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Ethan Berman, CEO of J.P. Morgan's risk management spinoff, has grown RiskMetrics Group (RMG) from a small team of 30 to a 70-person firm contemplating an IPO. Along the way, the consensus-based decision-making process that he espoused started to prove unwieldy; his personal and informal managerial style also could not meet the growing demands on his time. More senior managers were needed--but who? Could the unique, informal culture of the group be maintained as it grew into a mid-sized firm? How should Berman go about making these decisions?

Supplements the (A) case.

A leader's singular job is to get results. But even with all the leadership training programs and "expert" advice available, effective leadership still eludes many people and organizations. One reason, says Daniel Goleman, is that such experts offer advice based on inference, experience, and instinct, not on quantitative data. Now, drawing on research of more than 3,000 executives, Goleman explores which precise leadership behaviors yield positive results. He outlines six distinct leadership styles, each one springing from different components of emotional intelligence. Each style has a distinct effect on the working atmosphere of a company, division, or team, and, in turn, on its financial performance. The styles, by name and brief description alone, will resonate with anyone who leads, is led, or, as is the case with most of us, does both. Coercive leaders demand immediate compliance. Authoritative leaders mobilize people toward a vision. Affiliative leaders create emotional bonds and harmony. Democratic leaders build consensus through participation. Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-direction. And coaching leaders develop people for the future. The research indicates that leaders who get the best results don't rely on just one leadership style; they use most of the styles in any given week. Goleman details the types of business situations each style is best suited for, and he explains how leaders who lack one or more of these styles can expand their repertories. He maintains that with practice leaders can switch among leadership styles to produce powerful results, thus turning the art of leadership into a science.

Like every other ambitious, Ivy League-educated baby boomer, Randy Komisar wanted to climb the corporate ladder--any corporate ladder. But he just couldn't bring himself to play the traditional career game. Instead, Komisar made up his own rules, taking a series of jobs that sparked his passions and made him happy--and successful. Today, the charismatic 45-year-old is a "virtual CEO"--an off-site but supercharged consultant to flesh-and-blood CEOs at a number of start-up companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. But that was only after he'd worked his way through 11 companies in 25 years--a crazy quilt of jobs as a music promoter, corporate lawyer, CFO at a software start-up, and chief executive at a video game company, just to name a few. Komisar's success came by not having a career--at least, not in the traditional old-economy sense of the word. He realized there were alternatives to marching your way straight up the corporate ladder and that success in the new economy can involve a series of twists and turns. In this first-person account, Komisar describes why a nontraditional career path such as the one he unintentionally took may appeal to more businesspeople than might suspect it themselves. He tracks his professional journey along a sometimes tense, often enlightening, and ultimately prosperous course. He shares lessons learned along the way. Komisar also makes a strong business case for pursuing the passion-driven career; such a career, he says, makes supreme sense in the new economy because it's flexible and challenging--both for an individual and for the companies he chooses to work for.

Most of the advice on organizational learning, change, and employee commitment does not work and, worse, often leads to counterproductive results. That's the argument of Chris Argyris's Flawed Advice and the Management Trap, and Eileen Shapiro finds it convincing. A consultant to venture capitalists, Shapiro lauds Argyris's dissection of some leading popular works on leadership. Examples from their own books suggest that Stephen Covey, Jon Katzenbach, and John Kotter may preach the virtues of openness and respect, but in practice they aren't averse to using deception and unilateral control. Similarly, Argyris shows the dishonesty behind most empowerment programs. Too many companies, he finds, ask workers to act like owners without truly giving them the authority or the incentives to do so. The underlying trouble is a deep-seated mind-set of winning at all costs that keeps managers from fully engaging with their subordinates. While agreeing with Argyris's diagnosis, Shapiro is skeptical of his remedy, a program of coaching aimed at getting executives to see the contradictions between their intentions and their behavior. Some companies do fully empower their people, she finds, but only because they compete in high-growth industries where employees need to make quick decisions to capture big opportunities. Like the milk in a cup of cappuccino, she says, these enterprises are swirling around in the economy, far above the slow-moving traditional companies that Argyris has studied. Managers and employees in these fast-moving companies share power not because they were trained to do so, but because that's the only way they can reap the great rewards they seek.

