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Big data has unleashed a torrent of infographics--most of them awful.

Detailed accounting records from the 19th century reveal that U.S. and West Indian slaveholders used scientific management techniques to run their operations.

Everyone gets better with a little coaching. But new research from a professor at Kansas State shows that silent coaches get significantly greater improvements than coaches who spout constant encouragement.

David McCullough, historian and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Truman and John Adams, on what the history of leadership means for managers today.

Tiny verbal clues can speak volumes about your personality. New research from the chair of psychology at the University of Texas reveals that someone's use of function words--the pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and auxiliary verbs that are the connective tissue of language--offers deep insights into his or her honesty, stability, and sense of self.

New research is upending the long-held belief that the desire for profit is what inspires innovation. Recent studies show that innovations by consumers who give their ideas away are outpacing innovations by companies that hope to sell them. And that throws the need for intellectual property protection into a whole new light.

New research from Wharton reveals that competitors who are slightly behind at halftime win more often than those who are slightly ahead. People who are slightly behind, the study shows, increase their effort much more than people who are ahead, in a tie, or trailing badly-and that suggests companies ought to rethink the ways they motivate performance.

Could the presence of teddy bears make executives behave more ethically? New research shows that adults cheat less and are more generous when reminders of children are near.

Professor Stefano Puntoni set out to prove that breast cancer awareness campaigns were more effective when they incorporated the color pink. Instead, his studies repeatedly showed that pink made women less likely to recognize their risk of cancer and less likely to donate to research. And that led him to explore the surprising effects of gender cues in marketing messages.

When professors Anita Woolley and Thomas Malone studied the factors that increased a group's collective intelligence, they made some surprising discoveries: A team's intelligence, as measured by performance on a range of tasks, had relatively little to do with the individual IQs of its members. But it had a lot to do with the gender of those members.

How do effective managers get employees to act promptly? New research suggests that it's by making their requests at least twice. Though you may think redundancy is unnecessary and even a waste of time, a new study indicates that it helps your message cut through today's information overload.

An assistant professor at the University of Kentucky examines the similarities between people's responses to physical pain and their responses to social rejection, including the surprising finding that taking acetaminophen decreases hurt feelings.

A new study by Zakary Tormala of Stanford Business School looks at how the certainty of a person's opinion affects his ability to influence others. A lot depends on whether the opinion is from an expert or an amateur. The surprising finding: Experts are more persuasive when they express uncertainty, but amateurs are more compelling when they express confidence.

What is the secret sauce for the ideal employee? Stanford Business School professor Francis J. Flynn believes that it's guilt. According to his research findings, guilt-ridden employees are hardworking high performers who get the big picture. In other words, they're leaders.

Ever wonder why you just "click" with some people? There's actually a neural basis for that feeling. In good communication, the listener's brain activity begins to mirror the speaker's brain activity. The stronger the resemblance, the higher the listener's comprehension. By studying this uniquely human phenomenon, we could learn how to change other people's minds-literally.

Though we'd like to think that it always pays to be honest, new research from Harvard proves that it doesn't necessarily. A new study that compared viewers' reactions to a candidate's answers to questions in a debate reveals that when the candidate dodged a question eloquently, people liked and trusted him nearly as much as when he gave a direct response. What's more, they preferred artful dodges to honest but less articulate answers. That finding presents an interesting quandary for any leader who has to field difficult questions.

When responding to a complex, fast-moving crisis, leaders must constantly adapt their mental models and create a "unity of effort," argues Allen, a retired U.S. Coast Guard admiral and the national incident commander for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. That's a much bigger management challenge than approaching the job as a military operation and drawing on unity of command, and it can require nuanced and creative strategies, such as deciding to go "off book" when standard protocol simply won't work. In this edited interview, Allen-who also brought post-Katrina New Orleans back from the brink of anarchy and headed the Coast Guard's response to the September 11 attacks along the eastern seaboard-stresses the need to lead both from headquarters and on the ground. He discusses how the phenomenon of publicly available, real-time information has affected crisis management in recent years, addresses the challenges of managing multiple public and private stakeholders, and shares his thoughts on how to lead when an anxious public is counting on success.

Do ads that break into your television programs annoy you? Surprising new research by the Haas School's Leif Nelson reveals that commercials may actually make your viewing experience more enjoyable. In recent studies he conducted, subjects rated programs with ads much higher than programs without them. The phenomenon at work here is adaptation: The longer an experience lasts, the more people get used to it, and the less they enjoy it. But if that experience is interrupted (for instance, with a commercial), people's initial feelings of pleasure are retriggered.

Contrary to what most people think, gossip is actually good for organizations. It can spread valuable information to employees and helps networks establish norms and censure those who don't adhere to them. So why do managers dislike it? Because it threatens their control. Research shows that the more you gossip, the higher your peers rate your informal influence.

A survey by biologist Christoph Randler reveals that morning people are more proactive than evening people. That makes them more likely to succeed, especially since corporate schedules are geared to their peak performance hours. Though evening people may be more intelligent and more creative, when it comes to the business world, morning people hold the important cards.