Business leaders manage goals by setting and systematically striving to achieve them. While management and organizational researchers have laid the groundwork for goal management, the emerging field of Positive Psychology appears to offer many additional findings and insights that will help managerial leaders be more effective as they define and pursue goals. Factors such as character strengths, optimism, and resilience can play significant roles in how well goals are managed. In the end, a managerial leader’s ability to make wise choices and to implement pathways that lead to attaining desired goals is critical to success. Drawing from the field of Positive Psychology, this article provides guidance to help you more effectively manage goals by focusing on such factors as personal values, persistence, and confidence.

Here is an article by Chip Conley (founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality and someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about what makes people tick) and based on his new book, Emotional Equations. Four equations covered:
DESPAIR = SUFFERING – MEANING
HAPPINESS = WANTING WHAT YOU HAVE / HAVING WHAT YOU WANT
ANXIETY = UNCERTAINTY x POWERLESSNESS
CURIOSITY = WONDER + AWE

Contrary to popular belief, whether you’re taking a test or buying a stock, it may pay to rethink your choice.

Often CEOs know what they’re good at and spend time to hone those skills, but it can be hard to see the flipside of those strengths. For example, a CEO who sees himself as efficient may be viewed by employees as abrupt or uncaring. Or a leader who strives to be thoughtful and strategic may be perceived as moving too slowly. Being mindful of the narrow line between strength and weakness may be critical to fine-tuning areas of proficiency.

But how do you uncover the Achilles heel that your strengths mask? Chief Executive worked with Andrew Gilman, CEO of CommCore Consulting Group, to compile a list of eight CEO management styles and the risks that those styles pose to one’s leadership. The goal is to help CEOs identify—and address—the chinks in their armor.

JD Schramm helps develop the art and science of tight story-telling for social impact.

James M. Kouzes, coauthor (with Barry Z. Posner) of The Leadership Challenge, introduces a passage on the importance of remembering where you started that appears in From Values to Action: The Four Principles of Values-Based Leadership, by Harry M. Jansen Kraemer Jr.

or over a decade, Marcus Buckingham has been on a quest to help you hone in on your key strengths in an effort to boost your performance in whatever realm you function. It started with an assessment tool called Strengthsfinder, developed while Buckingham was at Gallup. It continued with bestselling books First, Break All The Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, followed by a string of others all focused on our insatiable appetite for self-discovery and self-assessment.

The difficulty with Strengthsfinder (and its next iteration, Strengthsfinder 2.0), as Buckingham points out in his new book featuring a new assessment instrument—both called Standout—is that you could "game" the test to produce a desired result, or at least skew the results because of the self-reported, self-rated, self-described nature of the questions. Standout takes a different approach: You react to a hypothetical situation.

In his new book, Flying without a Net: Turn Fear of Change into Fuel for Success, HBS professor Thomas J. DeLong explores the world of "high-need-for-achievement professionals" or HNAPs—those for whom the constant, insatiable need to achieve can lead to anxiety and dysfunction. Plus: book excerpt.

Moonwalking With Einstein, the current bestselling book by Joshua Foer, deals with a subject close to the pounding hearts and minds of every public speaker or presenter: how to remember what to say. Speakers and presenters rely on a number of devices — from low-end three-by-five index cards to expensive high-end teleprompters — to aid their memories. Foer offers an even higher-end but lower-cost technique: visual imagery, or associating a diverse list of subjects with a series of related physical objects.

In business terms, smart is the guy down the hall with the MBA who analyzes and optimizes your supply chain because you assigned him the project. Clever is the gal on the shop floor who comes forward to show how you can increase productivity 15% simply by sequencing jobs differently.

The business world is populated by millions of smart people. Education, experience, resources — there are countless smart people. To set yourself apart it’s not enough to simply be smart. You also must be clever.

Fortunately, we can all be clever: It just takes the right frame of mind.

Forget Suze Orman. Time, Not Money, Is Your Most Precious Resource. Spend It Wisely.

How do we draw the best out of people when so many of the rules and practices in life have changed? How in today’s new world can people reach their best at their best, given the speed of life and the torrent of information and obligation? Is there a coherent, evidence-based plan that every person can use to bring the best out of themselves or the people they manage? With the help of Dr. Shine, I offer a theory here of how to do just that. It includes 5 steps. I call it the Cycle of Excellence.

There are five pervasive myths about communication. Putting them aside will make you a better leader.

Where reputation comes from—and how to change yours.

In the course of making a decision, managers often err in one of two directions—either overanalyzing a situation or forgoing all the relevant information and simply going with their gut. HBS marketing professor Michael I. Norton discusses the potential pitfalls of thinking too much or thinking too little.

Persuasion is a catalyst for getting work done, for achieving an outcome you can't realize on your own. MBA courses, leadership books, and executive education classes recognize the importance of persuasion, but they rarely teach it as a practical art and, if they do, the focus is usually on formal presentations and PowerPoint.

Managers need more fundamental advice on how to persuade. William Ellet teaches a class on it at Harvard Business School and has developed a series of questions that can serve as a starting point for any leader trying to persuade.

Regardless of what system you use to manage your time, successful time management boils down to three things:

1. Setting priorities
2. Completing daily tasks
3. Eliminating distractions

Those who manage these three things are not only successful in their business, but they are successful in their life as well.

So, before you go investing in a Franklin Planner or scamper-off to download the latest smartphone app, give this simple, easy to implement, five-step time management system a go.

What’s your story? Here are a few action steps and resources to get you started on your storytelling path.

Jeffrey Pfeffer discusses the difference between treating certain career building activities as tasks versus skills.

Many managers underestimate the transformational challenges of their roles—or they become complacent and stop growing and improving. At best they learn to get by; at worst they become terrible bosses. Sometimes even the best of them suffer doubts and fears despite years of management experience.

Three imperatives can guide managers on their journey to becoming great bosses: (1) Manage yourself. Productive influence comes from people’s trust in your competence and character. (2) Manage your network. The organization as a whole must be engaged to create the conditions for your own and your team’s success. (3) Manage your team. Effective managers forge a high-performing “we” out of all the individuals who report to them.

Constant and probing self-assessment across these three imperatives is essential, the authors write. They include a useful assessment tool to help readers get started.

The four components of that certain something that tells the world: "I'm a winner"

If you want to be really good at something, it's going to involve relentlessly pushing past your comfort zone, along with frustration, struggle, setbacks and failures. That's true as long as you want to continue to improve, or even maintain a high level of excellence. The reward is that being really good at something you've earned through your own hard work can be immensely satisfying.

Here, then, are the six keys to achieving excellence we've found are most effective.

Editor's Note: a very lively discussion accompanies this article...

Some things aren't right or wrong, they just are. And the sooner you find out about them, the further you will go. Here are 20 axioms that you're better off not questioning.

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan of the University of Rochester have created an aspirational framework known as self-determination theory. Deci and Ryan found that at the root of human aspiration, there are three core psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness (the need for social connection and intimacy).

While much attention is paid to the influence of external factors on worker efficiency levels, surprisingly little is paid to the role of individuals themselves. In his working paper, IESE's Pablo Maella reminds us that a business is only as efficient as those working for it, and he suggests practical ways in which individuals can boost their levels of personal efficiency.