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
Leadership Caffeine™—”This Is the Way It Should Be”
Working With Others Can Be Painful. It Shouldn't Be! Teaming and collaboration experiences happen in all walks of our professional and personal lives. Some experiences working with others are draining, others passable, and just a few are energizing and even fun....
Leadership Caffeine™—”This Is the Way It Should Be”
Teaming and collaboration experiences happen in all walks of our professional and personal lives. Some experiences working with others are draining, others passable, and just a few are energizing and even fun and successful. You can hope these fun, productive experiences emerge by chance. Or you can be deliberate about creating the conditions that improve the possibility of a great collaboration experience. I opt for improving our odds of bringing one of these productive, fun experiences to life. Here are four ideas to help:
3 Key Strategy Questions to Ask Your Teams Regularly
In my experience, the management teams that lead the best performing businesses are those that incorporate at least three key strategic questions into almost every operational and status discussion. The gross majority of the dialogue in an organization is about How, and Who and When and the important What and Why issues are left for strategy meetings and other “high-level” discussions. While understandable in the hectic pace of the workday, the shortage of these important What and Why discussions reinforces a dangerous form of operational myopia, where the underlying and unspoken assumption is: If we simply get this done, we’ll be better off as a firm
Leadership Caffeine™: The Critical Importance of Cultivating your Cultural Intelligence
Leadership Caffeine: The Critical Importance of Cultivating your Cultural Intelligence. Note from Art: this is the first of a series of Leadership Caffeine posts encouraging your development of the critical skills required for success in today’s world.
Art’s Weekly Leadership Message: Get Engaged to Help Your Project Teams Succeed
I hear from hundreds of professionals every year in workshops, via coaching assignments or in classrooms, about the challenges they have working in and on project teams. From almost every student’s worst nightmare, the classroom group project, to major strategic initiatives with high-level sponsorship, the complaints are consistent: we as leaders don’t do enough to support team development and performance.
While the list of things that can go horribly wrong on project teams is long, these 5 consistently rise to the top of the lament list.
A Black Friday Jolt of Leadership Caffeine™-Book Promotion and Helping Hand
Note from Art: It’s a great time of year to think of the people doing the heavy lifting for you. What better gift than one filled with ideas, inspiration and a call to action in pursuit of great results. Any and all of my profits from the book sale here will be donated to a local Chicago-area Food Pantry during this Holiday Season.
A Timeout to Consider “The Leader’s List for Giving Thanks”
Note from Art: I run this list every Thanksgiving…not because it’s convenient, but because the thoughts are heartfelt and unchanging. Those who serve by leading have many reasons to truly be grateful for the opportunity and for those who support them every day. Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Leadership Caffeine™: “You Have No Business Leading Others”
Leading others is not an inalienable right that comes with seniority or through mastery of a technical discipline. It’s too bad that a good number of senior leaders struggle to offer a clear “No” to those unfit for the role.
Art’s Weekly Leadership Message: Always Go Beyond the Bare Minimum
Recognize that the most difficult points in our leadership lives are profound moments of truth that define us going forward. We either face them, embrace them and grow stronger from them, or we let them beat us. A half-measure in the face of a profound moral or ethical call is failure of the highest order.
Leadership Caffeine™ Podcast #11: George Bradt on New Leader’s 100 Day Action Plan
There are fewer points in time in a leader’s life more important than the start-up phase. Whether you are an experienced leader taking over a new team or a first-time leader getting started with your group, the early few weeks and months set the tone and tenor for your leadership and for your success. In this latest episode of The Leadership Caffeine Podcast, author and Executive On-Boarding Consultant, George Bradt shares his advice on planning for and succeeding during this important start-up period.
Ten Places Where Management Teams Misstep on Strategy
Strategy…the discussions…the decisions and of course, the execution, is hard work filled with ample opportunities to misstep. From revisiting and updating the underlying assumptions about your business, markets and competitors, to the vexing issues of deciding what to do and what not to do, it’s no surprise that many management teams avoid this work and focus more on incremental operations planning and improvement. However, for those who are courageous enough to go down this important path and do the heavy lifting, here are my top 10 pitfalls and speed bumps to avoid during your journey. 10 Places Where Management Teams Misstep on Strategy…