All Insights Articles

All cultures and all eras have their heroes—individuals who set out on a quest and overcome great adversity to attain a glorious end. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld suggests that CEOs today are living out this age-old narrative. He explains why society is looking for its heroes in the corner office.

Should you take charge? Should you work to build consensus? Victor Vroom argues that effective leaders are sensitive to the nuances of their organizations, cultural environments, and short- and long-term objectives.

Decisions made by those at the top of major companies, nonprofits, and government organizations can affect millions of lives. Yale’s president and SOM’s current and future deans discuss how business schools can train leaders with the long-term perspective and sense of integrity to create durable value in their organizations.

Cade Massey and a former student, Rufus Peabody, developed a new way to calculate power rankings for NFL teams. Massey discusses the importance of clean, bias-free statistical analysis, and considers how a study of leadership in athletics might be applied to the business world.

In globalized, multicultural organizations, leaders need to learn to create value out of diversity.

Yale SOM alumni weigh in on the question "Who needs leaders?"

The massive problems associated with sustainability, from climate change to resource preservation, require coordinated, society-wide responses. Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom argues for the importance of giving local institutions enough power to better manage common resources—though it’s not easy.

Yale University is striving to integrate sustainability into the institution's operations, as well as its educational and research functions. Julie Newman, the director of Yale's office of sustainability, discusses the efforts at Yale and across higher education.

Hilary Pennington '83 is the Gates Foundation's director for special initiatives. She talked with Qn about leading the foundation’s effort to build the country’s social capital by rethinking postsecondary education and the challenges faced by the nonprofit sector in this economic climate.

Yale SOM finance professors Frank Fabozzi, Gary Gorton, and Will Goetzmann discuss what caused the financial crisis, what we have learned since then, likely impacts of the financial reform legislation, and proposals to address unresolved issues in the housing and securitization markets.