The Science of Leadership with Harvard Professor David Deming: Why the Best Leaders May NOT Be Who You Think

The Science of Leadership with Harvard Professor David Deming: Why the Best Leaders May NOT Be Who You Think

Did you know that those most eager to lead might actually be the worst at it? Have you ever worked with a leader who's always eager to step up, but when they get the role, things fall apart? We often think that leadership is about willingness and eagerness, but recent research shows the opposite—leaders chosen for their desire to lead often perform worse than those randomly selected. In this episode, we break down these surprising insights with Professor David Deming at Harvard Kennedy School. David shares why effective leadership is about having the right skills, not just wanting the role. We dive into key traits like overconfidence, emotional intelligence (EQ), and economic decision-making, and how they play critical roles in leadership success. You'll learn why overconfidence can backfire and prevent leaders from truly understanding their team. Plus, we discuss how randomly selected managers often outperform eager volunteers and why organizations need to rethink how they develop and choose strong leaders—it's not just about who raises their hand.

________________

Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

Episoder(1177)

The AI Liability Era Begins, Salesforce Freezes Pay, and Why 95% of Job Postings Still Don't Mention AI

The AI Liability Era Begins, Salesforce Freezes Pay, and Why 95% of Job Postings Still Don't Mention AI

March 26, 2026: A California jury found Meta and YouTube liable for deliberately addictive platform design — and the legal framework they used is headed straight for enterprise AI. Salesforce freezes ...

26 Mar 37min

863 Applications Per Hire, 78% of Workers Scared, and Microsoft Blows Up HR

863 Applications Per Hire, 78% of Workers Scared, and Microsoft Blows Up HR

March 25, 2026: Fortune reports that the job market has gotten so broken that people are paying $1,500 a month just to have someone apply to jobs on their behalf — and on average it takes 863 applicat...

25 Mar 52min

CFOs Say AI Barely Touched Jobs, College Grads Still Worried, Anthropic Releases Economic Index Report

CFOs Say AI Barely Touched Jobs, College Grads Still Worried, Anthropic Releases Economic Index Report

March 24, 2026: Three major research reports dropped today with a combined picture of where AI and work actually stand right now. A landmark NBER working paper of nearly 750 CFOs finds AI had zero mea...

24 Mar 45min

Microsoft's Chief People Officer Reveals the Playbook on Scaling AI Without Losing Trust

Microsoft's Chief People Officer Reveals the Playbook on Scaling AI Without Losing Trust

The real bottleneck to AI isn't the code; it's our own ego. We're so hooked on being the "expert" that we've forgotten how to be beginners again, and in a world changing this fast, that's a dangerous ...

23 Mar 52min

Trump's AI Framework Is Here, Your Retirement Is at Risk, and Engineers Are Quitting for Tokens

Trump's AI Framework Is Here, Your Retirement Is at Risk, and Engineers Are Quitting for Tokens

March 20, 2026:  The White House dropped its national AI legislative framework today — I go through the whole thing, because there's a provision about preempting state AI laws that is one of the most...

20 Mar 49min

NVIDIA CEO Says Leaders Lack Imagination, Cognizant's $4.5T Warning, & The Case Against the AI Apocalypse

NVIDIA CEO Says Leaders Lack Imagination, Cognizant's $4.5T Warning, & The Case Against the AI Apocalypse

March 19, 2026: Jensen Huang had one of the biggest weeks in tech at Nvidia's GTC — but his sharpest line wasn't about chips. When asked why companies are laying off workers, he said simply: because t...

19 Mar 44min

Liberal Arts Makes A Comeback, CEOs Freeze Hiring, & GDP Sees Ghosts

Liberal Arts Makes A Comeback, CEOs Freeze Hiring, & GDP Sees Ghosts

March 18, 2026: Two-thirds of CEOs are freezing hiring while betting billions on AI — and a gender economist argues they're cutting the very people needed to make those bets pay off. A 7,000-word Subs...

18 Mar 41min

Meta's Layoff Math, FedEx's Agent Army, & A Crazy AI Productivity Forecast

Meta's Layoff Math, FedEx's Agent Army, & A Crazy AI Productivity Forecast

March 17, 2026: Five major AI models shipped in a single week in February. Your company's training budget grew 5%. Cathie Wood told Bloomberg this morning that AI is already pushing productivity above...

17 Mar 52min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

stopp-verden
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
dine-penger-pengeradet
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
e24-podden
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
finansredaksjonen
pengepodden-2
utbytte
liberal-halvtime
rss-markedspuls-2
pengesnakk
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
rss-pa-konto
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
lederpodden
rss-politisk-preik
stormkast-med-valebrokk-stordalen
rss-investering-gjort-enkelt