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
It Takes Leadership Courage to Kick Conventional Wisdom to the Curb
The Situation: The candidates were very different. One was the textbook choice—great pedigree, including top schools and a nice progression of assignments for name-brand firms. The other individual didn’t match up well on paper. The assignments for the other candidate...
It Takes Leadership Courage to Kick Conventional Wisdom to the Curb
Resilience, according to one dictionary definition, is the capacity to absorb a shock or a punch and return quickly to original form.
Life and business are filled with shocks and punches. We’ve lived this story for the past few years. And the shocks and punches keep coming, just in different forms and from unexpected places. It takes resilience and leadership courage to absorb the hits and come out stronger.
Leadership Caffeine™-Listen Harder, Please!
I doubt that anyone reading this would disagree with the theme of, it’s important to be a good listener to be a good leader. However, in working with leaders at all levels striving to strengthen their performance, listening skills aren’t an issue some of the time, they are an issue nearly 100% of the time. Here are 3 ideas to help you exercise your leadership listening skills today:
Just One Thing: Will This Make the Boat Go Faster?
The world of work may well become a better place if we would simply filter a few more activities with this very succinct and clear question: “Will this make our boat go faster?” If not, just say “no.” Here are at least 5 situations where the boat is definitely not moving any faster:
Leadership Caffeine™-4 Rules for Getting Intensity Right
Intensity is a powerful leadership tool that when wielded with laser precision, can help focus, engage and inspire your team members. Here are 4 key rules for getting intensity right:
New Leader Tuesday-Develop as a Decision Coach
The best leaders I’ve worked with and for are not only good decision-makers, they are effective decision-coaches. They understand the importance of teaching their teams how how to navigate the pitfalls and complexities of decision-making in pursuit of the best results for the organization. Here are 6 great habits of effective Decision-Making Coaches:
Leadership Caffeine™-Lessons from the Wilderness
Instead of teaching people to work within a self-contained system where the goal is to impose order, this new world demands much more of a sense and respond style of leading. Here are 5 ideas for cultivating tolerance for adversity and uncertainty on your team:
Just One Thing-How Hard Are You Working at Connecting?
We live and work in a transactional world, where most of us experience a large number of low engagement sound-byte interactions in our professional and even our personal lives. It’s the rhythm of our age. Take a few moments and try and recall the last time you engaged in a high quality, interactive conversation with a peer, boss or direct report that led to a valued outcome, a new insight or a new direction. Here are some ideas to help you slow down and create some quality connections between you and your colleagues:
Successful, Yes. But at What Cost?
For most of us, reading “Dish Network, the Meanest Company in America,” (via Bloomberg BusinessWeek) focusing on the style and tactics of Charlie Ergen, chairman and co-founder of the firm, will leave us feeling thankful that we work somewhere else. Nonetheless, Ergen is successful with his over-the-top and in-your-face style of command and control leadership. Is this a style for you?
Leadership Development Carnival-Best of 2012
Thanks to Dan McCarthy of Great Leadership by Dan fame, there’s a tremendous collection of favorite leadership blogger posts from last year at this month’s “Best of 2012 Leadership Development Carnival.” If you’re looking for some thought-starter ideas to help you succeed with your New Year’s Leadership resolutions, this is a great place to begin your search!
Leadership Caffeine™-Full Contact Leadership
The most effective leaders I know enjoy and invest time honing their skills and techniques through training and education, but mostly, they focus on getting their hands dirty on the front lines with their team members. These are Full Contact Leaders. Here are 11 behaviors of these very visible and driven professionals: