Authenticity seems like sort of a joke. Actually I believe it was the late comedian George Burns who said, "if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made." People cannot be invariant across situations and roles and, moreover, leaders need to be true not to themselves, but to what others want, need, and expect from them.

The class focuses intensely on making people more comfortable with doing a wider range of things - such as networking, self-promotion, building their own personal brand, cleverly acquiring resources, getting known - that they may have been less comfortable with before.

I completely reject the idea that working adults need to be treated like infants or worse and not told the realities, harsh or not, about the world of work. Keeping people in the dark and filling them with stories that are either mostly fabricated, unusually rare, or both, doesn't do anyone any good. It is one of the reasons that workplaces and careers remain in such dire straits.

You can't be normal and expect abnormal returns.

Those who have power a) understand that the world is not always a just and fair place and accept that fact, b) understand the bases and strategies for acquiring power, and c) take actions consistent with their knowledge in a skillful way. Skill at anything requires practice, and power skills are no different.

Successful organizations understand the importance of implementation, not just strategy, and, moreover, recognize the crucial role of their people in this process.

Today, if the CEO thinks it's a good idea, it's done everywhere; if the CEO thinks it's a bad idea, it's done nowhere. We ought to be more agnostic and open to learning things that we didn't expect - and the only way to do that is to try things and be open-minded about how well they are working. And third, evidence-based management involves reading and learning - just like doctors do - and to do so not just in school but afterward, as well.