The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Career Reinvention Journal—Solving Your Career Pivot Puzzle
Your View of Self Might Be an Impediment to Your Career Makeover There’s a Rubik’s Cube puzzle to solve when considering your “next” options in your career. Solving this puzzle requires you to think differently about yourself—something that requires thoughtful...
Career Reinvention Journal—Solving Your Career Pivot Puzzle
There’s a Rubik’s Cube puzzle to solve when considering your “next” options in your career. Solving this puzzle requires you to think differently about yourself—something that requires thoughtful introspection and outside support.
Finding Your Extra Performance Gear
I know a great number of people working hard and digging deep to find that extra-something inside that will allow them to push through the almost overwhelming challenges on the path ahead. While none of the people that I’ve spoken with in the situations described above are resting easily, to my observation, they share a stubborn commitment to persevering in spite of the fact that the road ahead seems to be unpaved, uphill and against the wind the entire way.
Leadership Caffeine™-Develop the Courage to Derail the Bad Decision Train
The “bad decision train” is difficult to stop or derail once it gets moving. It seems to take extra-ordinary courage to admit that you are wrong. A combination of ego and fear often prevail, driving us to go all-in when we should fold and walk away. While the instinct to pursue bad decisions with more bad decisions might be difficult to overcome, it is critical that leaders fight this tendency by fostering a culture that encourages teams and individuals to challenge decisions, particularly when new facts and lessons learned begin to point towards a different direction.
Success is Often One Step Beyond the Expected
We all intuitively know that one of the keys to success or at least one of the the cures for mediocrity is going that extra little distance that makes all of the difference in the eyes of our customers or audiences. Why then do so many professionals struggle to live by this simple but powerful approach?
Once More On the SoapBox: Strategy and the Leader
There is no more mystical and in some cases mythical concept in all of business than the word, “Strategy.” Perhaps because it has been long claimed by academics and expensive consultants and bandied about exclusively by executives in boardrooms, while everyone else waits for the CEO to come down from on high with the clay tablets and of course, clarity, firmly in hand. Here are some suggestions for beginning to take the myth out of strategy in your organization:
Leading in the Trenches-Recovering from Trickle Down Project Management Chaos
Project inflation…the spread of too many projects and the heaping of them upon the tormented and torn few is a formula for disaster. Unfortunately, work force reductions and pressures to reduce costs, improve processes and to innovate all fuel project inflation. Consider adopting a rigorous approach to project selection by asking and answering these following questions:
Leadership Caffeine™-Bringing Confidence Back
Confidence is a powerful force in the workplace for individuals and for teams. It’s that extra-added something that allows us to look at the world through eyes that see opportunities to pursue, challenges that exist to be met and new heights within easy reach. Unfortunately, given the beat-down that most of the world has been taking for the past year or two, confidence is in short supply in the workplace. It’s time to bring confidence back.
Two Voices-Humility and the Effective Leader
One of the true joys of my blogging experience comes from meeting and collaborating with some remarkable people. Mary Jo Asmus is one of those remarkable people. We collaborated a few months ago on Two Voices on: The Words of a Leader, and enjoyed the experience and the reactions so much that we vowed to do it again.
Well, we’re back. Mary Jo reached out to me a few weeks ago and raised the topic of “Humility and the Leader,” and we were both so interested in exploring this issue that we went off to our separate corners and the output is reflected in the two posts below. While the posts don’t necessarily reflect a point-counterpoint perspective, they do bring two unique perspectives to what turned out to be a challenging issue.
Leadership Caffeine™-Engage With a Purpose
A fair number of leaders that I encounter are busy floating along on the current created by the urgent daily events in the workplace. This never-ending flow of “stuff to do” numbs their leadership senses and dulls their performance edges as weeks and months and quarters give way to more weeks, months and quarters. It’s like sitting in the leadership equivalent of a lazy river at the local water park. It’s time to quit doing everything and getting nothing important done in the process.
Examples in Effective Top Leadership-The Ambassador
In contrast to last week’s Effective Top Leadership feature where I focused on an example inside a multi-national firm, this one is squarely in the small business category, topping out at about $20 million in annual revenues. While it was not a large firm, this organization and its founder left an indelible impression on customers, employees, suppliers and the southeastern U.S. communities that the firm served.