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
Ten Questions to Support Continuous Career Growth
During our recent Leadership Caffeine Jam Session (recording and session materials/#18), I shared the ten questions I ask myself (and answer) about my career at least twice yearly. The late, great management thinker Peter Drucker suggested five questions; the other...
Ten Questions to Support Continuous Career Growth
During our recent Leadership Caffeine Jam Session (recording and session materials/#18), I shared the ten questions I ask myself (and answer) about my career at least twice yearly. The late, great management thinker Peter Drucker suggested five questions; the other five are my add-ons.
Leadership Caffeine™: Beware Leadership Drift
For many leaders, circumstances have an annoying habit of drawing our attention off of what we should be focusing on towards something more immediate or more novel. For anyone leading a team, this loss of focus (or loss of edge) is what I describe as “Leadership Drift.” Here are at least six ideas to help you and your team avoid the drift that can keep you from reaching your destination:
Art of Managing-The Best Measure of Employee Engagement
On the heels of yet another study indicating most U.S. workers are disengaged from their jobs, I recently had occasion to witness an interesting comparison and contrast in levels of employee engagement at two different organizations in the medical industry. One of those encounters provided an insight into what may just be the best measure of employee engagement.
New Leader Tuesday-Setting Great Expectations
Setting proper and challenging expectations is absolutely a part of promoting performance on your team. However, setting lofty expectations without doing the heavy lifting of forming an effective working environment is a hollow exercise in something ranging between comedy and futility. Here are 5 ideas to help you put the “Great” into your team’s performance expectations:
Leadership Caffeine™-Of Crucibles and Leadership Character
Two job candidates walk into a coffee shop. One has a spotless record of achievement and accomplishments and a career that runs upward like a steep staircase from early career until now. His life reads like a storybook we can all smile about and wish ourselves to be so fortunate. This is a solid professional. The other candidate’s record is good, however, there are several points in time when things went wrong… . The first candidate is compelling, but the second candidate is likely my choice. Here’s why.
It’s Your Career-Seize that Invitation to Growth
Some career opportunities are wrapped in gold leaf and hand-delivered on a silver-platter. Don’t let one of these precious invitations slip through your fingers. There are no guarantees you’ll remain on the invitee list.
Art of Managing-6 Ideas to Help Management Groups Develop as Teams
From long experience and ample client CEO and Board input, the typical state of a management team looks less like a team and more like a group of functional experts who occasionally gather to talk uncomfortably (and shallowly) about the hard issues confronting their organization. The behaviors and integration you might anticipate from a “team” of smart people are often absent from the equation. Here are 6 ideas to help cultivate team performance at the senior management level:
Just One Thing: Focus
Much like my topic a few weeks ago about the importance of finding time to think deeply about the big issues in front of us, it takes deliberate and sometimes herculean effort to find focus in our work lives. Focus is a key ingredient on the critical path to success.
It’s Your Career: 5 Ideas to Move from Miserable to Motivated at Work
Being miserable in a job is not the normal state of existence. If this is your prevailing mood in the workplace, something is obviously wrong and needs your attention and action. Here are 5 ideas to help you move from miserable to motivated:
Art of Managing-Hedging Your Bets Might Be Harmful to Your Firm’s Health
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do, yet as Lafley, Martin and Riel describe, the notion of giving up options or closing off familiar paths is uncomfortable for us. It’s our drive to eliminate this discomfort by keeping our options open and flexible that might just be limiting our success or even setting the stage for failure. Here are 3 powerful thought-starters to help you and your team tackle the strategic issue of finding new growth: