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
Leadership Caffeine™—You Own Smarter, Better, Faster
Leading in today’s organizations is a complicated, often frustrating experience. I talk daily with individuals operating in the middle of their organizations and with those occupying the upper layers of power and decision-making authority. The pressures they describe...
Leadership Caffeine™—You Own Smarter, Better, Faster
There’s pressure for everything to move faster in our organizations at a time when it feels like we’re all trying to run through water or worse. Here are eight questions for you and your team to jump-start moving faster:
He Looked at the Stack of Reports and said, “Excuses!” The Art of Communicating with Senior Executives
Getting called in front of the board or the senior executives of the firm can be an intimidating experience for many younger and even some experienced professionals. No amount of paper or pixels on screen will compensate or adequately explain root cause problems or satisfy someone that and your ideas to fix what’s wrong will work. The best salesmanship is to avoid attempting to cover-up blemishes and to shoot straight on issues and next steps.
Leadership Caffeine™: Dealing with Cracks in the Leader’s Smile
I chatted with a valued colleague the other day that indicated that she is finding it increasingly difficult and even awkward in the face of financial pressures and employee strain to keep a cheerleader’s positive demeanor in the workplace.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard from a leader struggling either to smile or simply maintain a positive outlook in the face of occasionally overwhelming obstacles.
Jump-Start Strategy By Jumping Straight to the Middle of the Process
Get your team talking about the right topics and get them focused on assessing and comparing based on the criteria that are the most important to your success. Skip the summer strategy offsite and start the dialogue on determining what’s truly important, and you’ll find yourself and your organization moving and working the right things faster than you might imagine.
In Negotiating is it Win-Win or Win?
There are at least two major perspectives on negotiation that I’ve encountered. One says quite clearly that in a negotiation you are duty-bound to secure the absolute best possible outcome for your firm. The implication of this approach is of course that a negotiation is a boxing match, with the bigger, stronger athlete not just winning, but also destroying the opponent.
The other emphasizes understanding the interests of the all parties and crafting something that meets those interests in an equitable manner.
Want to Improve Sales? Leave Your Reps Alone!
A neighbor was out walking the dog a few nights ago and stopped to chat, which offered a welcome break from trimming the hedges. Friendly conversation turned to business and he offered his own encouraging news about his recent sales results. It turns out that he had just completed his best month ever in an industry and an economy where those words are seldom heard.
When I asked what he attributed his “best month” to, he thought for a moment and said, “Quite honestly, I think it’s because corporate finally left us alone.
Leadership Caffeine™ for the Week: Too Much Time with the Wrong People
My biggest mistakes as a leader occurred as a result of spending way too much time attempting to change two people. I was young, new to the formal leadership scene and convinced that with my help and guidance, these two talented individuals would certainly shed their dysfunctional and toxic behaviors.
Wow, was I wrong!
Effective Leadership: How Do You Know When You Are Getting It Right?
If you’ve spent time in a leadership role, you know that it is remarkably difficult to get good quality feedback on how you are doing and for that matter, how everyone else is doing under your leadership.
If you haven’t wondered about this, you are either naïve or you are caught up in all of the nice things that people say in your presence. Newsflash: almost no one tells the boss he stinks, when he’s in the room.
Some of the worst leaders that I’ve had the displeasure to cross paths with, plied their evil practices with glee, protected by the cheering throngs around them.
Strategic Awareness: The Second Leg of the Emerging Leader’s Three Legged Stool
One of the things that I truly love about this time we are living and working through is the front-row seats that we all have to some fascinating experiments in strategy. Things happen so quickly and with such widespread coverage in today’s world, that it often looks and feels like a strategist’s living laboratory on Miracle Gro.
Leadership Lessons Learned on Vacation-Leading by Letting Go
Fresh off of a family getaway “Up North” that involved boating, swimming, family camp fires and maybe a firework or two (all fingers still attached!), I find myself reflecting on receiving a dose of my own leadership medicine. For one who dispenses a lot of thoughts on leaders and leading, it is appropriate and just a bit humbling to be on the receiving end, especially when you are learning the lesson from your young adult children.