A leader with a non-traditional background must learn how to communicate with more confidence.

When she’s passed over for a big promotion, one leader must learn how to reposition her out-of-the-box approach for the C-suite.

Better diversity programs can't happen until we all (speaking mostly to myself, here) get comfortable talking about diversity. How do you walk the line between being aware (and owning) one's privilege, and being one of those "more-woke-than-thou" types. The HBR, who might know a thing or two about privilege, have some thoughts on the subject of talking about diversity.

Plenty of management books burn paper trying to build leadership structures that mitigate a lack of emotional commitment, throwing around works like "matrix" and "agile" because they haven't figured out that most companies still treat their people like cogs in a machine: easily replaceable and bought from the lowest cost vendor. As this turns into a mini-rant, Tom Peters says that if you care about what I care about, I'll care about what you care about. And it is only in light of the pandemic that we see which companies actually seem to care about their people (and which don't, suggesting where engagement scores might go to die). EB has a role to play, because if people really believe the EVP/pillars you turned into a poster, they are more likely to feel emotionally committed. And if they don't, that suggests you need to go back to the drawing board.

Sure, working from home, and the increasing likelihood that is it here to stay, might be great (for some of you). As many candidates want remote work, and remote work allows you to hire the best matching candidate from pretty much anyway, its a chance to really level-up your talent. But there’s a downside: management isn’t always comfortable with remote workers and are distrusting of their productivity. When one company proclaims its love of remote work, many people will see that as a red flag, an excuse to install spyware and implement “always on” expectations for remote. So how will you talk about your remote work brand when there isn’t always a lot of trust in the room?