The theory is simple: With a clipboard and a stopwatch, you can measure and improve the performance of your workforce. But management by metrics doesn’t facilitate breakthroughs. For that, you need leadership: the art of doing things you’re not sure of, and doing them with enrollment instead of authority.

When faced with information overload, it can be easier to make good decisions if you’re able to remove yourself from all the details of the decision and consider the choices more abstractly. Research shows that such distancing, which can be either temporal or physical, can help people to filter out the less-vital details and enable them to focus on the gist of the matter.

It’s common for people to worry that reaching out for advice will make them appear less competent, according to research from Harvard Business School and the Wharton School. But if the task is seen as difficult, the advice-seeker is actually viewed as more competent. In addition to establishing a connection between people’s willingness to ask for advice and others’ perceptions of their competence, the authors found that whom people ask for advice makes a difference in how they are viewed.

Curiosity about the decision-making process has heated up, attracting academics from neuroscience, management, behavioral economics and psychology. Researchers have found, for instance, that a willingness to ask for advice on difficult problems can increase a person’s perceived competence, and that too many choices can cause people to make less-than-optimal choices. Here, we highlight six scholarly articles that have intriguing insights into the factors that can affect decision-making.

The role of managers needs to be redefined in today’s knowledge-based economy. Managerial authority remains essential in situations where decisions are time-sensitive, knowledge is concentrated and several decisions need to be coordinated. As well, an important task for today’s managers is to define the organizational goals and principles that they want employees to pursue. “From our perspective, the view that executive authority is increasingly passé is wrong,” write the authors.

Most executives spend a reasonable amount of time thinking about the business model for their organization. But how much time do they spend considering the company’s management model? In his book “Reinventing Management,” Julian Birkinshaw urges businesspeople to give more thought to management models. In a Q&A, Birkinshaw explains why management has been “corrupted” over the last 100 years, and what should change.

Social networks provide greater access to information, which improves people’s judgment and decision making, right? Not always, according to some recent research.

When seeking help from their network, top managers don’t leave it to chance. They think strategically about what type of advice to seek from what type of person.

The difference between effective and ineffective change makers is that the effective ones don’t rely on a single source of influence. They marshal several sources at once to get superior results.

Many companies invest considerable time and energy trying to build trust with customers, employees, suppliers and investors. Why are some of those efforts doomed to fail?

Despite the welter of data and analytics at their disposal, experienced managers often need to rely on gut instinct to make complex decisions under duress.

Most managers will tend to believe the “facts” that fit their views, even when faced with conflicting information or even outright contradiction.

Few companies understand how such innovation occurs — and how to encourage it. To foster new management ideas and techniques, companies first need to understand the four typical stages in the management innovation process.

In volatile and uncertain environments, managers must encourage and enable the spurts of participatory innovation that lead to emergent processes and solutions.

For many companies, incremental growth is not sufficient. The changing business landscape is forcing corporate leaders to learn how to reposition their businesses more fundamentally.

To manage relationships with subordinates, colleagues, bosses and others, executives first need to know how to classify those people accurately.

Many companies have filled their corner offices with mediocre executives. A set of basic practices can help organizations avoid such a crucial mistake.