Weekend Leadership Reading: 2/1/19

  |   Weekend Leadership Reading Print Friendly and PDF

Weekends are time when things slow down a little. Your weekend shouldn’t be two more regular work days. That’s a sure road to burnout. Take time to refresh yourself. Take time for something different. Take time for some of that reading you can’t find time for during the week.

Here are choice articles on hot leadership topics culled from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms. This week there are articles about the future of life and work.

From Steve Glaveski: The Case for the 6-Hour Workday

“The eight-hour workday harkens back to 19-century socialism. When there was no upper limit to the hours that organizations could demand of factory workers, and the industrial revolution saw children as young as six-years-old working the coal mines, American labor unions fought hard to instill a 40-hour work week, eventually ratifying it as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.”

From Adi Gaskell: The Growing Role Of Emotional Intelligence In Hiring Decisions

“As we enter a period of seemingly ever increasing change, skills like resilience and emotional intelligence are likely to be ever more important. The attraction of emotional intelligence was highlighted by a recent study from the Universities of Geneva (UNIGE) and Berne (UNIBE), where the researchers illustrate the test they have devised to measure how emotionally competent someone is.”

From Danielle Kost: Why Business Should Support Employees Who Are Caregivers

“Shifting demographics are causing an increasing number of people to act as caregivers for family and friends—but employers seem hardly to notice the trend. Joseph Fuller discusses why companies should support them.”

From Irving Wladawsky-Berger: The True Value of a Good Education: Adaptability to a Changing Environment

“In his 1945 seminal report, Science The Endless Frontier, presidential science advisor Vannevar Bush laid out the blueprint for R&D in post-war America: ‘New knowledge can be obtained only through basic scientific research’ conducted in universities and research labs, which is then applied to develop new products by the private sector and new and improved weapons by the defense sector. The report was quite influential and led to the considerable expansion of university research, much of it supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Heath (NIH) and other US federal agencies.”

From Anne Donovan: What PwC Learned from Its Policy of Flexible Work for Everyone

“Our company has come a long way over the past decade by truly instilling a culture of flexibility across the firm. We now have the ability to work in a way that fits our personal lives and, if that means taking an early morning video call at home in our sweatpants, then so be it. When others ask me how we did it, I’m honest. This did not happen overnight. It wasn’t easy, there were growing pains along the way, and we’re still learning.”

Book Suggestions

Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent by Sydney Finkelstein

The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity by Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott

A Long Bright Future by Laura Carstensen

It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

Every week I share some recommendations of business books that I think are worth a look. Follow this link to the most recent list.

Every Monday, I do a blog post about business reading and business books. Follow this link to the most recent post, my review of Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein.

Join The Conversation

What People Are Saying

There are no comments yet, why not be the first to leave a comment?