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
Why Gutting Management Layers Is the Wrong Response to AI
Time to 'delayer' is code for first, let's take out all the managers It's an interesting time to publish a book for managers. My new book, Wake Up Calls for Managers — Insights to Sharpen Focus and Elevate Results, will be published this summer at a time when large...
Why Gutting Management Layers Is the Wrong Response to AI
We’ve seen this movie before. A shock hits the broader system and organizations decide to ‘delayer’ focusing the brunt of their efforts on middle management. This time AI is the excuse. Yet the real opportunity and need here is to redefine the role of manager, not eliminate it.
Lessons from The Leap to Leader by Adam Bryant (Leadership Caffeine Jam Session #22 Rewind)
Author, journalist, and executive coach Adam Bryant joined the recent Leadership Caffeine Jam Session to talk about the insights in his new book The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership. Check out the insights and wisdom and link to the replay of this information-filled session.
A Six-Stage Process to De-Risk Your Career Shift
So many people I encounter are interested in making a career shift, but struggle to get started. And, they worry about the risks involved in the process. Here’s a six-stage process to de-risk your career shift.
How an Operating System Transforms New Manager Development
One of the vexing career challenges any individual encounters is the shift from contributor to manager. There’s little about succeeding as a contributor that translates to guiding, coaching, and supporting others for success. We need an operating system to guide both promoting and new managers across the treacherous chasm of starting-up. This is where the Managers Operating System fits perfectly.
5 Things You Can Do as a Manager of New(er) Managers to Help Them Take-Off Successfully
In the world of unnatural career acts, shifting from contributor to manager is at the top of the difficulty list. Here are five things you can do as a manager of new(er) managers to help them take off successfully.
Breaking Out of a Personal Creativity Slump—Restarting Your Idea Machine
Like many of you, ideas are my stock in trade. Whether writing the next article, designing a new workshop or course, providing strategy advisory services for a client, or supporting my coaching clients, I have to operate with a well-oiled idea machine. When the idea machine grinds to a halt, I’m in trouble and need to find a fun, engaging, practical approach to restarting it. Here are 14 hacks I use to restart mine:
Enough with the Leader Versus Manager Debate—It’s Time for a New Model
It’s the perfect time in our world to vanquish the long-perpetuated and unproductive myth that leaders are somehow meaningfully different from managers.
Are You in Trouble if the Boss Offers a Coach?
In some organizations, “being assigned a coach” has a negative connotation. That’s too bad. If you are on the receiving end of an offer from your boss to take on a coach, strive to understand the rationale and then embrace the opportunity for the learning and growth experience it offers you.
It’s Time to Take a Stand Against Leadership Indecency
Leadership Indecency is an admittedly awkward, uncommon phrase. I like it. It’s the perfect phrase to describe the many amoral examples and practices of leadership we encounter in our organizations and institutions.
It’s Time to Get Rid of S.M.A.R.T. Goals. Here’s Why & How
Goals are critically important in our personal and professional growth. They push us to learn, grow, and strive. We change our lives by aspiring for big goals. We motivate ourselves and our team members with properly developed, challenging goals. And we change the vector and fate of organizations through the proper use of goals. The operative phrase is “the proper use of goals.”