Knowledge Resources - White Papers

• Boundary Spanning in Action: Tactics for Transforming Today's Borders into Tomorrow's Frontiers
  In this restless world, leaders face complex challenges that can be solved only by building bridges across expansive boundaries. In this second of two CCL white papers on boundary spanning, we share some success stories and outline some tactics that you can use right away to bridge boundaries in your organization. (more...) (PDF, 4.9 MB)
• Future Trends in Leadership Development
  CCL Senior Faculty Member Nick Petrie took a year's sabbatical at Harvard University, studying across the university's schools and interviewing experts to uncover what the future of leadership development will look like in an increasingly complex and uncertain world.(more...) (PDF, 1.9 MB)
• The Coach's View: Best Practices for Successful Coaching Engagements
  Executive coaches in the U.S., Europe and Asia were interviewed about their real-world experiences to glean practical information about their best practices for effective coaching. (more...) (PDF, 1.4 MB)
• Making Your Life Work: A New Approach to Increasing Your Effectiveness On and Off the Job
  Behavior, identity and control. Find out how these three factors can help working people, who are pulled in many directions, identify strategies and small changes that will make them more effective both on and off the job. (more...) (PDF, 1.2 MB)
• Learning Leadership in the Military
  Military officers attending CCL's Leadership at the Peak program were surveyed on their key developmental experiences and the lessons learned from those events. Learn what these senior officers reported most frequently as developmental experiences, which led to lessons on Managing Subordinates, Executive Leadership, Communication, Integrity and Decision-Making. (more...) (PDF, 1.3 MB)
• Collaborative Healthcare
  As sweeping reform and challenging market forces change the way healthcare is delivered and managed, CCL offers healthcare leaders a six-part model for adapting and thriving during this time of transformative change. (more...) (PDF, 1.6 MB)
• Making Leadership Happen
  The list of behaviors and characteristics for leaders seem endless. This white paper describes CCL's "whole system" approach to leadership, which refrains from putting the entire weight of leadership on individual managers. (more...) (PDF, 1.8 MB)
• Grooming Top Leaders
  CCL researchers have identified five basic experiences that deliver valuable leadership learning. But our research from China, India, Singapore and the U.S. shows that some developmental experiences are more country-specific. (more...) (PDF, 1.5 MB)
• Creating Tomorrow's Government Leaders: An Overview of Top Leadership Challenges and How They Can Be Addressed
  Government leaders need specific skills to survive in today's uncertain and volatile world under constant watch of social networkers and traditional news media. This research-based paper explores those vital skills. (more...) (PDF, 1.3 MB)
• The Leadership Challenge in the Pharmaceutical Sector
  What leadership competencies are most critical for success in the pharmaceutical industry and how strong are current pharma leaders in those competencies? This white paper examines those questions in a research-based discussion of capabilities that are missing among pharma leaders and how those missing skills can be developed. (more...) (PDF, 1.3 MB)
• Addressing the Leadership Gap in Healthcare
  The healthcare sector is experiencing significant and rapid change, with more dramatic change yet to come. In an evolving and challenging environment, healthcare organizations must develop the leadership capacity needed to adapt and succeed in the future. CCL analyzed leadership effectiveness data from nearly 35,000 people working in the field, and the results and insights from that study are outlined in this paper. (more...) (PDF, 1.7 MB)
• Empathy in the Workplace: A Tool for Effective Leadership
  To determine if empathy influences a manager's job performance, CCL analyzed data from 6,731 managers in 38 countries. Key findings were that empathy is positively related to job performance, and it's more important to performance in some cultures than in others. This white paper unveils the details of that research. (more...) (PDF, 2.2 MB)
• High-Potential Talent: A View from Inside the Leadership Pipeline
  The leadership pipeline bends, turns, and sometimes breaks as organizations identify who is "ready now" and who is "on track" for larger leadership roles. From this perspective, talent management is something done to and for an organization's high-potential employees, in service of the organization's needs. But talent management has another, overlooked perspective: The view from the pipe. (more...) (PDF, 2 MB)
• Leadership Development in Africa: A Focus on Strengths
