The right video at the right moment can shift how a leadership cohort thinks. We have used short talks to open retreats, spark debate in leadership development programs, and give emerging leaders language for things they have felt but never named. This guide collects the best leadership videos from top business schools and TED, organized by theme, with a practical facilitation note for each. If you are designing a full leadership experience rather than a single meeting, our offsite workshops and retreats page shows how we build multi-day programs around themes like these.
Videos on Inspiring and Leading Others
How Great Leaders Inspire Action (Simon Sinek, TED)
Simon Sinek’s golden circle talk remains one of the most watched leadership videos ever recorded: people do not buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Facilitation note: after watching, have each leader draft their own “why” statement in one sentence, then test it aloud with a partner. Expect the first drafts to be about what, not why. That gap is the discussion.
The Power of the Leadership Credo (Columbia Business School)
A case for leaders writing down what they stand for, so their teams do not have to guess. Facilitation note: this pairs naturally with a credo-writing exercise and works especially well in storytelling-based leadership sessions.
Leadership Skills And Style For A Global Technology And Engineering Services Organization (UCLA)
Chuck Harrington, Chairman and CEO, Parsons Corporation.
Driven to Lead – Good, Bad, and Misguided Leadership (Harvard Business School)
Presenter: Paul R. Lawrence, Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Organizational Behavior, Emeritus, Harvard Business School In a presentation based on his new book, Driven to Lead, Professor Emeritus Lawrence will offer a fresh approach to a subject that is overloaded with books and commentary and leadership. 2010 Fall Reunion, Harvard Business School, Oct. 1, 2010
Shaping the Future: Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World (Duke)
Watch the event sponsored by Duke Executive Education during 2011 Advanced Management Program Reunion weekend. “Shaping the Future: Leadership Skills for a VUCA World” is presented by Rick Voirin, Adjunct Professor and Orchestrator for the Advanced Management Program.
Videos on Leadership Culture
How Leaders and High Performance Culture Connect (Stanford Business School)
What leaders actually do, day to day, that produces high performing cultures. Facilitation note: have participants list the three most repeated behaviors of the best leader they have worked for, then compare lists in small groups. The overlap across groups is always striking.
Culture and Leadership (UCLA)
An exploration of how culture forms and how leaders shape it, intentionally or not. Facilitation note: useful in change management contexts. We often pair culture discussions like this with the exercises in our change management workshop.
Lead Through Vision, Not Division (Stanford Business School)
How leaders align teams around shared direction when perspectives differ. Facilitation note: a strong setup for a vision or strategy alignment session where the group drafts a shared future statement together.
How to Lead with Radical Candor (Kim Scott, TED)
Former Google and Apple leader Kim Scott presents her radical candor framework: care personally and challenge directly at the same time, and watch what goes wrong when either half is missing. Her terms for the failure modes, ruinous empathy and obnoxious aggression, give teams language they immediately start using. Facilitation note: after watching, have each leader plot their own default feedback style on the two-by-two, then practice one radically candid conversation with a partner. Few frameworks convert to practice this fast.
Bosses as Brands- CEOs in the Public Spotlight (Yale School of Management)
Panelists: Jeffrey Bewkes YC ’74, Chairman of the Board & CEO, Time Warner Inc.; Chengyu Fu, Chairman, China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group); and Indra Nooyi ’80, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PepsiCo, Inc. Moderator: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Senior Associate Dean for Executive Programs & Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management, Yale School of Management
Videos on Developing as a Leader
Keys to Establishing Leadership Quickly (Duke School of Business)
Practical guidance for new leaders and leaders entering new teams: the first moves that build or burn credibility. Facilitation note: ideal for emerging leader programs and new manager cohorts.
Building a Psychologically Safe Workplace (Amy Edmondson, TEDx)
Harvard’s Amy Edmondson, the researcher behind psychological safety and more recently the science of intelligent failure, explains why the best teams report more mistakes, not fewer: they feel safe enough to surface them. Facilitation note: essential grounding for any innovation or change program, since no team experiments honestly without safety. Have leaders assess one team ritual (retros, standups, reviews) for whether it invites or punishes candor.
Preparing Leaders for a Flatter World (Yale)
We are more connected, but our flatter world is characterized by growing complexity. Leaders in business and society face increasingly diverse political, legal, economic, and cultural environments. Margaret Warner, senior correspondent for PBS NewsHour, lead a conversation among deans and others from schools in the Global Network for Advanced Management.
The Importance of Leadership Coaching in a Post-Recession Economy (USC)
This webinar addresses the reasons that organizations should consider leadership coaching, and why coaching is a key success factor for creating future value.
Videos on Inclusive Leadership
Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders (Sheryl Sandberg, TED)
Sheryl Sandberg’s talk on the messages that keep women from leadership roles and what individuals and organizations can do about it. Facilitation note: discussion works best in small mixed groups with a concrete prompt, such as identifying one organizational practice worth changing.
How Leaders Collaborate (USC)
Collaboration as a leadership discipline rather than a personality trait. Facilitation note: pairs well with team charter exercises where groups define how they will make decisions and handle disagreement.
Leadership for the 21st Century (Harvard Business School)
The 2008 Alumni Achievement Award recipients discuss the current financial crisis, the changing relationship between business and government, and the key elements of effective leadership. Monday, October 13, 2008
The Future of Leadership- Perspectives on the Principalship (Harvard)
In celebration of the 30th anniversary of The Principals’ Center, a panel of current and former school leaders moderated by Jewell-Sherman, faculty advisor to The Principals’ Center, will discuss the future of leadership and what it means in school settings. Bringing diverse perspectives on the principalship to the discussion, the panelists will engage in dialogue focused on how instructional leadership, distributed leadership, and accountability impact the work of principals in the 21st century and beyond, as well as how to best mentor and support the next generation of school leaders.
Innovation, Inclusive Excellence, and Leadership: The Future of Higher Education (Dartmouth)
Freeman Hrabowski, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore College, presented a public lecture at Dartmouth on October 23rd in Filene Auditorium. President Hrabowski explored problems of underrepresentation in the sciences, from minorities in the United States to Americans on an international scale. His lecture was part of Leading Voices in Higher Education — a strategic planning speaker series at Dartmouth.
Ethics and Leadership: Innovation in Education (Yale)
Panelists: Joel Klein, Executive Vice President, News Corporation; Ned Lamont ’80, Founder and Chairman, Lamont Digital Systems, Inc.; Jennifer C. Niles ’98, Founder and Head of School, E.L. Haynes Public Charter School; and Peter Salovey PhD ’86, President & Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology, Yale University
Moderator: Thomas A. Kolditz, Director of the Leadership Development Program, Yale School of Management
Turning Videos into Leadership Development
A video alone rarely changes behavior. What works is the sequence around it: a focusing question before viewing, a structured application exercise after, and a personal commitment at the close. In our leadership programs we treat talks like these as raw material for experiences where leaders practice with each other, tell their own stories, and leave with specific actions. If you are building a leadership development program, retreat, or workshop series and want these themes brought to life for your people, we design custom sessions around your context. Explore our future-ready skills workshop or contact us to start a conversation.