This case examines the development of AXA, from a small mutual insurance company to one of the top 3 companies in the world. The case focuses more particularly on the period 2000-2012 and the CEO's efforts to change the culture of the organization to make it more customer- and employee-focused.

The search for the secrets of high performance organizations has been intense, yielding countless best-selling books and imitators in the process. However, a newer quest has emerged on the organizational front, for something that cannot be as easily imitated: high integrity. Before you can increase integrity in your organization, the author argues, you must familiarize yourself with the obstacles in your way. These obstacles include greed, fear and rationalization. Once all of this is taken into account, he provides four concrete steps for leaders to take.

After announcing the sudden medical leave of absence of António Horta Osório, CEO of Lloyd's Banking Group, the challenge facing the board was unprecedented. They would have to take immediate action to ensure interim leadership, and plan for the future. Should António Horta Osório return as CEO? If so, under what conditions? The board could only begin to answer these questions by addressing the source of the problem: What had caused their highly experienced and previously successful CEO to burn out? And how could they prevent it from happening again? Their collective knowledge of finance and the vicissitudes of global markets was broad and deep, but now they would be forced to discuss the undiscussable: the taboo of senior executive stress.

After announcing the sudden medical leave of absence of António Horta Osório, CEO of Lloyd's Banking Group, the challenge facing the board was unprecedented. They would have to take immediate action to ensure interim leadership, and plan for the future. Should António Horta Osório return as CEO? If so, under what conditions? The board could only begin to answer these questions by addressing the source of the problem: What had caused their highly experienced and previously successful CEO to burn out? And how could they prevent it from happening again? Their collective knowledge of finance and the vicissitudes of global markets was broad and deep, but now they would be forced to discuss the undiscussable: the taboo of senior executive stress.

Having spent the past five years working with the boards of some of the world's leading organizations, the authors reached a conclusion: boards need to become much more diverse -- not just demographically, but also in terms of the backgrounds, competencies and interests of their members. However, they warn that putting fresh faces onto boards provides no guarantee that benefits will ensue: diversity can also lead to gridlock. The fact is, people often feel threatened or annoyed by colleagues who are very different from themselves and have difficulty accepting, much less appreciating, those colleagues. In this article they describe the costs and benefits of diversity and provide seven recommendations for effectively diversifying boards - or senior teams -- in any industry.

HBR asked top management thinkers to share what they were resolved to accomplish in 2011. Here are their answers: Joseph E. Stiglitz will be crafting a new postcrisis paradigm for macroeconomics whereby rational individuals interact with imperfect and asymmetric information. Herminia Ibarra will be looking for hard evidence of how "soft" leadership creates value. Eric Schmidt will be planning to scale mobile technology by developing fast networks and providing low-cost smartphones in the poorest parts of the world. Michael Porter will be using modern cost accounting to uncover-and lower-the real costs of health care. Vijay Govindarajan will be trying to prototype a $300 house to replace the world's poorest slums, provide healthy living, and foster education. Dan Ariely will be investigating consumers' distaste for genetically modified salmon, synthetic pharmaceuticals, and other products that aren't "natural." Laura D. Tyson will be promoting the establishment of a national infrastructure investment bank. Esther Duflo will be striving to increase full immunization in poor areas of India. Clay Shirky will be studying how to design internet platforms that foster civility. Klaus Schwab will be undertaking to create a Risk Response Network through which decision makers around the world can pool knowledge about the risks they face. Jack Ma will be working to instill a strong set of values in his 19,000 young employees and to help clean up China's environment. Thomas H. Davenport will be researching big judgment calls that turned out well and how organizations arrived at them. A.G. Lafley will be proselytizing to make company boards take leadership succession seriously. Eleven additional contributors to the Agenda, along with special audio and video features, can be found at hbr.org/2011-agenda.

