Emily Gordon

The pandemic changed where we work and how we work, how we think about the place of work in our lives and vice versa—all against a backdrop of rapid technological change, economic upheaval, and a reckoning with racism. I talked with Heidi Brooks, who teaches leadership at the Yale School of Management and advises companies on everyday leadership and organizational culture, about how to have necessary conversations about a new experience of work.

“I am Egypt,” proclaims Yul Brynner, leonine as Ramses the Great in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. Cinematic pomp aside, so many monumental and dazzling artifacts survive the reign of the real Ramses II that they fill a dozen rooms and multi-media spectacles in “Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs,” opening today at the de Young Museum, in San Francisco.

I used to have a Google calendar reminder to call my mom every Sunday. I often didn’t. She wasn’t in the habit of calling me — some combination of not wanting to intrude and, I think, a holdover from the days when calling long-distance was expensive. The cell phone I got her, with its many free minutes, didn’t ever seem to make an impression, and was rarely charged. She liked landlines and communicating on her own terms.

The transition from remote to hybrid and full-time office work has already begun for many. While office workers may be returning to familiar desks and corridors, both work and life have changed since the start of the pandemic. Heidi Brooks, who teaches leadership at Yale SOM and advises companies on everyday leadership and organizational culture, talks about how managers can approach this moment of transition with empathy—and have a meaningful impact at an important time.

Preview of "Hilma af Klint: The Secret Paintings," at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.

It’s a tense time in American politics, to say the least. We asked Heidi Brooks, who studies organizational behavior and pioneered the course Everyday Leadership, for her advice on how organizations can respond positively to strong opinions and emotions around political issues—both during election season and after the votes have been cast.

A review of the books #VERYFAT #VERYBRAVE: The Fat Girl’s Guide to Being #Brave and Not a Dejected, Melancholy, Down-in-the-Dumps Weeping Fat Girl in a Bikini, by Nicole Byer; This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World—and Me, by Marisa Meltzer; and Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa, by Joan Jacobs Brumberg.

How should leaders respond to structural inequality and racism? Yale SOM leadership expert Heidi Brooks says that many companies have a bias toward taking quick action that is ill-suited to a complex and ambiguous issue. Instead, organizations should reflect on their own culture and power dynamics and create a long-term plan for impact.

The many ways that books can be clothed, hidden, decorated, and disguised form the spine of “Contemporary Designer Bookbindings from the Collection of Neale and Margaret Albert,” the bookbinding show now at the Yale Center for British Art.

As he was founding the Ballets Russes, Sergey Diaghilev had an aesthetic and political problem to solve: which Russia to present to an international audience? More than a century later, there remains a distinction between artists who intend their work for a Russian audience and those with an eye on the rest of the world. The contemporary painter Andrey Remnev knows this history well, and is unafraid to plant his brush in the former category.

Sofonisba Anguissola (circa 1535–1625) and Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614) share the candlelight in a Prado exhibition that rightfully puts the two artists front and center, with 60 remarkable works in all.

How could the luxury shoe company Stuart Weitzman, founded by the designer and corporate leader of the same name, be called anything else? The man is the key to the brand.

Interview with Laszlo Bock, former senior vice president of People Operations at Google, about how he's using data analytics and behavioral science to improve recruitment, human resources, and employee engagement at his new company, Humu.

Report on a panel discussion at the opening reception for the art exhibit "Our Bodies Ourselves" at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art on Trumbull Street.

Condensed interview with Philippa Smit, graduate of the Yale School of Management's Master of Advanced Management program. Philippa returned to South Africa after graduation to work as Strategic Analyst for South Africans Against Drunk Driving.