Norman Spencer, who grew up poor, worked for two decades to make his investment firm successful and his family wealthy. The company he founded, Arrowhead, is now known on Wall Street as a top-notch boutique firm with $25 billion in assets under management. His family has a mansion in San Francisco and a "cottage" in Nantucket. His 17-year-old daughter drives a BMW, his 13-year-old son takes flying lessons in his own plane, and his wife has a personal feng shui adviser. But at the pinnacle of his career, Norman feels as though he's drowning. Norman's success only makes him feel numb, and his home life is a disaster; his wife is so resentful of his lack of family involvement that she no longer speaks to him. His daughter refused to wish him happy Father's Day. "You're not a father," she said. Alternately harsh and remote at work, this fictional entrepreneur has been asked by one senior executive at Arrowhead to stay away from the analysts. So he spends a lot of time surfing the Internet, looking at real estate in far-flung places, and haunting web sites about missing persons, wondering what became of his younger sister, who ran away from home at age 14. What is wrong with Norman, and how can he fix it? In R00211 and R00213, commentators Edward M. Hallowell, Scott Neely, Jean Hollands and F.R. Manfred Kets de Vries offer advice on this fictional case study.

Norman Spencer, who grew up poor, worked for two decades to make his investment firm successful and his family wealthy. The company he founded, Arrowhead, is now known on Wall Street as a top-notch boutique firm with $25 billion in assets under management. His family has a mansion in San Francisco and a "cottage" in Nantucket. His 17-year-old daughter drives a BMW, his 13-year-old son takes flying lessons in his own plane, and his wife has a personal feng shui adviser. But at the pinnacle of his career, Norman feels as though he's drowning. Norman's success only makes him feel numb, and his home life is a disaster; his wife is so resentful of his lack of family involvement that she no longer speaks to him. His daughter refused to wish him happy Father's Day. "You're not a father," she said. Alternately harsh and remote at work, this fictional entrepreneur has been asked by one senior executive at Arrowhead to stay away from the analysts. So he spends a lot of time surfing the Internet, looking at real estate in far-flung places, and haunting web sites about missing persons, wondering what became of his younger sister, who ran away from home at age 14. What is wrong with Norman, and how can he fix it? In R00211 and R00214, commentators Edward M. Hallowell, Scott Neely, Jean Hollands, and Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries offer advice on this fictional case study.

Norman Spencer, who grew up poor, worked for two decades to make his investment firm successful and his family wealthy. The company he founded, Arrowhead, is now known on Wall Street as a top-notch boutique firm with $25 billion in assets under management. His family has a mansion in San Francisco and a "cottage" in Nantucket. His 17-year-old daughter drives a BMW, his 13-year-old son takes flying lessons in his own plane, and his wife has a personal feng shui adviser. But at the pinnacle of his career, Norman feels as though he's drowning. Norman's success only makes him feel numb, and his home life is a disaster; his wife is so resentful of his lack of family involvement that she no longer speaks to him. His daughter refused to wish him happy Father's Day. "You're not a father," she said. Alternately harsh and remote at work, this fictional entrepreneur has been asked by one senior executive at Arrowhead to stay away from the analysts. So he spends a lot of time surfing the Internet, looking at real estate in far-flung places, and haunting web sites about missing persons, wondering what became of his younger sister, who ran away from home at age 14. What is wrong with Norman, and how can he fix it? In R00211 and R00213, commentators Edward M. Hallowell, Scott Neely, Jean Hollands and Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries offer advice on this fictional case study.

Heidi Roizen, a venture capitalist at SOFTBANK Venture Capital and a former entrepreneur, maintains an extensive personal and professional network. She leverages this network to benefit both herself and others. The case considers the steps she's taken to build and cultivate a network that is both broad and deep.

Most leaders of new product teams are aware of the complexity of the problem they confront and the changes that must occur before cross-functional teamwork can accelerate new product development processes. Most know, for instance, that promoting cross-functional thinking, collaborative decision making, and concurrent organization of new product workflow are advantageous. Only a select few, however, consistently act on these insights and effect meaningful changes. The differences between more and less effective leaders lies less in what they espouse or profess and more in the process by which they learn and form new visions and develop new ways of defining their behaviors.

An effort to reduce malnutrition in Vietnam provides a surprising business lesson: companies that want to change their employees' behavior may find the solution within their organization.

Centers on the historic merger of Daimler-Benz AG and Chrysler Corp. and the subsequent quest for integration. The subtexts to this central issue include a comparison and contrast of the operating cultures and business processes of the two companies as well as their histories, positions within the auto manufacturing industry, and corporate values and image. Also introduces the dynamics of integrating the leadership of two companies. Using "what if" scenarios, students can explore the roles of the senior managers in the merger, its execution, and the subsequent integration attempts. Gives students an opportunity to envision and develop an integration strategy. Best suited for studies in strategic management, corporate entrepreneurship, global management, leadership, and change management or organizational behavior.

Supplements the (A) case.

