618: Leadership Through the Complexity of Current Events, with Adi Ignatius

Adi Ignatius: Harvard Business Review

Adi Ignatius is Editor in Chief of the Harvard Business Review Group, where he oversees the editorial activities of Harvard Business Review, hbr.org, and HBR’s book-publishing unit. Prior to joining Harvard Business Review in 2009, he was the No. 2 editor at TIME. He is the editor of two books: President Obama: The Path to the White House and Prisoner of the State: The Secret Diaries of Premier Zhao Ziyang. Both made The New York Times Bestseller List.

Adi lived and worked for nearly 20 years overseas. He was Editor of Time’s Asian edition and earlier served as Beijing Bureau Chief and Moscow Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal. He is also host of the HBR Channel. It is the 100th anniversary of Harvard Business Review.

Should leaders and organizations take a stand on current events, politics, or causes? Adi and I discuss this tough question in detail. While the answer will be different for every leader, we invite you to begin thinking about how you might approach this in your work.

Key Points

• The traditional advice of “Don’t talk about politics and religion” is still the norm in some places, but increasingly leaders and being more vocal.
• Silence used to be the default. Silence now many send a message that leaders and organizations don’t intend to convey.
• While every leader needs to decide how they will navigate this, beware your feelings of certainty.

Resources Mentioned

• Harvard Business Review

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