The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Free Mini-Course on How to Set Your New Managers Up for Success
Regular readers know my passion for supporting the development of new managers. I invest a good percentage of my time coaching, training, and working with new managers and bosses responsible for developing new managers. New manager development is important work. After...
Free Mini-Course on How to Set Your New Managers Up for Success
It’s vital to get the transition from contributor to manager right, and frankly, it’s often left to chance—never a good plan. Sadly, there’s still too much sink-or-swim going on when it comes to new manager development. On August 11 at noon central, I’m running my latest mini-class: How to Help Your New Managers Survive & Thrive from the Start.
Leadership Caffeine™-Be the Example
I recently found myself as a guest speaker in a good-natured discussion with my audience about the challenges that mid-level managers face in trying to facilitate positive culture change while working in a toxic or at least a less than ideal work environment. I opt for the affirmative in this debate, and often find myself arguing the minority opinion. I absolutely have strong convictions about the ability of one individual or a small group of individuals to catalyze positive environmental change in the most challenging of environments.
Two-Dimensional Leader Disease
Just when you think you can’t take on one more concern, you’ve heard about two new illnesses from the Center for Leadership Disease Control here at Management Excellence. A few weeks ago, you were shocked to learn of the longstanding but freshly named malady, Tired Leader Syndrome. Adding fuel to the fire was the recent announcement here at the Center for Leadership Disease and Control at Management Excellence, that researchers have finally isolated the causes of a long-standing leadership wasting disease. This heretofore unnamed but common set of symptoms is now called Two-Dimensional Leadership Disease or TDLD for short.
Guest Post-More Leadership Lessons Learned the Wrong Way
Note from Art: It’s always fun when a post strikes a chord and compels someone to comment or even put hands to keyboard and crank out a guest post. Last week’s “Leadership Lessons Learned In a Crane and Sitting on a 5 Gallon Pail” drew upon some of my own early career memories and the formative lessons learned the hard way and served as inspiration for some interesting comments and today’s guest post.
Joe Zurawski is back with us today serving up a nice post on one of the early career experiences that shaped his own leadership development. You may recall that Joe joined us here a few months ago with his take on “Things I Wish I Knew When I Became a Leader.” Joe, welcome back and thanks for sharing!
Leadership Caffeine™-Character Forged in Defeat
Winning is great. It’s often the culmination of years of hard work, a relentless focus on condition and outstanding execution. What high school or college football coach hasn’t hung a poster in the locker or training room with Vince Lombardi’s inspirational quote: “I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious”
It’s easy to lose track of the reality that most victories are forged in the emotional blast furnace of prior losses.
October Edition of Leadership Development Carnival at Leader Talk
Becky Robinson, the articulate and highly engaging author of one of my favorite blogs, Leader Talk, has posted the October edition of the always exciting and thought-provoking Leadership Development Carnival. She appropriately names this one the Endurance Edition, in part, because she received a record number of posts from the leading leadership bloggers on the planet and brought them together in one place for your reading convenience. Plan on a rousing workout as you digest some fantastic content. Oh, and she was kind enough to include one of my posts as well!
Today’s Action Item: Reinvent Self!
I know an awful lot of talented, hard-working people talking about or rehearsing for the process of reinventing their professional selves. This is the silent epidemic taking place in people over 40 that doesn’t garner the same level of attention as our anticipated flu epidemics.
Leadership Lessons Learned in a Crane and While Sitting on A 5 Gallon Pail
Note from Art: my week of alternative blog fare continues with this very autobiographical reflection on the formation of my later life leadership viewpoints! It’s remarkable what you can learn and do if your attitude is focused on finding ways to improve and turning so-called down-time into time for creativity and improvement.
Leading in the Trenches: How Well Do You Know Your Customers?
If you don’t know your customers at a sufficient level of detail, including their hopes, dreams and emotions, everything you are doing includes a high degree of guesswork and randomness. Your messaging likely includes a great deal of blah blah about your firm. Promotional activities are fired from a shotgun, and while they occasionally hit something, there is no viable, sustainable marketing system in place.
Leadership Caffeine™-The Cure for Tired Leader Syndrome (TLS)
If you experience one or more of these symptoms and especially the last one, you might be suffering from Tired Leader Syndrome or TLS. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. This debilitating condition affects a high percentage of leaders that have been in the same role for too long. Left untreated, TLS is often fatal to your career as well as the careers of those in constant contact with you.