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If at first you don't succeed, give up, is the road less travelled for leaders who continue to spend money on an acquisition they made -even though the acquisition is clearly not working out. But why, as this author asks, don't we actually strive to create an organizational climate that makes admitting and learning from mistakes as valued as persistence and perseverance? Below, he describes four steps that can make it easy for leaders to cut their losses and save face.

WestJet Airlines had achieved a lot. The airline had taken to the skies only 13 years earlier, with three airplanes flying to five destinations. Now, with a market value at more than $2 billion, the carrier had more than 70 Boeing Next Generation 737s, employed 7,000 people and had played host to more than 12 million guests. WestJet's ambition was to become the dominant airline in Canada by 2013 and one of the five most successful international airlines in the world by 2016. Achieving these goals would mean continued expansion in the WestJet organization. How could WestJet continue to build a high engagement culture as it experienced high rates of growth? In April 2009, in light of the company's rosy predictions of further growth and success, WestJet's pilots seemed dissatisfied with elements of the new contract offer. The leadership team had met a crossroad.

Leaders are increasingly finding themselves in situations where they need help from subordinates, and in which subordinates are asking for help in areas where leaders are not experts. To manage either situation effectively, a leader will have to develop a degree of humility and specific process skills. Readers will learn how to achieve those difficult goals in this article by the dean of organizational behaviour.

Rare is the business leader who can articulate and instill a long-term vision and manage the day-to-day operations with the requisite obsession for detail. A leader who combines both styles is what these authors call a strategic leader, someone who, more than any other type of leader is best equipped to increase shareholder value. Leaders and potential leaders will find out what it takes when they read this article.

China Mobile was the world's leading mobile communications service provider with over 400 million customers. In some cities, its penetration rate was over 100%. With such huge successes, Chairman Wang Jianzhou was exploring ways to expand its customer base. Nearly saturated in the cities, China Mobile needed to broaden its base of subscribers. Wang believed that further investment in China's rural villages was a key strategy that would help the fuel growth for the future. Already deeply invested in the rural areas based on the company's participation in the government-mandated "Connect Every Village" project, China Mobile took advantage of this foundation and created new products and value-added services in order to make its mobile phone network more valuable to the lifestyles of China's rural population. However, the cost of connecting remote locations was high and was often not offset by subscriber fees or usage rates of these populations. Would this investment be relegated to a socially responsible project or would it pay-off for China Mobile in the future?

A construction company experiences a crane accident with multiple fatalities. The CEO, a client, and an employee must make choices to meet the company's obligations. Set in 2006, the case looks at the choices faced by board members of a museum which is an important client and which is faced with a completion deadline, and of a key employee who has other offers of employment and is negotiating a stay put bonus. The rights and interests of the surety company that provided the construction bond are also interwoven. The protagonist is the CEO of a multi-generational family business who must now negotiate with these parties and then decide whether to attempt to raise new capital, declare bankruptcy, or try to lead a controlled wind-down. The case explores crisis management, decisions by principals operating in the zone of insolvency, construction contract types, the limits of recourse available from construction bonds, roles of board members, calculation of an employee stay-put bonus pool, subcontractor and vendor communication, and reputational issues around bankruptcy or closure of a closely held family business. Analytical tools include contract status report, contractor balance sheet, stay-put bonus pool.

On September 16, 2008, President Rodriguez Zapatero recognized the severity of Spain's macroeconomic situation and clearly pointed to the culprit in front of the Spanish Congress: "Let nobody doubt it; there is already a wide consensus about the origin of the crisis: [It is] in the U.S. and its subprime mortgages." During the last eight years, Spain had gone through a phenomenal expansion that has had many important ingredients: immigration, housing boom, banking and financial market regulation, current account deficit, and productivity growth. This case analyzes how they interacted during the period 2000-2007 and what drove the Spanish recession in 2008.

Facing the downturn in late 2008, the partners in a West-Coast venture capital firm are trying to decide how to manage their portfolio companies and whether to make new investments. Not only must they consider the particulars of each company individually, but they must also think about how to manage the entire firm's portfolio.

From Built to Last to Good to Great and now to Why the Mighty Fall (HarperCollins), Jim Collins has established himself as the leading management thinker of our time. The former Stanford University Business School professor turned mega-selling author and avid rock climber is the driven researcher and thinker whom many leading companies look to for advice on how to grow, how to improve their performance and how to go from merely good to great. He spoke to Ivey Business Journal from his research laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

The Great Moderation is a significant decline in the volatility of fluctuations in most macroeconomic variables that the United States and other developed and developing economies have experienced at least since the mid 1980s. This case describes the basic facts, presents contending explanations and explores the consequences of the Great Moderation for the likely amplitude of future business cycles.