Having diagnosed the situation, he made overdue investments in systems and brought in new blood from outside, instilling new discipline, capabilities and operational efficiencies. Over five years, he managed to transform this seat-of-the-pants operation into a much more robust company, while at the same time continuing to deliver solid financial results. He also repositioned the company for growth in markets where there was little serious competition. These were considerable accomplishments for which he gained belated recognition. Yet, there were nagging concerns throughout his tenure: doubts from analysts about where he was taking the company; criticism from former executives that he was killing the entrepreneurial culture; question marks over the morale of store employees; complaints about customer service; and public disapproval for his expanding remuneration package. These issues came to a head in his sixth year in the job and specifically at a badly misjudged annual meeting with shareholders. Ultimately, he stopped listening to dissenting voices, and made a dreadful blunder - from which his reputation never quite recovered. Learning objectives: The case covers four key leadership issues: 1) The complexity of leading a large company - and the 3 critical roles required of leaders - as strategists, architects and mobilizers. 2) The difficulty of transforming a successful organization - and how to make the case for change in such a company. 3) The need to manage one's own competencies - and the dangers of carrying certain strengths too far: e.g. when does demanding become intimidating and when does self-confidence become stubbornness? 4) The need to manage oneself over time - particularly in terms of maintaining one's ability to listen, as well as coping with disappointment and coping with criticism.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. It's hard to pick up a major management magazine -and we're not excluding this one -and not find several articles outlining in painful detail where a leader went wrong in a particular case. Implicitly or explicitly in these stories, the employees are treated as receptive individuals waiting only for the boss to offer a productive channel to their intrinsic energies. But when a boss stumbles, it may be as a direct result of actions taken by employees who have sabotaged their actions. To keep this from happening, leaders must: 1. Understand the situation they are walking into. Leaders need to know how they are likely to be perceived and what their predecessor was like. 2. Invest early in subordinates. New bosses need to spend significant time one-on-one with employees for three reasons: to understand them; to get to know them; and to establish a rapport. 3. Be mindful of their own behavior. New leaders often overestimate the extent to which their good intentions and good character will shine through. Demonstrating one's "authentic self " does not mean "being natural." Rather, it requires managers to seize everyday opportunities to demonstrate that they are trustworthy, supportive and fair. 4. Intervene early. New bosses need to take action if there is a problem. Letting things fester only postpones the inevitable.

The case considers the steadily deteriorating relationship between BA's top management and its cabin crew union - and highlights the self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing nature of the dysfunctional dynamic that develops between the three key parties. We concentrate on the cognitive, motivational and behavioral mechanisms that drive the parties toward an avoidable stalemate. The airline ultimately got its way, but at the expense of a three-day strike estimated to have cost £125 million. In the process, it also inflicted huge damage on employee morale and corporate reputation. The strike proved to be a turning point in BA's fortunes, sending the once soaring share price into a long decline - as measured against its direct competitors. Although Ayling's radical cost-cutting strategy was in many ways farsighted, it was implemented in a way that alienated staff and angered the unions - moves that ultimately sent the company crashing out of the FTSE100. Learning objectives: We have written this case in response to demand from instructors to provide material for teaching the set-up-to-fail syndrome in different courses and in different contexts than the typical dyadic boss-subordinate relationship. This case shows how the process plays out in an intra-organizational situation between a company and its union - though a similar dynamic could easily develop with other stakeholders such as suppliers, alliance partners, shareholders, analysts or NGOs. It is a case about individual "opponents" who demonize each other - thus triggering a gigantic self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing process. The key lesson is that leaders and their teams have to be careful about labeling processes toward other parties. When they start caricaturing another stakeholder, they risk triggering vicious spirals.

This case covers Terry Leahy's career at Tesco, the UK-based retailer, and especially the ten years since he became CEO in 1997. Tesco has come a long way since the early 1990s, when it was playing second fiddle to Sainsbury's. It now has a 30% share of the UK groceries market, almost as big as its two closest competitors, Sainsbury's and the Wal-Mart-backed Asda, put together. It has used its solid domestic base to develop its international operations, culminating with the launch of a chain of convenience stores on Wal-Mart's home turf in late 2007. The case looks at the leader who has overseen this remarkable progress, Terry Leahy. It traces his rise from council house kid to Britain's most admired business leader (five times running) and adviser to the British prime minister. His success is all the more surprising given his low-key style and lack of charisma. We look at the other factors - such as ambition, passion and personal example - that have contributed to his rise, effectiveness and longevity as a leader. Learning Objectives: This case allows instructors to examine Terry Leahy's leadership through three lenses: in terms of the desirable personal traits of an effective leader; the main competencies required; and the critical roles played by the leader. These three perspectives are complementary and allow participants to get a full appreciation of the challenge of leadership - covering how leaders need to be, what they need to know, and what they need to do. The case also allows exploration of other issues, related to learning, surrounding oneself, time allocation and maintaining one's edge over time.

