Michael Useem

Professor of Management, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania | Director, Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management
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Michael Useem is a world-renowned leadership expert who helps leaders develop the skills required for making good and timely decisions in unpredictable and stressful environments—the moments when leadership really matters. He is the William and Jacalyn Egan Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Director of Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management.
 
For his Wharton students, Professor Useem has led annual treks up Mount Everest to put their leadership and teamwork skills to the ultimate test. In his interactive engagements, he brings a similar immersive experience by inviting audiences into the crucial moments of real major crisis events, from the White House to the boardroom, and the trading room floor to the lifesaving missions of firefighters. By working to develop their own solutions to these problems and comparing their proposed ideas to the actual outcome, audiences enhancing their problem-solving abilities and walk away with actionable insights that can be put into practice the very same day.
 
Useem has authored over a dozen books on leadership and management. His bestselling and most well-known book, The Leader’s Checklist, recently received a 10th anniversary update with new case studies illustrating where leaders went wonderfully right and terribly wrong. His latest book, The Edge: How Ten CEOs Learned to Lead — And the Lessons for Us All, is a guide for adapting to and thriving in an era of massive disruption and continuous transformation, featuring 10 inspiring profiles of leaders who navigated difficult situations and came out on top.
His earlier books include Mastering Catastrophic Risk: How Companies Are Coping with Disruption, Go Long: Why Long-Term Thinking IsYour Best Short-Term Strategy, Fortune Makers, The Strategic Leader’s Roadmap, Boards That Lead, Leadership Dispatches, The India Way, Learning from Catastrophes, and The Go Point. His first book, The Leadership Moment, has been named one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time by Porchlight.
 
Michael Useem co-hosts Leadership in Action, a weekly broadcast on SiriusXM Channel 132 that presents enlightening conversations with leaders from a wide array of organizations about how they’ve led, what they’ve learned, and what has made the greatest difference.

Topics

The Go Point: When It’s Time to Decide

Moments of decision are those times when an individual, team, or organization faces a tangible opportunity to go one way or another. And ultimately, every decision comes down to a go point — that moment when the essential information has been gathered, the pros and cons are weighed, and the time has come to get off the fence. Decisions at such points are at the heart of leadership and a driver of organizational performance. Drawing on the decision moments of a range of company leaders, corporate directors — and even mountaineers on Mt. Everest, firefighters in the wilderness, and generals at Gettysburg — Michael Useem identifies what it takes for making timely calls when leadership really matters.

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Leading Through Challenging Times

The Chilean mining minister watched as the cave-in victims emerged unscathed, along with an estimated billion television viewers. A rescue crew had toiled around the clock for more than two months to retrieve the 33 below, but direct responsibility for their recovery ultimately resided in just one person, Chile’s minister of mines. In his decisions that guided the rescue are instructive implications for all who face exceptionally challenging leadership moments. Focusing on difficult decisions in uncertain times, Michael Useem identifies what it takes for making timely calls when leadership matters most. He draws upon a range of instructive events — ranging from fateful management decisions in Chinese and Indian companies to the miner- rescue decisions in Chile to the front-line decisions of firefighters and mountain climbers — to construct a template for leading through stressful times.

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Videos

"The Leader's Checklist" Book: Interview with Author & Wharton Prof. Michael Useem
Michael Useem
Leadership When It Really Matters
Michael Useem
Leadership and The Importance of Company Culture
Michael Useem
Making Bold Decisions in Challenging Times
Michael Useem
"The Strategic Leader's Roadmap" Book: Interview with Author Michael Useem
Michael Useem
GRACE under pressure: John Baldoni with Michael Useem
Michael Useem
Leading in the 21st century: Wharton's Michael Useem on modern leadership
Michael Useem
Michael Useem on Leadership during tough times
Michael Useem
Flexibility Results Focused Organizations | Talks at Google
Michael Useem

Articles

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What I've Learned
Knowledge at Wharton
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Choosing a New Board Leader: Eight Questions
Knowledge at Whaton
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This is the key to influencing and motivating the people around you, says Wharton professor: ‘It’s not something in our DNA’
CNBC Make It
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Questions to Help You Pick Your Next Leader
Knowledge at Wharton
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Facing ‘a new era of catastrophes,’ book by Wharton profs offers tips for business leaders
Penn Today
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Betting on Disaster: Why Risk Management Is a Leadership Issue
Knowledge at Wharton

Podcasts

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