Being a great leader takes practice. These 5 TED Talks will help you learn key skills and mindsets for leading your team.

 

1. What I Learned From Giving Up Everything I Knew As A Leader

By Jim Whitehurst

 

Jim Whitehurst was the Chief Operating Office of the major American airline, Delta. He thought he was “the person ultimately responsible for solving the problems facing my organisation. I was the one who was supposed to bring order and structure”. When Jim left Delta to become CEO of Red Hat, an open-source software company, everything he thought he know about being a leader changed…

2. The Crisis of Leadership — and A New Way Forward

By Halla Tómasdóttir

 

Former Icelandic presidential candidate Halla Tómasdóttir talks to Bryn Freedman about what modern leadership should look like. “There’s a leader inside every single one of us,” she says, “and our most important work in life is to release that leader.” However, leaders who believe they already have all of the answers prevent the creativity and collaboration that leads to fundamental change.

3. Lead Like The Great Conductors

By Itay Talgam

 

Orchestra conductor, Itay Talgam, draws interesting parallels between traditional leaders and musical conductors. By demonstrating the unique styles of six conductors, Talgam allows the audience to experience and compare good leaders and bad leaders.

4. How To Manage For Collective Creativity

By Linda Hill

 

Linda Hill is an experienced and highly regarded Professor at Harvard Business School and she has been ranked as one of the top ten management thinkers in the world. In this inspiring TED talk, Linda advocates for collective creativity; encouraging organisations to unlearn their conventional notions of leadership and unleash the talents of others to create innovation.

5. Forget The Pecking Order at Work

By Margaret Heffernan

 

This enlightening talk starts off with an analogy about chickens and it only gets better from there. The gist of the presentation is geared towards collectivism opposed to individualism; appreciating each member of the team for their own meaningful contribution.