MIT Sloan Management Review

More than ever, CEOs must develop their peripheral vision, scanning for faint — but vital — signals that will help them give their companies an edge.

A CEO’s new vision often blurs into an indistinct image once the initial blitz is over. To ensure that the vision is more than just a daydream, companies should follow a five-phase model that some organizations have used successfully to avoid disaster or complacency.

Executives are set up to fail when they are given one leadership mandate while others in the organization operate under a different, conflicting set of directives.

The practice of coaching as a tool for work force and leadership development has gained popularity in recent years. In theory, coaching asks supervisors to spend more time giving constructive, individualized feedback on performance to subordinates, rather than barking orders and sending their troops to boot-camp training programs.

Managing change does not mean dealing with chaos. In fact, continuous change is a predictable cycle with four phases, each requiring certain resources and a specific type of champion.

Companies often make crucial mistakes when trying to protect trade secrets, sometimes relying on policies that actually lead to more information being divulged.

Too often, leaders impose top-down visions on their organizations. The best leaders identify and express the meaning that is inherent in the organization’s work.

Corporate strategy is supposed to be the means by which an organization achieves and sustains success. Yet, it rarely rises to that level, despite an abundance of corporate strategy theory and significant research from countless organizations over the past few decades.

Two views of board/CEO relationship persist. One is the common view that boards that are “entrenched” — or insulated from shareholder action — will ignore a struggling CEO to the detriment of shareholder interests.

Although the relevance of corporate philanthropy is widely accepted, few companies achieve significant, lasting societal impact because most lack a cohesive strategy. Effective philanthropy must be run no less professionally than the core business.

The seeds of effective change must be planted by embedding procedural and behavioral changes in an organization long before the initiative is launched.

In September 2004, Merck & Co. Inc. initiated the largest prescription drug withdrawal in history. After more than 80 million patients had taken Vioxx for arthritis pain since 1999, the company withdrew the drug because of an increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

Corporate social responsibility has become a vital part of the business conversation. Research points to five principles that underscore how collaboration provides the best combination of social and strategic payoffs.

A corporate sphere of influence is not just a platform for a company’s offensive or defensive initiatives. It is the basis upon which the company builds market power over rivals so it can maneuver freely without fear of retaliation.

Recent research holds lessons for any company doing business in China: In a land where Confucianism originated over 2,000 years ago yet still exerts a major ethical and philosophical impact on the prevailing ­culture, managers who actively offer employees clear goals and rewards can strengthen organizational loyalty.

Incoming CEOs at major companies are increasingly flaming out early in their tenures. But the blame for these costly and puzzling derailments cannot be placed solely on their shoulders.

Most management advice urges companies to undertake frequent and radical change in order to stay competitive. But, says the author, such advice is overprescribed, and those that continue to heed it risk initiative overload, organizational chaos and employee burnout.

Deal making and salesmanship are giving way to creativity and invention as the driving leadership ethos in corporate America.

To better manage technology, a generalist must know it well enough and challenge it often enough to truly understand its potential risks and rewards.

Alert executives are learning to orchestrate the difficult transition from a product-innovation culture to a process-innovation culture that can transform successful startups into enduring industry leaders.