The case covers Bob Nardelli's 6-year tenure at Home Depot from 2000-2006. During this time, he posted impressive numbers as well as changed Home Depot's strategic orientation. He failed however to improve the company's share price. This difficulty, allied to Nardelli's pay package (negotiated at a time of economic euphoria when he was one of the two most wanted executives in America), severely strained his relationship with the company's shareholders. The case traces their deteriorating relationship through the lens of the annual general meetings. These were transformed from "lovefests" under his predecessor into increasingly fractious occasions - culminating with a disastrous meeting in May 2006 that indirectly led to Nardelli's resignation at the beginning of 2007. The case considers Nardelli's relationship with two key stakeholders - the board and the shareholders - as well as issues of self-management. At first view, this case can be read as a story of greed and weak corporate governance - an excessively greedy CEO/Chairman who manipulates the board into giving him high compensation and reducing performance pressures. While acknowledging some of these aspects, we are proposing a different take on the situation, focusing instead on the self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing nature of the dysfunctional dynamic between the CEO and the shareholders - and on the inability of the board to offset it. We concentrate on the psychological and behavioral processes that drove the parties toward a perfectly avoidable collision. Learning objectives: The core issue is Bob Nardelli's growing difficulties in dealing constructively with the company's shareholders - and their misunderstanding of his role (as a change agent) and motivation (assuming it is only about money). It is also a case about a board that does not understand how to help a CEO that it rates very highly. The case allows discussion of the role of the board in helping the CEO to overcome such problems.

In the mid-1980s, Prudential completely dominated the UK insurance market. Fifteen years later it was in grave danger of becoming irrelevant, and then things got worse with the post 9/11 collapse of stock markets and the ensuing downfall of its major product ("with profits" insurance). Led by a new CEO, Mark Wood, Prudential UK's management team embarked on a four-year rebuilding journey. The company was fragmented and had lost its direction. The product mix and distribution channels needed to be overhauled, as did the customer service systems and philosophies. The company had zero partnerships. And the corporate culture resembled that of a "country club". Yet, being in the insurance sector, the company had to continue projecting a reassuring image. This severely constrained the possibilities of making the case for change. Nevertheless, in the space of four years, Mark Wood and his team refocused the company, restored its pride and brought it back among the contenders. It emerged with solid assets - outstanding service, genuine innovation, funds for growth and improved relations with clients, IFAs and the regulator. It created options for itself. Learning objectives: The case focuses on the managerial and leadership aspects of a large-scale restructuring. It features some classic turnaround aspects, but also some unusual ones: 1) the rotating appointment of a "quartermaster" to drive performance in each quarter; 2) a leadership story that projects employees forward 1000 days; 3) regular periods of reflection time as a team; 4) the development of an internal business transformation capability, which involved up to 15 per cent of the workforce working off-line on change projects full-time. The case also raises issues around institutionalizing change.

For a century, Tata Steel has provided a level of compassion that is unmatched in its sector or its country. But the onslaught of global competition and, crucially, global capital markets have sparked serious debate on the role, level and the sustainability of social spending at Tata Steel. In particular, a new emphasis on EVA risks upsetting the century-old commitment to CSR.

Two reasonable people, a boss and a subordinate, find each other 'impossible to handle'. Through their descriptions of each other's behavior we realize that they are in a self-perpetuating dynamic. An attempted intervention by the HR manager not only fails to resolve the situation; it actually makes it worse.

This is the first of a two-case series. When Renault sent Carlos Ghosn to turnaround its alliance partner Nissan, observers were skeptical of his chances. After soliciting recommendations from the employees, he unveiled a three-year plan involving plant closures, job cuts, and a refocus on design. Within two years, the company had achieved a dramatic recovery, posting record profits and proposing a dazzling array of new models. Note that there are two versions of the case: 'Redesigning Nissan (A) & (B)' covers the dynamics of taking charge (case A) and the process of leading change (case B). There is also a combined and condensed version of the cases: 'Nissan's U-Turn: 1999-2001', for instructors wishing to cover the material in a single session.

This is the first of a two-case series. When Renault sent Carlos Ghosn to turnaround its alliance partner Nissan, observers were skeptical of his chances. After soliciting recommendations from the employees, he unveiled a three-year plan involving plant closures, job cuts, and a refocus on design. Within two years, the company had achieved a dramatic recovery, posting record profits and proposing a dazzling array of new models. Note that there are two versions of the case: 'Redesigning Nissan (A) & (B)' covers the dynamics of taking charge (case A) and the process of leading change (case B). There is also a combined and condensed version of the cases: 'Nissan's U-Turn: 1999-2001', for instructors wishing to cover the material in a single session.

This is the first of a two-case series. When Renault sent Carlos Ghosn to turnaround its alliance partner Nissan, observers were skeptical of his chances. After soliciting recommendations from the employees, he unveiled a three-year plan involving plant closures, job cuts, and a refocus on design. Within two years, the company had achieved a dramatic recovery, posting record profits and proposing a dazzling array of new models. Note that there are two versions of the case: 'Redesigning Nissan (A) & (B)' covers the dynamics of taking charge (case A) and the process of leading change (case B). There is also a combined and condensed version of the cases: 'Nissan's U-Turn: 1999-2001', for instructors wishing to cover the material in a single session.