The Newsroom.
Evidence from the world’s research and reporting on the domestication of leaders, summarised and filed against the questions leaders actually ask. Chosen and read by Magnus Wood.
Why does my leadership team never disagree with me?
Your team never disagrees with you because disagreement has a price and they have all done the arithmetic.
- Strategy adoption tied to shared emotional engagement Harvard Business Review, 29 Oct 2026
- Research links meeting interruptions to hidden hierarchy MIT Sloan Management Review, 27 Oct 2026
- Executive teams avoid open disagreement, study finds Harvard Business Review, 7 Oct 2026
- Leaders’ threat response shapes fate of bold ideas Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26 Sep 2026
- Staff route disagreement through AI instead of speaking up Harvard Business Review, 17 Sep 2026
- Leader secrecy linked to less staff voice Journal of Organizational Behavior, 5 Sep 2026
- Survey links coerced allegiance to suppressed disagreement MIT Sloan Management Review, 1 Sep 2026
- Leadership teams stayed silent as executives’ worries grew MIT Sloan Management Review, 1 Sep 2026
- Board chairs and members disagree on inclusion MIT Sloan Management Review, 19 Aug 2026
- HBR warns niceness culture blunts leadership candour Harvard Business Review, 19 Aug 2026
- CEO describes risk-averse culture blocking dissent Harvard Business Review, 4 Aug 2026
- AI lifts individual ideas, narrows group variety MIT Sloan Management Review, 9 Jul 2026
- The hospital teams that reported the most drug errors were the ones rated best Amy C. Edmondson, Behavioral Scientist, “The Intelligent Failure that Led to the Discovery of Psychological Safety”, 4 Oct 2023
- Three in ten American workers strongly agree that their opinions count at work Gallup, “How to Create a Culture of Psychological Safety” (Jake Herway), 7 Dec 2017
- Employees stay silent to their bosses most often for fear of being labelled negatively Milliken, Morrison and Hewlin, “An Exploratory Study of Employee Silence”, Journal of Management Studies, 1 Sep 2003
Why do successful executives lose their edge as they get more senior?
Edge is not lost with seniority.
- Many leaders report chronic sleep shortfalls Harvard Business Review, 6 Oct 2026
- Class background shapes how CEOs are judged Strategic Management Journal, 6 Oct 2026
- Leading on time costs leaders their own energy Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26 Aug 2026
- Expert focus can mask fresh insight, study finds MIT Sloan Management Review, 5 Aug 2026
- Study flags erosion of leaders’ deeper thinking capacities MIT Sloan Management Review, 7 Jul 2026
I became a CEO and feel like I'm performing leadership rather than doing it. Why?
You feel like you are performing because much of what you bring to the role is a performance.
- Study finds CEOs shape less of company success than assumed Harvard Business Review, 1 Sep 2026
Why do I hold back from saying what I really think in board meetings?
You hold back because you have learned what gets rewarded there, and it is not candour.
- On the best-performing boards, 90 per cent report high trust between chair, directors and CEO Semafor, “Spencer Stuart’s CEO on trust and tension in the boardroom” (Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson), 21 Aug 2026
- Fifty-five per cent of directors say a colleague on their board should be replaced PwC, 2025 Annual Corporate Directors Survey, 1 Oct 2025
- Thirty-two per cent of CEOs have a lot of confidence in their board Spencer Stuart, “Measure of Leadership: CEOs and Directors on Navigating Change”, 1 Jun 2024
- The Code asks the chair for openness and debate and the non-executives for constructive challenge Financial Reporting Council, UK Corporate Governance Code 2024, 22 Jan 2024
- One director in three says they fully understand their company’s strategy McKinsey & Company, “Improving board governance: McKinsey Global Survey results”, 1 Aug 2013