Struggle and leadership are unquestionably intertwined. Whether attempting to turnaround a fledgling organization, trying to discern the best way forward in today’s competitive marketplace, or rallying stakeholders around a new initiative, struggle is simply par for the leadership course. Yet cultural taboos have prevented executives from speaking openly about their struggles, fearing that such disclosure would indicate weakness, indecisiveness, or even incompetence.

The death of the global supply chain is premature. Some media report that US labor costs are lower than China labor costs. Others contend that fuel costs are so high that global trade is no longer cost effective. And then we have those that only look at how shipping times from Asia to the US have become longer, creating issues from an agility perspective. While each of these perspectives is true, they are not valid augments for relinquishing global supply chains and bringing manufacturing closer to home with onshoring and nearshoring.

The signature legislative achievement of President Obama’s tenure, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), was born without a single Republican vote in Congress and nurtured to fruition by the Supreme Court of the United States. The impact on small and medium size business will force many CEOs to make difficult choices.

The first rule is “Better Before Cheaper": being price competitive is far from irrelevant but when it comes to position in a market, exceptional performance is caused most often by greater non-price value rather than lower price. There are two dimensions of value along which any company can differentiate itself: price value and non-price value. Research reveals that exceptional companies typically focus on non-price value, even if that means they have to charge higher prices. Price-based competition is a legitimate strategy. Competing with better, rather than cheaper is systematically associated with better long-term performance.

A CPA serving middle market companies notes how CEOs can get carried away when it comes to acquiring an aircraft—and offers four tips to avoid ugly surprises.

Procter & Gamble’s announcement that A.G. Lafley, who ran the 175-year-old Cincinnati consumer products company from 2000 to 2009, would replace CEO Bob McDonald, set business pundits and cable channel talking heads into overdrive. Wasn’t Lafley partially responsible for the current state of affairs at P&G? What about the board of directors? Is Lafley’s recall a knee jerk reaction or master stroke of pragmatism?

Chief Executive magazine today announced that David Cote, Chairman and CEO of Honeywell has been named “2013 CEO of the Year,” an honor bestowed upon an outstanding corporate leader, nominated and selected by a group of his peers.

Nothing adds long-term value to your leadership team’s working relationship than an executive retreat.

Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, ahead of a high-profile congressional hearing accused Apple of seeking “the Holy Grail of tax avoidance” by creating “offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars, while claiming to be tax resident nowhere.” Apple, the Cupertino, CA giant. recently “took a bite” out of its corporate tax liabilities and caused a public outcry. But the ethical issues raised by such a move do not begin or end with them alone, observed Crown CEO Chuck Bentley in the Washington Post, in a piece titled “Apple’s tax ethics: Unpatriotic or Shrewdness in Action.”

As mergers and acquisitions continue to bounce along the bottom, large company CEOs are reaping the benefits in 2013 despite struggling with the many market uncertainties that hold back deal flow. But what options for capital raising do SME CEOs have? More than you may think. But it pays to be careful.

Innovation is like ice cream – it sounds great and comes in many different flavors. But innovation is not always a simple or quick decision for any organization, not even for those that make continuous transformation look easy and seamless like Salesforce.com. Salesforce – the company that pioneered and continues to dominate the now crowded Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market – has always been innovative. As its founder and CEO Marc Beinoff remarked in his Consumer Electronics Show keynote address earlier this year, an innovative spirit fuels almost everything Salesforce does today.

An investment banker turned CEO shares his strategy on buying and building a mid-size company.

Former P&G CEO A.G. Lafley says too many CEOs stumble over business strategy. It comes down to two principles: choice and winning; and all organizations, regardless of size, can score big when they get it right.

The CEO Confidence Index fell 3.5% in May 2013 to 5.86 out of a possible 10.

How a 33-year Xerox veteran made good at his ailing brother’s diet food company.