A recent paper in the Journal of Possibility Studies argues that creativity is an essential skill for effective leadership and that creative leaders can motivate their teams more effectively and can handle novel challenges by being more flexibl

Series 2, Episode 39: How does CEO over-confidence impact performance? with Dr Barbara Burkhard and Professor Charlotta Sirén, Institute of Responsible Innovation, University of St.Gallen

28 days ago 23m 14s

When it comes to decision making, overconfidence is acknowledged as one of the most common managerial decision making biases. Nonetheless, much uncertainty remains about the implications of CEO overconfidence most particularly in terms of risk

Series 2, Episode 38: How feedback can super-charge your organisation, with Professor Henning Piezunka, INSEAD

Mar 20th, 2024 31m 10s

Does your organisation get the feedback it needs? In particular, does it get the feedback it needs to improve and to better meet customer or stakeholder needs? Or instead does it just hope for the best and pray that any improvements, changes or

Series 2, Episode 37: The challenge and opportunity of CEO activism, with Asst Professor Moritz Appels, Rotterdam School of Management

Mar 6th, 2024 36m 39s

When people consider a new employer they might think about a number of key factors, including location, salary, opportunities for growth and advancement, pension and others.One factor which has emerged in recent years is consideration of a pote

Series 2, Episode 37: The challenge and opportunity of CEO activism, with Asst Professor Moritz Appels, Rotterdam School of Management

Mar 6th, 2024 36m 39s

Series 2, Episode 36: Why Grand Innovation Challenges Matter, with Associate Professor Vera Rocha, Copenhagen Business School

Feb 21st, 2024 34m 34s

Sometimes the challenges facing humanity are beyond the scope or remit of just one person or indeed one organisation. Often termed “grand challenges”, these problems might be bigger, more impactful or simply require greater resources to resolve

Series 2, Episode 35: Better understanding the psychology of entrepreneurship, with Professor Ute Stephan, King’s Business School

Feb 7th, 2024 34m 59s

The psychology of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship is a fascinating area. Let’s face it – it can sometimes seem completely bizarre that someone might leave a possibly well-paid and secure job in order to follow their entrepreneurial dream. Ye

Series 2, Episode 34: The destructive impact of narcissistic leaders on their organisations, with Professor Thanos Verousis, Vlerick Business School, and Professor Pietro Perotti, University of Bath

Jan 24th, 2024 25m 23s

While we have previously explored the question of narcissism and the dark triad of personality traits on the Brain for Business podcast, the question of how narcissistic leaders impact on overall organisational performance is something we are y

Series 2, Episode 33: Understanding the impact of founder personalities on startup success, with Dr Fabian Braesemann, Oxford Internet Institute, The University of Oxford

Jan 10th, 2024 38m 48s

The Big 5 Model of Personality is perhaps the most consistently reliable model of personality used in research around the world. Focusing on the key elements of conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience and extravers

Series 2, Episode 32 - Understanding Radicalisation and De-Radicalisation, with Robert Oerell

Nov 29th, 2023 38m 27s

In times of great turmoil and uncertainty radicalisation can emerge as a real challenge. Yet what is it that really drives radicalisation and how can we better support de-radicalisation?Given the events of recent months around the world, we fel

Series 2, Episode 31 – Does it really matter whether we “identify” with our organisation? With Professor Chia-Huei Wu, King’s Business School

Nov 15th, 2023 33m 45s

In recent years it has become commonplace for organisations of all types to loudly proclaim their values and purpose, and encourage their employees to align and identify with them. Yet what does it mean for people to identify with their employe

Series 2, Episode 30 - How does power impact on psychopathic behaviours and leadership outcomes? with Dr Iris Kranefeld, Cologne Institute for Management Consulting

Nov 1st, 2023 29m 18s

The question of psychopathy and psychopaths in the workplace is something that we have discussed before on the Brain for Business podcast. Yet it remains a fascinating and worthwhile topic, most particularly when considered in terms of power an

Series 2, Episode 29 - How can we better understand and manage organisational scandals? With Professor Julien Jourdan, HEC Paris

Oct 18th, 2023 31m 5s

“Scandals regularly sweep through organizational fields: they wreak havoc in markets, vaporize billions of dollars in firm value, bring down giant corporations, get CEOs fired, alter the evolution of technologies, and trigger major changes in s