The protagonist of this case, Paula, is the captain of her school's basketball team. It chronicles the arrival of a new coach, Shirley, and the interpersonal conflict and impasse that emerges as the game plan and coaching style changes.

A four-part, sequential prediction case dealing with intergroup conflict.

Smokestack Village, a tourist attraction located near the Continental Divide in central Colorado, offers visitors a large railroad museum and daily excursion rides on old railroad lines. Describes a small work group, allowing students to look at the characteristics of a social system. Can trace the evolution of the emergent system and its consequences for productivity, satisfaction, personal growth, learning, and development. Also provides an opportunity to look at leadership in different ways, using concepts related to contingency, functions, style, influence, and power.

This case chronicles the events that prompt the recruits of one computer company's training program to aid one another on assignments and projects despite rules explicitly prohibiting such behavior. It emphasizes personal values and the choices made in different circumstances. It also raises questions about the responsibility of companies to design organizations that induce ethical behavior. Bill Flynn is a 23-year-old newcomer to the Brady Co. Information Systems Department. After having worked for one year in sales for a different computer manufacturer, Flynn joined the Brady Co. to develop his understanding of hardware and programming. Upon learning that the Brady training program is intensely rigorous and competitive--usually less than one-third of the recruits complete it--Flynn and other recruits begin to help one another, despite being forbidden at the outset from doing so. Flynn forms a study group with two classmates; catches two recruits photocopying former students' completed assignments and takes a copy to share with his own group; and reads the supervisors' secret files evaluating recruits' progress. After seeing comments in his own file that question his commitment to become part of the Information Systems Department, Flynn cultivates disingenuous friendships with his supervisors. When he survives the 12-month training program, Flynn is offered a formal position in the company; however, he already has secured two other job offers from competing companies. Upon hearing this news, the Brady management immediately makes a superior offer and encourages him to join the firm.

Describes the deliberations of a problem-solving team at KomTek, a prosthetic hip manufacturer. The company's slight modification in one of its existing products caused some difficulty in the manufacturing process. One result is higher scrap and quality problems and, hence, lower-than-expected price-cost ratios for that product. The problem-solving team is digging through its cost accounting system and the data from the plant floor, looking for causes. The team is also closely looking into each step of the production process that might be contributing to the problems. Includes both quantitative (cost accounting and quality data) and qualitative (policies and procedures) aspects of the production process. Students should have some basic knowledge of statistics prior to considering this case.

AllerGen, a young biotechnology firm, is heading for trouble, possibly even bankruptcy. The company's one product--a vaccine for people allergic to cats--may never make it to market. And turnover is on the rise, not only because of the vaccine's uncertain future but also because employees are increasingly unhappy working for founder and Chief Scientific Officer Harry Huston. Although Harry is an excellent scientist, he has no business background. Several years ago he recruited a president and COO to bring some much-needed business savvy to the organization, but that executive left after a year because Harry simply wouldn't let him do his job. It hasn't helped matters that AllerGen's board consists mainly of Harry's friends and family, who go along with whatever he wants. Recently some scientists at AllerGen had the phenomenal good luck to develop, almost by accident, an alternative potentially lucrative product. But Harry won't give the go-ahead to develop a business plan for it. "There has to be someone who stays the course and works for the sheer joy of finding the cure," he says. "There are people out there who need this vaccine. Some very badly. That's why we're here. Not for the money." It's up to two senior scientists to make Harry see that he is holding AllerGen back. How can they convince Harry that changing course is critical? In R00106 and R00114, commentators Matt Benasutti, Mark Lipton, George N. Hatsopoulos, Dorothy Beckert, and Warren D. Miller offer advice on this fictional case study.

A new organizational form is emerging in companies that run on knowledge: the community of practice. And for this expanding universe of companies, communities of practice promise to radically galvanize knowledge sharing, learning, and change. A community of practice is a group of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise. People in companies form them for a variety of reasons--to maintain connections with peers when the company reorganizes; to respond to external changes such as the rise of e-commerce; or to meet new challenges when the company changes strategy. Regardless of the circumstances that give rise to communities of practice, their members inevitably share knowledge in free-flowing, creative ways that foster new approaches to problems. Over the past five years, the authors have seen communities of practice improve performance at companies as diverse as an international bank, a major car manufacturer, and a U.S. government agency. Communities of practice can drive strategy, generate new lines of business, solve problems, promote the spread of best practices, develop people's skills, and help companies recruit and retain talent. The paradox of such communities is that although they are self-organizing and thus resistant to supervision and interference, they do require specific managerial efforts to develop them and integrate them into an organization. Only then can they be fully leveraged. The authors explain the steps managers need to take in order to get communities going--and to sustain them so they can become a central part of their companies' success.