Teaching note for product 9B15C029.

At dawn on May 29, 2015, Swiss authorities acting on behalf of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation entered a plush hotel in Zurich, Switzerland to arrest nine senior executives of FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association), soccer’s global governing body, as delegates from across the world convened to elect a president to lead them for the next four years. The incumbent president, who had been in office since 1998, at first refused .....more

Canadian Pacific (CP), a North American railway company, had recently come under attack from an activist shareholder, Pershing Square Capital Management (Pershing). Pershing had accumulated a 14 per cent shareholding in CP and had recently announced its intention to replace the CP board of directors and its chief executive officer. The case reviews the history of CP, its recent performance relative to Canadian National, and the basis for Pershing's .....more

Teaching note for product 9B14M035.

Teaching note for product 9B14C016.

Business schools have done an admirable job of teaching competencies, and many business organizations have defined the framework of competencies that are required to be successful in the institution. However, much less attention has been spent on leadership character and the importance of commitment to the leadership role. There is no consistent understanding among executives about what character means, despite a concurrence that it is important. .....more

A procurement officer has got himself into some difficulties by trying to do what he thinks was the right thing in being responsive and accommodating for an internal client. In doing so, he has violated a number of unwritten ethical expectations of his role. He is wondering what he could have done differently and, specifically, how to handle an upcoming conversation with his chief executive officer about his future with the company.

The regional manager of Latin America for a Canadian defence contractor must decide whether or not to employ a South American agent to represent the company and negotiate an agreement to supply body armour to the procurement group of a Central American country's armed forces. The Canadian manager is concerned about whether or not the employment of this agent poses a reputational risk to his company, given the current Canadian legislation with .....more

Corporate directors should look for three criteria in executives: competencies, commitment, and character. This article focuses on leadership character, the least understood of the three criteria. The authors met with over 300 business leaders on three continents, who identified character weaknesses or defects — including overconfidence, lack of transparency, and lack of accountability — as central to the Global Financial Crisis. The authors posit .....more

There is arguably no more important role for senior leaders than to prepare organizations for risk. Firms face different types of risk, including strategic, operational, market, liquidity, credit, and reputational. This article starts by exploring risk leadership at TD Bank Group and Maple Leaf Foods Inc. In 2002, TD Bank’s leadership lowered its risk tolerance following years of volatile and uneven performance. It avoided excessive risk (including .....more