Series 2, Episode 28 - Free agents: How evolution gave us free will, with Professor Kevin Mitchell, Trinity College Dublin

Oct 4th, 2023 32m 52s

“The question of whether we have free will does not have a yes-or-no, all-or-none answer. Instead, we have degrees of freedom – an idea that is reasonably well captured… by a more commonsense understanding of the (still useful) notion of free w

Series 2, Episode 27 – Why don’t people work as hard for female entrepreneurs? With Professor Olenka Kacperczyk, London Business School

Sep 20th, 2023 36m 49s

While accurate data is hard to come by, some sources claim that up 90% of starts up fail. There can be many reasons for this including but not limited to the product or service not meeting market needs, the business model being flawed, or earl

Series 2, Episode 26 – How can we encourage people to eat more healthily? With Dr Sarah Snuggs, University of Reading

Sep 6th, 2023 29m 57s

Internationally, healthy adults are consistently falling below national and international recommendations for physical activity and failing to meet guidelines for dietary intake. Interventions to address behaviour change in these fields typical

Series 2, Episode 25 : Introducing a ‘Stop Doing’ Culture: How to free your organization from rigidity with Dr Adrian Klammer, University of Liechtenstein

Aug 23rd, 2023 29m 8s

In a 2019 article published in Business Horizons our guest today on the Brain for Business podcast, Dr Adrian Klammer, together with colleagues Thomas Grisold and Stefan Gueldenberg argued that organisations need to introduce a “stop doing” cul

Series 2, Episode 24 - “Talking Heads: The new science of how conversation shapes our worlds", with Professor Shane O'Mara, Trinity College Dublin

Aug 9th, 2023 33m 7s

Like many podcasts, Brain for Business is based around a conversation – a conversation between me as host and the various guests who join us. Each are experts in their fields and through the conversations that ensue we try to delve deep into th

Series 2, Episode 23 - Banishing the Sunday Night Blues, with Professor Ilke Inceoglu, University of Exeter

Jul 26th, 2023 32m 25s

I first came across the work of today’s guest one Monday morning at around 4am as I browsed the website for The Guardian newspaper on my phone. Unlike some people who make a point of waking that early in order to get a head start on the week,

Series 2, Episode 22 - How can we more effectively grapple with "Blame Games"? With Asst Professor Sandra Resodihardjo, Radboud University

Jul 12th, 2023 37m 34s

Sometimes in life things go wrong… mistakes, accidents, even disasters will occur. From festivals that fail due to poor advance planning, product launches that simply fail to, well, launch through to public construction projects that seem to d

Series 2, Episode 21 – Developing new perspectives on collective wellbeing, with Theo Edmonds, University of Colorado Denver Imaginator Academy

Jun 28th, 2023 59m 16s

A recent project in the US sought to map collective wellbeing. Supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Mapping Collective Wellbeing Project aimed to better understand the wellbeing ecosystem in the United States and g

Series 2, Episode 20 - How does behavior change spread through organizations? with Professor Damon Centola, University of Pennsylvania

Jun 14th, 2023 41m 44s

Over the last few years of the Covid pandemic we all became used to the idea of contagion and, in particular, how viruses spread through communities. But have you ever thought about how change – most especially behavioural change – spreads thr

Series 2, Episode 19 - Leveraging business podcasts to enhance organizational performance, with Professor Jake Waddingham, Texas State University

May 31st, 2023 27m 35s

It is now almost 20 years since the first podcast was launched, and if the available statistics are anything to go by, podcasts are definitely having a moment, with a reputed 2.5 million podcasts listed in Apple podcasts.When we think about who

Series 2, Episode 18 - How leaders can develop their Cultural Intelligence, with Professor Eimear Nolan, Trinity Business School

May 17th, 2023 29m 51s

We all know that to a certain extent cultures differ between countries. When we travel or work with people from different backgrounds we often gain unexpected insights into different traditions and different ways of doing things. Yet what is “

Series 2, Episode 17 - How can we better understand the relationship between creativity, innovation and emotion, with Dr Zorana Ivčević Pringle, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

May 3rd, 2023 32m 9s

While often seen as discrete and distinct phenomena, could it be that creativity and innovation are just variations on the same theme? Absolutely yes, says Dr Zorana Ivčević Pringle, and what is more rather than being purely logical and rationa