Michael Useem

Professor, Wharton School, University Of Pennsylvania

Leadership

Michael Useem helps leaders develop the capabilities required for making good and timely decisions in unpredictable and stressful environments, in moments when leadership really matters.

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He is the author or coauthor of many books on leadership and management. He is the author or coauthor of many books on leadership and management. His newest book is The Leader's Checklist, 10th Anniversary Edition: 16 Mission-Critical Principles. In this illuminating guide, Useem offers a Leader's Checklist that will help you develop your ability to make good and timely decisions in unpredictable and stressful environments — for those moments when leadership really matters.

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Michael also recently published, The Edge: How Ten CEOs Learned to Lead — And the Lessons for Us All. In a world facing the unprecedented challenges of global pandemic and economic disruption, every leader needs to find the edge for leaping across the breach and breaking new ground on the other side. Michael provides a rare insight into how ten leaders confronted these and other hard realities. Useem’s profiles of leaders on the edge provide the inspiration and the guidance we all need for adapting and thriving in an era of massive disruption and continuous transformation.

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His previous books include Mastering Catastrophic Risk: How Companies Are Coping with Disruption (coauthor Howard Kunreuther), Go Long: Why Long-Term Thinking Is Your Best Short-Term Strategy (coauthored with Dennis Carey, Brian Dumaine, and Rodney Zemmel), Fortune Makers (with Harbir Singh, Liang Neng, and Peter Cappelli), The Strategic Leader’s Roadmap (with Harbir Singh), Leadership Dispatches (with Howard Kunreuther and Erwann Michel-Kerjan), The Leader’s Checklist, the first e-book by Wharton Digital Press, The Go Point and The Leadership Moment, one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, by 800 CEO Read, and listed as one of the 10 best leadership books on The Washington Post column The Leadership Playlist.

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Michael also coauthored Boards That Lead, based on personal interviews and working with executives from the world’s largest firms, including Apple, Boeing, Ford, Infosys, and Lenovo. And he is a coauthor of Learning from Catastrophes and The India Way.

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Useem is an excellent speaker with a trademark interactive approach based on the stories of real crisis events. He truly engages his audiences, drawing them more deeply into their own leadership potential. He also leads an annual leadership trek to Mount Everest.

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Michael Useem is the William and Jacalyn Egan Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

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Trademark Approach Michael’s programs are extremely effective at developing deeper decision-making resources in leaders. He presents true stories of management and leadership challenges — from the White House to the boardroom, from the trading floor to firefighting to mountaineering.

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He brings the audience right up to the crucial leadership moment in the story, then engages the audience interactively to propose possible solutions.

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Finally, he compares the participants’ ideas to the real decisions and outcomes of the moment and analyses the resulting themes.

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The result: lessons that managers can apply to their own situations in a practical way.

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Credentials

William and Jacalyn Egan Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Teaches MBA and executive MBA courses on leadership and change management
Offers programs for managers in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
Edits the monthly electronic bulletin, Wharton Leadership Digest
Directs an annual leadership trek to Mount Everest

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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.

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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