  There is no doubt that the need for effective leadership in Africa is high. But traditionally, talented leaders have not received much structured support for developing their full leadership potential. For this reason, many organizations in Africa are underperforming. By strengthening leadership skills, they could improve their business results and strengthen their prospects for sustainable growth and prosperity. (more...) (PDF, 1.4 MB)
• Innovation Leadership
  In today's volatile economy, innovation leadership matters more than ever. Leaders need these skills themselves, as they operate in challenging times. They also need to create a climate in their companies that nurtures the innovative systems, thinking and tools that are crucial for growth. CCL and renowned design firm Continuum have partnered to show you the impact of innovation leadership -- and to help you cultivate it now. (more...) (PDF, 1.3 MB)
• The Leadership Challenge in the Energy Sector
  In challenging times, energy companies cannot afford to pour resources into generalized development, expecting that they will end up with employees who are well-equipped to lead the business. Well-targeted leadership development initiatives are essential for success. To help our energy clients better understand and focus their leadership development efforts, CCL analyzed leadership effectiveness data from more than 11,000 people working in the energy sector. This paper outlines the results. (more...) (PDF, 1.3 MB)
• Executive Integration: Equipping Transitioning Leaders for Success
  Leaders in changed environments — whether due to promotion, new hiring, merger or restructuring — often don't apply good learning practices. Therefore, they fail to learn and act to fail. This white paper examines how effective executive integration programs can focus resources on accelerating the learning of leaders in situations of change. (more...) (PDF, 290 KB)
• Transforming Your Organization
  In turbulent times, it's not enough for organizations to focus merely on strategy and operations. In the face of change, it's equally crucial to invest in building a leadership culture that can rise to the challenge. When organizations align their leadership behaviors with their business strategy, performance accelerates. Read this white paper to learn how two global companies -- Abrasive Technology and KONE -- changed their fortunes by transforming the leadership culture. (more...) (PDF, 287 KB)
• Boundary Spanning Leadership
  In a recent study by CCL, 86 percent of senior executives said it is "extremely important" to work across boundaries in their current leadership roles. Yet, only 7 percent of these executives believe they are currently "very effective" at doing so. Closing this gap is both a critical challenge and a transformative opportunity for leaders and organizations in today's business environment. This white paper explores why boundary spanning leadership matters and how to make it happen. (more...) (PDF, 1.2 MB)
• The Leadership Gap
  This paper shares findings from a Center for Creative Leadership study conducted between 2006 and 2008, designed to explore the concern that leadership skills are lacking. We surveyed 2,200 leaders from 15 organizations in three countries. The study showed that crucial leadership skills in today's organizations are, in fact, insufficient for meeting current and future needs. This special report also provides recommendations for organizations seeking to assess and bridge the gap between where they are and where they need to be as they adjust and re-invent themselves in the coming months and years. (more...) (PDF, 1 MB)
• Developing a Leadership Strategy: A Critical Ingredient for Organizational Success
  Organizations depend upon capable leadership to guide them through unprecedented changes. Yet there is ample evidence in the news and in recent research reports that even some of the best and most venerable organizations are failing to adapt to change, implement their strategic plans successfully or prepare for a more uncertain future. While most leaders are aware of the value of a well-defined business strategy, few give thought to the leadership that will be required to implement strategies that call for changes in the direction or capabilities of the organization. Without proper leadership, even the best and boldest strategies die on the vine, their potential never realized. (more...) (PDF, 1.3 MB)
• Creating Coaching Cultures: What Business Leaders Expect and Strategies to Get There
  This benchmark study is the result of a partnership between Cylient and The Center for Creative Leadership that gives voice to 347 leaders regarding the trends for utilizing coaching in organizations. While the strong trend toward growth in coaching continues across a wide base of industries, the variety of ways in which coaching is being used also seems to be expanding. (more...) (PDF, 1.3 MB)
