Simon Sinek begins his talk with the story of former U.S. Army Captain William D. Swenson. In 2009, Swenson was on an operation in Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border, when his column was ambushed. It was bad; many were injured. During this ambush, Swenson called for air support and ran through enemy fire to rescue the wounded. The moment ...

Jim Crupi is a management consultant with a long, brilliant resume. (Heard of CNN? He helped set the strategic stage that led to its creation.) Here, he distills some of his best leadership advice into one memorable metaphor. Music is all-consuming. Our reaction to a great song can be so visceral that we are forever connected to it. Hearing tha...

The former Prime Minister of Greece, George Papandreou, takes the stage as the first speaker at TEDGlobal 2013. It's already been a long morning, with a few dozen protesters earlier objecting to his presence in Edinburgh outside  the conference center. And Papandreou cuts something of a pensive figure as he tells us he's set to give a speech u...

Over the past two days, TEDxWomen brought together 50 speakers from around the globe, each giving a different slice of thinking on the state of women today. Here, a selection of the powerful talks from this event, which was produced and curated by The Paley Center for Media. Session 1: The space between Poverty and Plenty Malehlohonolo...

"People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." This is the mantra of leadership expert Simon Sinek in one of the most popular TED Talks of all time (Watch: Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action). In his talk from TEDxPugetSound, Sinek looks at Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers -- and examines why they were so...

Instead of having an answer to every question, the most effective leaders are coaches -- people who can guide others to arrive at their own solutions, put them into action, and set goals, says researcher and management consultant Julia Milner. This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpfu...

Cartier believes in the power of bold ideas to empower local initiatives to have global impact. To celebrate Cartier's dedication to launching the ideas of female entrepreneurs into concrete change, TED has curated a special session of talks around the theme "Bold Alchemy" for the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards, featuring a selection of f...

Pat Mitchell, curator of TEDWomen, shares this report with the TED Blog: In April, I had the privilege of moderating a discussion at the Skoll World Forum on the subject of “Leading Through Adversity.” My panel consisted of four powerful women: Mary Robinson, Ireland’s first female president (watch Mary Robinson's TED Talk); Halla Tómasadótti...

When Hillary Clinton became the first female nominee of a major political party in the United States this summer, she reflected that this achievement "belongs to generations of women and men who struggled, sacrificed and made this moment possible." Women have been leaders throughout history, making positive changes in their communities. But in s...

US university presidents and chancellors, enough already. It’s time to end the consensual hallucination between university leadership, parents and students that in-person classes will be able to resume in the fall. The bold statements from presidents and provosts are symptomatic of the viruses that also plague American leadership and business...

Most people go into top positions with good intentions, but those often crumble due to the demands -- and perks -- of the job. If you want to succeed, devote some time and energy to self-leadership, says consultant Lars Sudmann. This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from s...

"It's nice to look out and see so many women. That's not my norm," Sheryl Sandberg comments drily as she takes her place onstage at TEDWomen 2013  at the SFJazz Center. She's here to talk with co-host Pat Mitchell, in a Q&A follow-up to her incendiary 2010 TED Talk, given at a TEDWomen three years before. First, Mitchell asks her to r...

Susan Cain is planning a Quiet Revolution. In her classic talk from TED2012, she spoke up for introverts, pointing out the many ways our culture encourages extroversion. “I wasn’t prepared for the intensity and voracity of response to these ideas,” Cain tells the TED Blog two years later. “There’s an enormous hunger for recognition, understa...

TEDxWomen is just days away—on November 30 and December 1, the conference will take place in Washington, D.C. While it’s sold out, there are still many opportunities to watch. Over the weekend, webcasts will be streamed during more than 140 TEDxWomen events across the globe -- from Abuja, Nigeria, to Warsaw, Poland. Head to the TEDxWomen web...

