Harvard Business Review

One leader works on a better approach to his performance in meetings with senior leadership.

Most leaders rely heavily on one key region of the brain: the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is responsible for high-order functions like focus, planning, self-regulation, and decision-making. But the PFC has limits. It fatigues quickly, struggles with overload, and is highly sensitive to distraction and stress. This isn’t a personal failure but a systemic design issue. We’ve structured work in a way that demands nonstop performance from a part of the brain that was never meant to run continuously. To truly support better thinking, leaders must go beyond individual hacks and start redesigning the environments they work within—especially the spaces that drive attention, behavior, and collaboration.

The C-suite can be an isolating and stressful place, with many executives struggling to find the balance between caring for their businesses and caring for themselves. As AI continues to disrupt industries and geopolitical tensions rise, the pressure on senior leaders is at a peak. In today’s volatile circumstances, how do executives manage their stress? Five CEOs offer their insights and advice.

When you’ve landed a star employee , it’s tempting to think they’ll solve all your problems from day one. But even the most capable hire needs time to deliver their best work. More importantly, they need reasons to stick around. So, what can you do to keep them from getting poached? What do they need to stay motivated? And how do you give them what they need without creating resentment on your existing team? Here are eight strategies to try.

Many senior leaders are finding themselves overwhelmed as organizations cut budgets and staff while maintaining ambitious goals. In these conditions, bosses often assign extra projects to their most dependable performers, stretching them thin and leading to burnout. To avoid this cycle, executives who keep receiving extra work should clarify priorities before accepting new assignments, delegate or share ownership across teams, and align expectations with their bosses—shifting from doing everything themselves to ensuring the right work gets done by the right people.

Your team needs you, but you’re exhausted. You need to focus on the big picture, but you can’t move past the daily firefight. This is the classic trap of leadership: The more indispensable you become, the less time and capacity you have to lead. Meanwhile, the strategic work that needs your attention gets pushed aside. So how do you break this cycle? Here are strategies from five different experts on how to step back without everything falling apart.

A survey of hundreds of executives point to six red flags that derail organizational hiring, sometimes preventing otherwise qualified candidates from securing roles to which they might be suited. They include poor self-awareness, lack of preparation, poor manners or professionalism, excessive self-interest, problematic relationships with past or present employers, and a history of unexplained job-hopping. Both candidates and hiring teams can prevent these factors from derailing the process by focusing on the “three Cs”—clarity, courtesy, and coherence.

As business complexity increases, more organizations will experiment with co-leadership models that allow pairs of CEOs or other executives to divide the cognitive and operational loads of their roles. The benefits of such arrangements include leveraging different leaders’ complementary expertise, enhancing organizational resilience, improving real-time decision quality, and smoothing succession planning. But co-leadership can fail due to decision ambiguity, stakeholder confusion, and internal fragmentation. To thrive in a shared role, ensure you adhere to seven principles: create a clear leadership charter, divide responsibilities by expertise, establish unity on external interfaces, build structure to drive alignment, design conflict resolution mechanisms, plan for evolution, and invest in the partnership.

If loneliness is reshaping society, then it’s already reshaping the teams we lead, whether we see it clearly or not. Loneliness silently dismantles trust and team cohesion, foundational elements that drive performance, innovation, and resilience. By attending to connection as a strategic responsibility, leaders have an opportunity to unlock a huge strategic advantage—and become architects of healthier, more human workplaces. Effectively managing teams in an era of loneliness requires leaders to focus on two distinct but deeply interconnected layers of connection: social cohesion and belonging and meaningful interpersonal relationships.

In this HBR Executive Masterclass, Harvard Business School’s Max H. Bazerman breaks down the mindset traps that cause even senior leaders to leave value on the table during negotiations. He explains why a “fixed pie” mentality limits deals for both parties, how to create value through smart trades, and why framing the negotiation early is your biggest edge.

How to reshape your reputation without losing your identity.

A conversation with MIT Sloan’s Elsbeth Johnson on letting go effectively.

On paper, a flattened org chart may look efficient, but the day-to-day can feel overwhelming when you’re a senior leader suddenly responsible for a sprawling team. Without a clear strategy, scale becomes a liability. It’s easy to feel buried by decisions, demands, and sheer volume. But leadership at scale is about leading differently, not simply doing more. Shifting from reacting to intentionally resetting how you lead won’t just help you survive the avalanche; it will help your team find solid ground and start building again.

Even Gen AI–savvy teams often overlook the opportunity to use AI in collaborative settings—workshops, planning sessions, strategy reviews—defaulting to pre-AI habits. But when Gen AI is embedded intentionally in meeting it can elevate group thinking, sharpen decisions, and unlock deeper alignment. Three practical modes are emerging: “AI sets the table” (used in meeting prep), “AI at one seat” (used by a facilitator during the meeting), and “AI at every seat” (used by all participants during the meeting). Each mode offers distinct benefits and challenges, but together they form a flexible framework for reimagining teamwork.

How overcommitment derails projects, and what managers can do instead.