Vlerick Expertise in People Management & Leadership

The only way is up; you create your own career; and leaders are born, not made. These are just three of the fifteen persistent myths that Professor Marion Debruyne and Professor Katleen De Stobbeleir expertly unravel in ‘Making your way, the (wobbly) road to success and happiness in life and work’, a book that everyone can and should read.

We all know change cannot be mandated or forced. It has many aspects and these aspects count. As a change manager, you need to ask yourself some difficult questions before you set out to ‘shake things up’. And you must listen to the answers. In this ‘Business Watcher’ video, Professor of Change Management Peter De Prins raises 10 questions to consider, before you set out to make things better.

The COVID-19 outbreak has forced many organisations to re-evaluate their business models and re-examine their staffing practises to stay operational within an atmosphere of financial uncertainty. Many organisations are turning to gig workers to supplement the work of their employees. As such, many managers have found themselves dealing with a different form of work arrangement. In this ‘Business Watcher’ video, PhD researcher Neveen Saied shares 3 tips to optimise your interactions with gig workers during this ongoing crisis.

How do you negotiate if you cannot touch and see each other? For years, the answer would have been: ‘don't’. However, these days, many of us do not have a choice. Research on negotiations via e-mail shows a negative impact both on the negotiation relationships as well as on the negotiation results. But what about negotiations via a screen, by means of Zoom or Teams? In this ‘Business Watcher’ video, Professor Katia Tieleman shares insights and tips.

The gig economy is very diverse, and the COVID-19 pandemic has affected some workers more than others. Food couriers are seeing more demand, whereas graphic designers, writers and photographers may have seen potential work opportunities dry up. Although some expect that once the pandemic is under control, the need for gig workers might skyrocket as delayed projects gear up into implementation, several workers have been saying that many of their near-future projects are cancelled. In this ‘Business Watcher’ video PhD researcher Neveen Saied shares 3 tips for gig workers in the Corona era.

New evolutions in the field of customer expectations, regulation, technology, and globalisation force organisations to rethink the way in which they set up strategic collaborations with partners. Diverse stakeholders increasingly join forces in more organic and evolving ecosystems to develop and/or offer products or services via collaboration as well as via competition. How can your organisation benefit from ecosystem thinking? And how to structure such collaboration? Read all about it in this white paper.

In uncertain times, we may tend to criticise our political and business leaders for not being prepared or for not having a plan. Of course, preparation is important, but it’s not sufficient. In this Business Watcher video, Professor Katleen De Stobbeleir says that organisations that embrace a network leadership structure are much better equipped to continuously adapt to an evolving context.

These are emotionally intense times for everyone. How we – both individually as well as in organisations – work with our emotions is now more relevant than ever, and has a visible impact on our interactions, resilience and performance. Especially in the virtual world, we find it difficult to do this emotional work. That is why we very often simply choose to suppress emotions – bottle them up and pretend all is under control. But what is the cost of suppressing our emotions? And how can we work better with our emotions in organisations in this period?

For years now there has been talk about emotional intelligence, debating the role of emotions in the workplace. While researchers are increasingly recognising the importance of emotions, managers have yet to be convinced. Recent research by Professor Smaranda Boroș and colleagues shows that discussing emotions in teams is not at all a ‘soft’ approach. On the contrary, emotional awareness and emotion regulation will help teams perform better, enabling more creativity and healthy controversy.

We’re living in an increasingly multicultural society, but people still tend to seek out the company of similar others, resulting in de facto segregated monocultural groups in which stereotypes about the other remain unchallenged. Research suggests that this is linked to emotion management, or lack thereof. Together with two colleagues, professor Smaranda Boros examined the role of emotion management in a professional multicultural setting, and its implications.