PJ Neal

Thoughts from a more-than-occasional writer

Leadership

  • Directors & Boards was founded at a time when corporate governance was entering a period of significant transformation, publishing its first issue barely two years after the Model Business Corporations Act fundamentally redefined the role of the board. No longer was it true that “the business and affairs of a corporation shall be managed by…

  • Your article, “39 Private-College Leaders Earn More Than $1 Million,” (The Chronicle, December 4) states, “The average pay of private-college leaders, including those who served partial years, was $489,927 in 2014.” That’s a jaw-dropping number. It’s also clearly an inaccurate statement. Read my full letter to the editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

  • When Jeff Bezos founded Amazon as an online bookstore in the mid-1990s, he did so with a clear vision for how he wanted to manage the enterprise. “We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term,” he wrote to shareholders in 1997. “This value…

  • In the astonishing global financial crisis of 2007–2008, thoughtful observers learned an important lesson: Leadership is a vastly consequential force in human affairs, particularly when it goes wrong. Indeed, in a world ruled by large organizations, a small number of CEOs make decisions that have far reaching social and economic consequences, determining the fate of…

  • Leadership must be built upon a bedrock of trust. This need is obvious in combat, when soldiers must trust their officers to make sound judgment and not to risk the lives and safety of their men needlessly or carelessly. In turn, officers must trust their soldiers to do their duty, and to strive to fulfill…

  • Leadership must be built upon a bedrock of trust. This need is obvious in combat, when soldiers must trust their officers to make sound judgment and not to risk the lives and safety of their men needlessly or carelessly. In turn, officers must trust their soldiers to do their duty, and to strive to fulfill…

  • New managers matter. They’re on the front lines with your workforce, your stakeholders, your customers, and your fellow public servants. They have tremendous potential. And some of them will become your organization’s future executives. In tapping these employees for the managerial ranks, your organization is recognizing this. But while you’ll be relying on your new…

  • Having the right management team, with the right skills and capabilities, is critical to the success of your organization. Your managers are on the front lines with your workforce, customers, competitors and your markets every single day, and their performance is directly tied to your organization’s near-term and long-term success. Today’s strong individual contributors –…

  • Today’s business world is fast-paced and complex. Opportunities emerge quickly (and disappear rapidly), new threats emerge continuously, and globalization opens up new markets that require intimate local knowledge. In this volatile and ever-changing environment, new managers matter. They’re on the front lines with your workforce, your customers, your competitors, and your markets. They have tremendous…

  • Facebook Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg is 30. Tech entrepreneur and investor Sean Parker is 35. With that in mind, how old is your next boss — or for that matter, your current boss? Baby boomers are retiring in droves, and Generation X isn’t far behind. Next up in the C­suite: the generation that gave us Zuckerberg…

  • New managers matter. They’re on the front lines with your workforce, your customers, your competitors, your markets. They have tremendous potential. And some of them will become your organization’s future executives. In tapping these employees for the managerial ranks, your organization is recognizing this. But while you’ll be relying on your new managers to take…

  • “They are unbound by human limitations. They can remain airborne for long durations, do not require life support systems, do not need to eat or sleep, and they will never say no to a mission.” It’s no wonder political and military leaders are increasingly resting their futures on unmanned systems. From the mature Unmanned Aerial…