Here are choice articles on hot leadership topics culled from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms, to start off your work week. I’m pointing you to articles about leadership, strategy, industries, innovation, women and work, and work and learning now and in the future. Highlights include why and how to grow from your strengths, new ways for patients to get a second opinion, how to create an innovation company, three ways for women to think holistically about their careers, and what Amazon’s workplace controversy says about the future of work.

Be sure to look for dots that you can connect.

Note: Some links require you to register or are to publications that have some form of limited paywall.

Thinking about Leadership and Strategy

From Kellogg Insight: Fake It Until You Make It? Not So Fast

“Our lives and careers are filled with examples of inauthentic behavior. We feign interest in meetings or laugh at our boss’s bad jokes in order to be positive team members, build relationships, and accomplish shared goals. This is how we get along—and it is how some of us get ahead.”

From Nigel Nicholson: I in Leadership

“The world might have turned out rather differently, were it not for Alexander the Great, Admiral Nelson and Steve Jobs. Nigel Nicholson explains his formula for successful leadership.”

From Gerald Adolph and Kim David Greenwood: Grow from Your Strengths

“The only sustainable way to capture new opportunities is to remain true to what your company does best.”

Industries and Analysis

From Peter Roesler: How mobile devices influence consumer restaurant choices

“Though it may not be as obvious, mobile devices also improve things for restaurant owners. A recent study from OpenTable examined the way that diners in the U.S. are using their mobile devices to find the perfect meal, even when they’re at the restaurant.”

From Lydia DePillis: Minimum-wage offensive could speed arrival of robot-powered restaurants

“Many chains are already at work looking for ingenious ways to take humans out of the picture, threatening workers in an industry that employs 2.4 million wait staffers, nearly 3 million cooks and food preparers and many of the nation’s 3.3 million cashiers.”

From Sumathi Reddy: New Ways for Patients to Get a Second Opinion

“For many patients, it has become a routine part of the medical process: Get a diagnosis or treatment plan and then seek a second opinion. A growing number of online services are offering second opinions and some are seeing increasing patient demand for a second set of eyes.”

Innovations and Technology

From Ron Ashkenas: To Create An Innovation Company: Focus On Culture Instead Of Cash

“One of the most heated debates involving innovation revolves around how to best incentivize people to develop and implement new ideas. Research on this issue offers a wide range of conclusions. For example, one recent research report suggests that offering financial incentives only raised the number of mediocre ideas and had little impact on breakthrough innovation. On the other hand, an MIT study concluded that group incentives and long-term rewards do have a positive impact on innovation. And still another survey of 20 companies from different industries found that 90% of the respondents thought that incentivizing and rewarding innovation was ‘something we should be doing better.'”

From Mike Shipulski: The Top Three Enemies of Innovation – Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

“With regard to time and resources, innovation’s biggest enemy is waiting.”

From Sherrie Campbell: 7 Ways to Ignite Innovation and Surpass Your Competition

“Innovation is thought inspired by creativity, movement, belief and action. It is about opening your mind to new possibilities by moving past fixed and rigid thinking into more nontraditional and risk-taking thought processes. To remain competitive in business, innovation is everything. There are seven keys to developing and following through on innovation.”

Women and the Workplace

From Tracey Lien: Silicon Valley start-ups lead the way toward more women in the workplace

“As Silicon Valley struggles to add more women to its predominantly male workforce — and to support their careers once they’re there — some young technology companies are demonstrating how it’s done. Benefits and working environment differ from company to company, but those that hire and promote women in significant numbers share one trait: total commitment from the top.”

From UNSW BusinessThink: A tale of two bosses: Why strong female leaders are seen as inauthentic

“Authenticity is not something you are but something you do, and it’s a very different process for men and women leaders, according to Helena Liu, Leanne Cutcher and David Grant in Doing Authenticity: The Gendered Construction of Authentic Leadership.”

From Dana Manciagli: 3 ways for women to think holistically about their careers

“Entrepreneurship is a great thing. It shapes the way businesspeople think, the relationships they forge, their daily disposition, and their overall approach to a work/life balance. For women entrepreneurs, it can be especially hard to juggle a family and personal life while keeping the appropriate entrepreneurial mindset intact.”

Work and Learning Now and in the Future

From Ed Frauenheim and Robert Levering: What Amazon’s workplace controversy says about the future of work

“The harsh workplace that a New York Times story recently described plaguing Amazon represents an old-fashioned business model that will almost certainly disappear soon.”

From Michael Schrage: Data-Driven Management Can Also Be Compassionate

“Should he desire, Jeff Bezos has a simple, powerful and culturally-compatible way to combat accusations that Amazon is a soulless, dystopian workplace: double down on being data-driven. Preempt bad employee vignettes with better empathic analytics.”

From Chris Edmonds: Do you want a “bruising” workplace?

“My exposure leads me to believe that Amazon’s corporate office has an incredibly demanding culture that pushes players far beyond what they even dreamed they could do. Some people thrive in that environment; some people wither.”

More Leadership Posts from Wally Bock

Winners never quit?

It’s not the difference between quitting and not quitting. Winners quit smart.

By and About Leaders: 8/25/15

Pointers to pieces by and about Jonathan Beekman, Indra Nooyi, Iliana Regan, Marcelo Claure, and Mario Longhi.

From the Independent Business Blogs: 8/26/15

Pointers to posts by Jesse Lyn Stoner, Dorothy Dalton, Steve Roesler, Mary Jo Asmus, and Chris Edmonds.

Stories and Strategies from Real Life: 8/28/15

Pointers to stories about Market Basket, Victoria’s Secret, Gap, Hill Co., and Flightradar24.

Writing well gives you the edge in business and in life. If you want to get a book done, improve your blog posts, or make your web copy more productive, please check out my blog about business writing. My coaching calendar for authors and blog writers currently has time open. Please contact me if you’re interested.