The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Leadership Caffeine™—Leadership Lessons from a Move to the Lake
My wife and I made a big move last week. We left our 30-year suburban home where we raised our sons and moved to the lake. The process took almost a year from the decision to make the move and about a day to sell. In-between, we focused on lightening our load of...
Leadership Caffeine™—Leadership Lessons from a Move to the Lake
While an incredible number of people move every year, and everyone knows what a miserable project it is, there are a surprising number of leadership lessons in these situations. Here are a few I gleaned from our recent move efforts.
Leadership Caffeine™-Surviving and Thriving Under the Tough Empathy Leader
If you work for a leader who practices what Goffee and Jones described in their HBR classic, “Why Should Anyone Be Led by You,” as Tough Empathy, you can expect to be on edge a good deal. Respond well to this demanding but respectful leader’s style, and instead of teetering precariously on the bleeding edge of survival, you will be reaching constantly for the high performance edge. Read this leader incorrectly however, and you might be setting yourself up for a miserable experience.
September Leadership Development Carnival-Back to School Sale Edition
Run, don’t walk to get a jump on the other shoppers over at Dan McCarthy’s Great Leadership site, with the September Leadership Development Carnival-Back to School Sale edition. Dan is marking down and moving out the best ideas in leadership and management to help make the unofficial end to summer a bit more bearable for all of us.
In Case You Didn’t Have Enough to Worry About…
Here’s my slightly serious, slightly tongue-in-cheek listing of things that are truly frightening and worth worrying about. Feel free to add your own.
Leadership Caffeine™ Podcast-Bob Lucas on Customer Service
For managers and executives, customer service is either a golden opportunity or, as some seem to treat it…a cost center. However, perhaps one of the outcomes of this great recession and the on-going economic malaise…is that many organizations and managers are waking up to the reality that they need to try just a little harder to earn and retain our business. Enter Robert W. Lucas, an expert, and the author of a number of top selling books on customer service, with some valuable guidance for managers, executives and customer service professionals from his latest, Please Every Customer-Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.
Towards Your Growth as a Management Innovator
One of the exciting parts of living and working through “these interesting times,” comes from the opportunity to apply the tools of management in new ways and forms to today’s complex problems. This “management innovation” as Dr. Gary Hamel describes it, is much about the search for approaches to organizing, planning, leading and controlling that better fit the challenges of the 21st century. The implication is that in many cases, we’re still trying to solve new and emerging problems with 20th century management tools.
Leadership Caffeine™ Podcast-Linda Finkle on Partnering
The lure of “partnering” with others is strong in our society, particularly as more and more high quality professionals pursue their own businesses outside of the not-so-cozy confines of corporate walls. Much like marriage, there are some remarkable upsides and unfortunately (according to the numbers), some pretty significant downsides for many. Enter Linda Finkle, CEO of Incedo Group, and author of the book, Finding the Fork in the Road-The Art of Maximizing the Potential of Business Partnerships, to share some sage guidance on this important topic.
Next! Call for Interviews: Product & Project Managers & Organizational Integrators
When chatting with leadership author and expert, John Baldoni, on the Leadership Caffeine Podcast (published on itunes last week), I asked him which of his books was his favorite. I loved his response…”The one I’m working on now.”
I’m just a few weeks away from the publication of book #2 for me, a collection of essays organized into helpful…self-help sections for professionals striving to survive and succeed (Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development), and try as I might to resist the urge to do this again (right away), I have to have a book in process in my life. Next! Bring on the Organizational Integrators and Informal Leaders!
Leadership Caffeine™: Fun at the Cousin’s Reunion with Luck, Hope and Hard Work
Luck, while nice when she smiles on you, is a fickle and elusive relative. She rarely shows up at family events and when she does, it’s all about her. She raises expectations of ridiculous things to insane levels, and then disappears after disappointing, without a word.
Hope, is much more accessible than Luck, but in some regards, she is even more frustrating to deal with. Hope is comfortable and comforting, providing us with possibilities, but most often leaving us disappointed. What Hope doesn’t tell you is that she relies on her cousin, Luck, and of course we’ve already established that Luck is undependable. The quiet one in the crowd at this family reunion is Hard Work.
August Leadership Development Round-Table Challenge
It’s time to put on your coaching hat and offer your best guidance for the latest installment of The Leadership Development Round-Table Challenge. This month’s vexing dilemma is being served up by Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire-CS.