• Driving Performance: Why Leadership Development Matters in Difficult Times
  Numerous in-depth studies have reached the same conclusion: Organizations that invest in leadership development perform better than those that don't. Challenging times magnify that truth even more. (more...) (PDF, 1.1 MB)
• Globally Responsible Leadership
  Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability represent a new competitive business advantage and one of the most powerful drivers for growth and innovation in today's organizations. Organizations building corporate responsibility into the fabric of their business are those that will successfully handle our current global challenges (shortage of resources, strategic talent management, etc.) This CCL white paper highlights the leadership required to build an organization that is globally responsible, and ultimately sustainable. (more...) (PDF, 771 KB)
• Creating Coaching Cultures: What Business Leaders Expect and Strategies to Get There
  This benchmark study is the result of a partnership between Cylient and The Center for Creative Leadership that gives voice to 347 leaders regarding the trends for utilizing coaching in organizations. While the strong trend toward growth in coaching continues across a wide base of industries, the variety of ways in which coaching is being used also seems to be expanding. (more...) (PDF, 1.3 MB)
• The Role of Power in Effective Leadership
  The purpose of this research is to understand how leaders use power, to learn about the situations in which power is exerted and to describe how individuals and organizations can improve their leadership through the effective use of power. (more...) (PDF, 476 KB)
• Driving Performance: Why Leadership Development Matters in Difficult Times
  Numerous in-depth studies have reached the same conclusion: Organizations that invest in leadership development perform better than those that don't. Challenging times magnify that truth even more. (more...) (PDF, 1.1 MB)
• Senior Leadership Team Coaching
  Senior leadership teams are arguably the most important groups in any organization. Their decisions have implications for everyone else in the organization as well as for the future of the organization itself. In this brief, we will review what these groups have to do and what they need. We will consider why senior leadership team coaching might be important for their success and raise some cautions for those who would like to work in the field. (more...) (PDF, 555 KB)
• Stepping into the Void
  Reflections and insights from a forum on crisis leadership convened at the Center for Creative Leadership March 13-15, 2007. (more...) (PDF, 1.2 MB)
• What's Next?
  What's next in the field of leadership? CCL asked more than 1,000 executives worldwide. Our new research white paper shares their answers -- and captures the most important trends in leadership. (more...) (PDF, 353 KB)
• Leadership and the Triple Bottom Line
  A CCL research white paper about bringing sustainability and corporate social responsibility to life.  (more...) (PDF, 315 KB)
• 10 Trends: A Study of Senior Executives' Views on the Future
  This new, groundbreaking research reveals what global business leaders believe are the 10 biggest trends in effective leadership. Among them: collaboration, innovation and talent management. (more...) (PDF, 305 KB)
• Stress of Leadership
  The Stress of Leadership research examines how stress impacts leadership. Two major research methods were used: a short in-class survey via computer kiosks and a volunteer Internet survey sent to CCL participants two to three weeks after completion of their respective programs. (more...) (PDF, 297 KB)
• Everyday Leadership
  The Everyday Leadership research study attempts to better understand non-traditional leaders -- stay-at-home moms, small business owners, students, doctors, educators -- by gaining insights into their personal lives, their thoughts and theories about the practice of leadership, and their hopes for the future. (more...) (PDF, 297 KB)
• The Changing Nature of Leadership: A CCL Research White Paper
  How has leadership changed and will it look different in the future? The Center for Creative Leadership explored this question with more than 300 leaders - and uncovered some important, emerging trends. Learn more in The Changing Nature of Leadership: A CCL Research White Paper. (more...) (PDF, 1.5 MB)
• The State of Teams - A Research White Paper from CCL
  CCL's 2006 State of Teams white paper provides a broad look at the challenges, needs, and functioning of teams in today's organizations. This report was based on survey results from 118 CCL program alumni. (more...) (PDF, 291 KB)

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