The Dalai Lama is both a futurist and a visionary, says author Daniel Goleman. There was a child born to illiterate villagers in an isolated village. He had to flee his homeland and has been a man without a country for more than half a century. He has never owned a home or a car or had a salary, let alone investments of any kind. He never ha...

If we want to improve the competence level of people in leadership positions, we need to improve our own competence for judging and selecting them, especially when they are men, says organizational psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. Have you ever worked with people who are not as good as they think?  This finding won’t come as a surprise ...

When he was a child, John Maeda's father came to a parent-teacher meeting and was told that his son was good at math and art. His father nodded. The next day, at his tofu store, his father told a customer that his son was good at ... math. "That's stuck with me all my life," Maeda says. "Why wasn't art okay?" Maeda is here today to talk a...

Our image of a great leader is outdated, says Roselinde Torres of management consultancy BCG (TED Talk: What it takes to be a great leader). That all-knowing superhero who both lords over and protects his followers is neither realistic nor effective in today’s business, she says. To prepare for a global, digital, fast-paced future, she offers th...

While training for the military, Rye Barcott took leave to study ethnic conflict by living in Kibera, Kenya’s largest slum. Inspired by community-led initiatives there, Rye co-founded the non-profit Carolina for Kibera to support the projects. His newly released book, It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine’s Path to Peace chronicles his journ...

During an interview at TEDWomen 2013, host Pat Mitchell asked Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to explain how her 2010 TED Talk evolved. “I asked myself the question that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and my boss, asks all of us, which is: What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?” Sandberg said. Her answer: “I would get on the TED stage...

Nancy Pelosi has represented San Francisco’s 12th district for 29 years, is currently the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, and made history by becoming the first woman Speaker of the House. But before all that happened, she never felt that she was on a course for public office. When the opportunity to run came along, she wa...

Countdown is a global initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. Watch the talks, interviews and performances from the Countdown Global Launch at ted.com/countdown. The climate crisis demands leadership at every level. Governments, cities and businesses are three key players in designing and implementing the necessary trans...

Cross-posted from TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell's blog on the Huffington Post. When Hanna Rosin, the first speaker at the very first TEDWomen conference in 2010, delivered her talk she had titled “The End of Men,” she had only just begun the research for what became her bestselling 2012 book by the same name. And as the editors at ...

Instead of spending your days complaining, you might try changing your workplace from within, says leadership expert Simon Sinek. Simon Sinek now spends his days helping people create inspiring workplaces, but he found this calling only after experiencing profound professional despair. “I hated waking up in the morning,” he recalls. “I was no f...

An advocate for educational video games realizes that our kids might actually learn more from Civilization, Minecraft, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Everything changed at a lunch with the legendary game designer Sid Meier. For years, I'd been making the case that we should borrow from the games kids love to create new kinds of educatio...

James Patten creates physical interfaces for technology -- producing rich, captivating experiences for the user. Your studio explores new ways physical objects relate to digital information. Why is that mission important to you? The way the human body and human mind are set up, we’re incredibly good at using physical objects and interactin...

Like it or not, charisma matters when it comes to leadership. But we should be aware of the power that persuasion can have on us, says business school professor and researcher Jochen Menges. Winston Churchill had it -- but so did Eva Perón. Nelson Mandela had it -- as did Adolf Hitler. Charisma is a force that can rally people during difficult ...

One of anthropologist Margaret Mead’s most famous quotes instructs us: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” We might amend Mead’s observation to honor a group of thoughtful, committed teenagers across the world who are standing up for their lives (...

OK, this post won’t tell you how to magically make each day 38 hours long (we’re still working on that). But by assessing our tasks in terms of their significance, we can free up more time tomorrow, says leadership coach Rory Vaden. This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice fr...

How do you build a civil society that functions in the midst of civil war? Lessons from Syria. Last week, forty Syrians took the risk of leaving their homes and crossing the border into Turkey. Unlike many who cross, though, these Syrians planned to return. Their goal in Turkey: an intensive week-long workshop on how to rebuild their society. ...