public sector. Rychard underscores the importance of investing in leadership development and fostering a culture of character to support collaboration in the public sector.

How Leader Character Can Help Nonprofit Boards Protect Organization Missions

Trevor Hunter
Trevor Hunter argues for the importance of leader character and instrumental skills in nonprofit organization (NPO) boards. The article explores distinctive duty-of-care expectations for NPO boards, emphasizing their role in protecting the organization’s mission and the quality of judgment required to navigate nuanced decisions. Hunter asks, “What are the implications for NPO performance if the board is not demonstrating leader character?” Examples illustrate how each of the Ivey Leader Character Framework (ILCF) dimensions can manifest in NPO board behaviors to safeguard the mission.

Board Leader Character & Effective Governance

Karen FrydayField, Marlene Janzen Le Ber
Karen Fryday-Field and Marlene Janzen Le Ber acknowledge systemic challenges impacting governance and highlight the influence of board culture on interactions and decisions, emphasizing the role of implicit rules, values, and past stories. They propose redefining effective governance through collective board character. The article adapts the Ivey Leader Character Framework (ILCF) from the individual to the board level and presents a case study involving a breakdown in communication and trust that underscores the transformative power of board leader character.

The Intersection of CEO Humility & Inclusive Environments

Tiffany Maldonado
Tiffany Maldonado, Tanny Carmona, Jordan Jessup, and Montserrat Sanz Mondragon explore the role of CEO humility in shaping inclusive environments within organizations. Acknowledging the progress made by organizations in embracing inclusivity, the article discusses the concept of an inclusive environment, emphasizing the importance of valuing uniqueness, promoting belonginess, and integrating differences in decision-making. The authors suggest that humility is a key character dimension of inclusive leaders, impacting the development of an inclusive environment both internally and externally.

Character Development & Mindfulness: A Sustainable Competitive Advantage for Leaders & Employees

Cassandra Ellis, Lucas Monzani, Sonja Bruschetto
Cassandra Ellis, Lucas Monzani, and Sonja Bruschetto argue that exercising leader character alongside mindfulness techniques has the potential to enhance leaders’ ability to reduce stress and burnout and to motivate individuals, groups, and organizations toward the pursuit of collective objectives and goals. Emphasizing the importance of workplace well-being initiatives, the authors advocate for a tailored mindfulness-based strengths practice (MBSP) that is rooted in character development, offers insights on enhancing decision-making, protects well-being, and helps companies gain a competitive edge.

Character Leadership

Dusya Vera, Ana Ruiz Pardo

 

 

Character Leadership

February 8, 2024 | 10:00am-10:45am EST | 16:00-16:45 CET (see your local time)


Expand Your Talent Pool with the Equation for Equality

Matthew Walsh
The Equation for Equality tackles the issues of occupational segregation, labor-shortage acuteness, and the risks faced by both individuals and employers when engaging with career transitions. The equation gives employers a way to expand their talent pool in a low-risk way by identifying workers outside a given sector that use a similar skill set to that required by an open position.

Conversational Commerce: New Developments with GenAI in Retail

Curt Hall
In this Advisor, Cutter Expert Curt Hall examines key developments involving the use of GenAI in the retail industry, including examples of how Microsoft, Google, and Walmart are utilizing the technology to develop new products and applications that support conversational commerce.

Leaders: Gain a Broader Perspective to Navigate Geopolitical Risk

JooSeuk Maing
Given today’s geopolitics, variable factors come into play, and cost is no longer the primary consideration. As Korea/Vietnam CEO Joo-Seuk Maing explains in this Advisor, gaining a broader perspective is a necessity for leaders as they navigate global risk.

Benefits of Blockchain-Enabled Microgrids

Ali Arabnya, Amin Khodaei
This Advisor takes a closer look at interoperable energy microgrids enabled by blockchain, which can offer more choices to consumers, improve market efficiency by eliminating middlemen, increase resilience by decentralizing the network topology, and enable new marketplaces.

Driving DAO Governance Innovation with Web3 Social Media

Johannes Rude Jensen, Omri Ross
Although the still-abstract concept of Web3 social media may not immediately appear relevant for the current generation of DAOs, we believe this tooling will emerge as a force multiplier for the growth of token-powered organizations. As we explore in this Advisor, Web3 social media will: promote accessibility in the decentralized technology stack, bring commercial incentives for value capture to the forefront, and create a new standard for identity on the blockchain.

Character Leadership at the Intersection of Business, Purpose & Sustainability

Kimberley Young Milani
Kimberley Young Milani explores the intersection of leadership, business, purpose, and sustainability in the contemporary world. She emphasizes the need for leaders to embody both competence and character. The article also looks at the intersection of character and organizational purpose, warning that without character, an organization’s purpose might become a hollow slogan or facade.