Future of Work Briefs

At her funeral ceremony tomorrow, we will remember Margaret Thatcher as much for her leadership style as for her polarizing politics — in fact, the two are almost identical.

J.C. Penney and its CEO Ron Johnson have parted ways. The news wasn't terribly surprising as 2012 had been a challenging year. What led to Mr. Johnson's downfall? Two words: over ambition.

There is a certain sense of continuity in the elements of an effective organization over the last twenty-five years, but how have they evolved to meet current and future demands?

In Western business circles, Rwandan President Paul Kagame is widely regarded as a hero. The leader of the rebel army that put a halt to the massacre of the country's Tutsi minority by its Hutu majority in 1994, Kagame has been the country's president since 2000 (and was the vice president and de facto leader before then). He has presided over an economic and social rebirth, with Rwanda making dramatic gains in health and development indicators.

So why was Britain's first woman Prime minister a true-blue Tory? After all, Labour politicians were, on the face of it, much more supportive of women in politics. Part of the answer, perhaps, was plain old cynical politics. Conservatives got to look progressive because they had a woman as leader, and a reasonable number of non-conservatives might vote also for her party because she was a woman.

In general, the business community is obsessed with what Michael Lewis once termed the "new, new thing." It's that faith in a kind of kaizen-in-all-things that has led to innumerable technological, organizational, and social advances in the corporate world. It's why factories are now safer, hybrid cars are cheaper, board rooms are growing gradually more diverse, and instant communication via email and other technologies is becoming the norm.

The announcement last week that the Samsung Electronics is elevating two executives, Boo-Keun Yoon and J. K. Shin, to the CEO role was met with interest in leadership circles. We have seen this kind of co-CEO arrangement grow over the years.

"While I have always considered myself sensitive to and effective on gender issues in the workplace," writes Cisco CEO John Chambers in a leaked email, "my eyes were opened in new ways and I feel a renewed sense of urgency to make the progress we haven't made in the last decade."

WordPress.com is the 15th most trafficked website in the world. It is run by Automattic Inc, a company that is 100% distributed. That means everyone works from home, or more precisely, from wherever in the world they wish.