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Category: Mid-Level Manager

  • Research: When Being Authentic Undermines Your Leadership

    Research: When Being Authentic Undermines Your Leadership

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    Summary.   

    Leaders often assume that revealing a painful setback makes them appear more authentic to their employees. New research suggests the more powerful signal is agency: people respond more positively

    Historically, being a strong leader meant being invulnerable and stoic—showing no signs of weakness. But in recent years, leaders have begun to embrace the idea that presenting an authentic version of themselves to their employees can have a host of benefits including strengthening employee performance and creativity.

  • Who Owns the Customer in the Age of AI Agents?

    Who Owns the Customer in the Age of AI Agents?

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    Illustration by Eliot Wyatt

    AI agents are changing the nature of customer relationships by taking on more of the discovery, comparison, negotiation, and purchasing decisions that companies once controlled through their own

    On September 8, 2026, Meta launched Muse, a personal AI agent designed to act on a user’s behalf: filling out forms, negotiating, booking travel, and making purchases. Twelve days later, Amazon blocked Muse from shopping on its site, arguing that third-party agents should identify themselves and obtain a retailer’s permission before transacting on behalf of its customers.

  • What Top Performers Do Differently with AI—and Why They See the Biggest Benefits

    What Top Performers Do Differently with AI—and Why They See the Biggest Benefits

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    Illustration by Jason Ford

    AI isn’t simply replacing sales work or automatically equalizing sales performance; it’s providing disproportionate lift to individuals and organizations that can build systems around

    Generative AI has produced two competing views about which workers will benefit most. One view is that AI will narrow performance gaps by giving lower performers templates, answers, and coaching directly in their workflow. The other is that AI will widen those gaps by eliminating routine but necessary work, which will allow top performers to spend more time on higher-value activities where they already have an advantage. At the individual task level, high and low performers may both benefit, but the more important question is which effect dominates on net in real jobs, where workers perform bundles of activities. The answer matters for how firms hire, train, organize teams, and adjust practices built for their current talent mix.

  • The Politics of Sustainability Have Changed. The Business Case Hasn’t.

    The Politics of Sustainability Have Changed. The Business Case Hasn’t.

    Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images

    Summary.   

    Corporate sustainability may have fallen out of favor in some executive and political circles, but the business case remains strong: Companies continue to invest because sustainability

    Corporate sustainability appears to be in a bit of a slump. ESG has become a political liability, sustainability teams are shrinking, and many executives have shifted their attention to AI, economic uncertainty, and regulatory fragmentation.

    Read more on Environmental sustainability or related topic Climate change

  • The 6 Essential Skills Your Workforce Needs to Keep Pace with AI

    The 6 Essential Skills Your Workforce Needs to Keep Pace with AI

    CV Viverito

    is a senior director analyst in the Gartner HR practice. They support CHROs and HR leaders to understand and prepare for AI’s impact on the workforce and shape work for the human-AI era. CV engages with clients and speaks on topics including AI’s impact on headcount and roles, AI’s impact on skills, AI literacy, building AI-readiness across the workforce, and the intersection of inclusion and AI.

  • Research: Sleep Deprivation Is a Leadership Problem

    Research: Sleep Deprivation Is a Leadership Problem

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    Sleep deprivation remains widespread among leaders, and many leaders underestimate how much fatigue affects their performance. A new survey of 1,009 U.S. managers and executives suggests that the

    At 8:40 a.m. on a Friday, a leadership team gathers to make the biggest call of its quarter. The CEO hasn’t had enough sleep all week, but nobody knows that, because she arrived energized, with a coffee in her hand, performing alertness the way many senior leaders learn to do. She’s far from the only one in the room performing alertness, though. Many of the others in the room are hiding their own sleep deprivation—which means the decision they’re all about to make may be shaped as much by the sleep they’ve lost this week as by the analysis in front of them.

  • Why Companies Should Support Crisis Volunteer Work

    Why Companies Should Support Crisis Volunteer Work

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    Employees who volunteer during a crisis bring more back to work than a sense of having helped: They can also become more resilient, adaptive, and innovative. Research across multiple crises in the

    In the fall of 2017, as Hurricane Harvey’s floodwaters receded across Houston, employees from a local construction firm joined volunteer crews helping homeowners gut waterlogged walls and begin the long road to rebuilding—during regular work hours and while still receiving company pay. The company knew this was a moment for the organization to support its community, but what they didn’t anticipate was what these employees would bring back. One volunteer described the experience to us this way: “Seeing the resilience of those people we were helping, and the impact we were having on them—[that] truly builds my resilience as well.” Across the group, employees who had come to Houston’s aid shared that the experience had changed them, giving them greater confidence in navigating uncertainty and stronger capabilities to adapt and develop creative solutions in their daily work. Further evidence from managers we interviewed supports the idea that crisis volunteering can indeed help employees develop some of the skills most critical to today’s workplaces.

  • How Leaders Talk About AI Predicts Adoption

    How Leaders Talk About AI Predicts Adoption

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    Illustration by Ana Moreno

    New research from BCG finds that how a company talks about AI is a material predictor of adoption results. The companies where leaders’ stories provide clarity, hope, and growth are seeing

    Stories are one way that leaders cement their legacy, inspire action, and define an era. The stories they tell about where a company is going can foreshadow opportunity or foment fear—sometimes unwittingly. Today, leaders are telling employees the story of what AI will mean for them. “No one knows,” some say, leaning into the 2010s-era virtue of transparency. “AI is coming for your job, but it’s coming for mine, too,” say others, in apprehensive solidarity. Still others position AI as a personal superpower, or the dawn of a heroic unknown. Each of these narratives is a choice. Each choice has consequences.

  • A Collection of HBR’s Most Insightful Research on AI at Work

    A Collection of HBR’s Most Insightful Research on AI at Work

    Illustration by Minjo Jung

    Summary.   

    Research on AI in the workplace can show us how the technology is really being used and what it does to the way we work. Recent studies offer lessons for leaders on how employees are actually

    There’s no shortage of assertions and predictions about AI’s impact on work. But what does the research say about what’s actually happening inside organizations—and how can you use it to make better decisions about how AI is implemented at your company?

  • Research: How Speech Patterns Shape Opportunity at Work

    Research: How Speech Patterns Shape Opportunity at Work

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    Tatiana Maksimova/Getty Images

    Summary.   

    Employees’ speech patterns can shape their careers, not because speech reliably predicts ability, but because managers often mistake familiarity for social skill. A new study, which draws on

    This article was produced by Harvard Business School Working Knowledge and features the insights of faculty member Kadeem Noray.