At the time of the case the good enough segment was growing about three times as quickly as the premium segment and Danfoss was thinking about entering this fast growing market. To do this Danfoss had evaluated several of the local Chinese players as acquisitions targets, and had picked Holip as the best potential target. Erhardt Jessen, a vice president of the division, has to recommend whether to acquire Holip and, if yes, the strategy that Danfoss Motion Controls should adopt for Holip. Key issues that he would have to address included the continued use of the Holip brand and the degree to which Holip should be integrated into Danfoss. The (A) case describes the overall Danfoss situation and issues and describes in some detail the history of Holip, its business model and its strategy. It was written with the support of both Danfoss and Holip management teams. Learning objectives: The case gives participants an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the issues a multinational manufacturer of high performance products must address as it faces increasing competition from local players manufacturing good enough products. Participants also have an opportunity to learn how a somewhat typical small, low cost Chinese manufacturer operates. Participants can look at the pros and cons of entering the good enough segment and the advantages and disadvantages of using an acquisition as the entry vehicle. Finally, they have an opportunity to understand the issues that need to be resolved to successfully leverage the acquisition to achieve the company's objectives in the good enough market segment. Depending on the course's learning objectives, the Danfoss-Holip case series can be taught either by using the A case followed by the B case, or by using the A1 and A2 cases followed by the B-case.

On 17 March 2006, Japanese Internet company Softbank Corp announced that it had reached a final agreement with British cellular phone giant Vodafone Group Plc to buy its Japanese unit, Vodafone K.K. for ¥1.75 trillion. To finance the largest business acquisition ever by a Japanese firm, Softbank intended to raise between ¥1.1 trillion and ¥1.2 trillion through leveraged-buyout ("LBO") financing, using Vodafone K.K.'s assets as collateral . With the acquisition of Vodafone K.K., Softbank aimed to build a multilateral communications business, integrating news, video and other online content with Vodafone's cellular and fixed-line services. But first Softbank had to borrow between ¥1.1 trillion and ¥1.2 trillion to finance its purchase. The sum was the largest ever to be raised for a buyout by a single Japanese company.

Large-scale IT projects are highly uncertain and vulnerable to the laws of unintended consequences. But the risks can be contained and the opportunities still realized, as long as uncertainty is respected and taken into account. As this author writes, there are practical, proven approaches that allow you to accept uncertainty but maintain good project discipline.

Though more women are being invited to become directors, they are still under-represented on boards. This leading governance author and academic discusses why this is so and suggests a series of steps that would-be women directors can take to enhance their chances of being asked to sit on boards.

Managers want to have their instincts validated before they act, such as waiting until all the data have been gathered before they launch a product. But relying on the tried and true doesn't always serve managers well, especially when it comes to organic growth. The question of "Will it fly?" can be answered only by letting it fly - by launching the particular product and listening to the market respond. Growth leaders don't do traditional research. As these authors explain, growth leaders win by placing small bets fast.

The efficacy - and appropriateness - of monetizing the poor may be questionable for some. Reality and research, however, suggest that enabling the poor to make the economic and psychic step up from merely subsisting has transformative benefits. These authors have conducted extensive research on how helping the poor make the move up ought to be done and how the benefits of such a move underpin change that lasts.

"Going into business for yourself, becoming an entrepreneur, is the modern-day equivalent of pioneering on the old frontier," according to entrepreneur and author Paula Nelson. I agree. It takes courage, know-how and perseverance to launch a business and make it succeed. Fortunately for our economy, Canada is home to more than 850,000 women entrepreneurs. Their numbers have increased more than 200 percent over the past 20 years. Today, they annually contribute more than $18 billion to our economy, employ more than 570,000 people, and continue to represent one of the fastest growing sectors. And even in these difficult economic times, they are discovering new markets, charting new territory and building new companies.

A recent Ivey study confirms the commonly held view that General Electric is an excellent breeding ground for future business leaders. This article summarizes the study and its three conclusions: Firms led by CEOs who were trained at GE will outperform firms led by CEOs who were not; GE's reputation for developing CEO talent is, in fact, well deserved and not mere hype; and GE appears to develop more CEO talent than other noted CEO talent-generating firms.

One-time Ford CEO and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was the archetypal numbers man. No human failing such as emotions could influence a decision. Like McNamara, today's CEOs who think they're basing their decisions only on reason are deceiving themselves - and jeopardizing the company's viability. These authors have written a forthcoming book on the subject, and in this article they describe how leaders can understand the powerful pull that emotions have on their decisions.

Can a leader who lacks the innate skills and knowledge to manage his or her emotions and connect with people be effective? Yes, says this author, even if such a leader is the brash and at-times out-of-control opposite of the archetypal emotionally mature leader. In fact, such a leader or potential leader can even be found where an organization would least expect, near the bottom of the organizational chart.