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
How to Maximize Value from Your Coaching Experience
I spend almost half my working time every year coaching individuals and groups (yes, groups need coaching too!), and I find that many participants come into the arrangements unclear on what to expect and unsure how to leverage the experience. Here are some ideas to...
How to Maximize Value from Your Coaching Experience
I find that many participants come into coaching situations unclear on what to expect and unsure how to leverage the experience. Here are some ideas to help.
Show Respect by Paying Attention
There are a million opportunities for us to shortchange conversations in pursuit of the urgent important. It takes discipline and the recognition that your attention as a leader is one of the best ways that you have for conveying your respect for individuals and teams.
The Career Enhancing Benefits of Message Mapping
Critical and challenging communication situations demand crystal clarity. The discipline of message mapping is a powerful, simple-to-learn approach to helping you and your teams achieve clarity and consistency with your most difficult and strategic communication situations.
Don’t Spend Too Much Time with the Wrong People
The major “people mistakes” of my career have occurred as a result of investing too much time and effort in trying to change people. As leaders, we can enable change. We can help people that want to change. But trying to change people on our own is ultimately a fool’s errand.
Take Responsibility for Your Own Development
In my not inconsiderable experience, too many people in business are in search of the proverbial Silver Bullet. Unfortunately, there are no true silver bullets.
Leadership Caffeine™: 4 Signs that Your Leadership Approach is Working
Most leaders struggle to understand whether they are helping or hindering the cause. Except of course for those leaders/narcissists who believe that their every utterance is sheer genius wrapped in pure motivational gold. The feedback from your manager, while important, tends to be based on either numbers or fairly casual observation. And feedback from your team members is welcomed, but you never really know for sure whether it’s the unvarnished type. The “Am I Helping?” issue is particularly important when a troubled team or organization gains a fresh leader. Here are 4 measures that will help you gauge whether you are truly helping or hindering:
August, 2010 Leadership Development Carnival
Many thanks to Jason Seiden for hosting the August Leadership Development Carnival. The Carnivals are outstanding opportunities to sample the favorite posts of some of your favorite leadership and business bloggers and to discover some great new talent. I’m grateful to Jason for running my recent post on Decision-Making along with so many outstanding contributions from other bloggers. Have fun, enjoy the blog and stay for Jason’s great content!
Want to Lead? Consider These Questions: #7 of 7
The first six questions in this series challenged you to think through issues that are both philosophical and powerfully practical. If you’ve made it through the investigation of questions 1-6, it’s time for you to consider what your daily work life will be like as a leader.
Innovation is Everyone’s Business
Take a poll in your firm on whether people feel responsible for innovation in their jobs or in their departments, and I’ll offer an educated guess on the outcome. Those involved in engineering, design, marketing and product management will feel a strong sense of responsibility to innovate. For others in supporting or operations-focused roles, the need or ability to innovate will be rated towards the low end of perceived priorities or even capabilities. That’s a shame. A good innovator and good innovations are terrible things to waste, regardless of functional role.
Starting Fast as a Leader With Your New Team
The “start-up” phase with a new team is challenging for even the most experienced of leaders. If you’re an “all new” leader…someone hired from outside or at least outside of the team, there’s an inherent degree of uncertainty and apprehension about you. No one knows your style or your agenda, and frankly, while you have authority and respect conferred by title, you have not earned credibility or trust. One of the fastest ways to ramp up and help people develop some early comfort with you is to sit down and listen to them.