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
Challenging Conversation Sound Bite #2—Look Forward in Challenging Feedback Conversations
A series of articles with fewer than 500 words to help you strengthen your communication effectiveness! You’re Not Archeologists—Look Forward in Challenging Feedback Conversations One of the tripping points of so many challenging workplace conversations—especially...
Challenging Conversation Sound Bite #2—Look Forward in Challenging Feedback Conversations
Preoccupying on the past in feedback conversations generates stress. Instead, focus on leveraging experiences and outcomes to design for improved effectiveness in the future.
Leadership Caffeine™ Podcast #6: Scott Eblin on Succeeding at The Next Level
Navigating the move from one executive level to the next is both exciting and daunting. Depending upon your career stage, successfully executing on your new responsibilities might require drawing upon a significantly different set of skills than those demanded in prior positions. And while many professionals do successfully navigate the transition, a good number…up to 40% according to one study actually fail during the 18 months following a promotion. That’s a big number by anyone’s measure. Scott Eblin, executive coach and author of The Next Level is here to help us all improve our odds of success.
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.