Wake-Up Calls for Managers
For the hard parts no one prepares you for
When the path isn’t clear, the stakes are high, and the answers aren’t obvious—this is where managers struggle most.
Wake-Up Calls for Managers delivers practical, real-world guidance for navigating:
- Tough conversations
- Leading through uncertainty
- Building influence without authority
- Driving results through others
The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Career Focus—When You Change, But Your View of You Doesn’t
When Your View of You is No Longer Clear One of the significant career focus mistakes I see otherwise talented professionals make is identifying with and lingering in the wrong role or vocation long after the expiration date. To paraphrase and mildly massacre a...
Career Focus—When You Change, But Your View of You Doesn’t
One of the significant career mistakes I see otherwise talented professionals make is identifying with and lingering in the wrong role or vocation long after the expiration date. Here’s a list of questions to help you run a career self-check.
New Leader Tuesday—The Feedback Series, Part 1: Moving Beyond Fear and Anxiety
Over the next few “New Leader Tuesday” posts, I will share ideas and approaches to help first-time or early career leaders navigate those initial feedback and performance discussions. The goal of the series is to help you get started with feedback early in your tenure, well-armed with good habits. Part 1 focuses on debunking the myths that keep so many managers from tackling these important discussions with their team members.
Art of Managing—The Tough Questions that Great Managers Constantly Ask Themselves
It’s all too easy to let ourselves off the hook for the performance of our teams and team members. Here are 9 sets of truly stark-naked, challenging questions that every manager must hold himself or herself accountable to asking and answering:
Leadership Caffeine™—The Leitmotif of Effective Leadership
Much like the repeating sounds that bring substance and meaning to great works of music, there’s a recurring set of notes and chords that emanate from all effective leaders. These include…
It’s Your Career—8 Sure-Fire Ways to Annoy Your Boss
If your objective is to annoy your boss and ensure that you earn your way on to his or her Short List (OK, the name of the list starts with sh and ends with t, but this is a family blog), try these eight actions on for size:
Art of Managing—Always Be Building
Of the eight valuable leadership lessons shared in the HBR article, “Ferguson’s Forumla” (subscription or $), number 2, “Dare to Rebuild Your Team” is critically important and often bypassed in the workplace due to friction, tentativeness on the part of managers and HR groups and lack of vision and courage on the part of managers. Sadly, in too many cases, we allow a number of challenging but controllable impediments to get in our way of doing the right thing. These 4 are…
Leadership Caffeine™—It’s Time to Put More Context in Your Conversations
Looking for a boost in morale and team or departmental performance? Try spending some time helping your colleagues connect their work efforts and goals to the bigger picture of your firm’s strategy. Here are 6 practices that effective leaders apply in pursuit of creating clear context for individual and team challenges:
Art of Managing—You Can’t Scale Bad People
There’s no formula, no strategy, no approach to building a great business that allows you to short circuit the need for great people. If you’re facing this issue, here are a few thoughts to help you get this equation for success right:
New Leader Tuesday—Effective Leaders Earn Their Stripes Every Day
Leading is a privilege and you serve at the discretion of the people on your team. While you might have hire, promote or fire authority, the people around you make the choice to go through the motions or invest their hearts and minds in pursuit of their tasks.
Leadership Caffeine™—Surviving and Thriving Under Uncertainty
There are few attributes more valuable to leaders than the ability to stare uncertainty in the face and recognize it as a golden opportunity to shape and form the situation to their own and to their firm’s advantage. Here are 5 ideas to help you flip fear and uncertainty in the workplace upside down: