The Leadership Caffeine Blog
4 Ideas to Help Improve First Time Manager Selection and Success
If you are either considering the move from contributor to a manager or you are responsible for developing new managers on your team, here are four actions you can take to improve the odds of success. 1. Promoting Managers Must Have “The Talk” with the Aspiring...
4 Ideas to Help Improve First Time Manager Selection and Success
If you are either considering the move from contributor to a manager or you are responsible for developing new managers on your team, here are four actions you can take to improve your odds of success.
In Hopeful Praise of the Millennials
’ll opt for the dissenting view on the Millennials. Where others see management headaches, I see fire, creativity, passion, skill and maybe the capacity to face a world that looks very much the worse for our efforts. Maybe, just maybe, this group will earn the label of The Next Greatest Generation.
I’m encouraged and hopeful.
In Search of a Quantifiable Return on Leadership Development
very few months, I run head-on into a discussion with someone (usually a prospective client) about how to value the return from investments in leadership development. The question is not asked as a means of qualifying my services, but rather as a genuine practitioner-to-practitioner inquiry, not dissimilar to what two MDs might talk about with respect to the latest treatment results for an experimental drug program. The person asking knows as well as I do that Return on Leadership Development continues to be an elusive issue that no one has substantively put to rest, and that our best answers are no stronger than impassioned, qualitative opinions.
Surviving and Prospering Under a Weak Leader
Learning to manage your team leader takes time and requires extraordinary care and handling. Being indecisive and failing to set direction are big shortcomings for a leader, but leaders that carry these attributes are all too common. You and your peers can either let the water-cooler complaints dominate the daily agenda or you can do something about it. Teams and individuals that have leveraged some or all of the suggestions above have reported some nice successes. No complete cures, but some nice successes and sustained progress in the right direction. When your feet are cast in concrete, progress of any kind is good.
Weak Leadership at the Top Derails The Pursuit of Performance Excellence
While some top executives err on the side of asserting a dictatorial style of leadership that poisons the working environment and stifles independent action, in my experience, many more struggle with just the opposite. Instead of overwhelming their associates with strict orders in pursuit of rigid targets, they default on their responsibility to set direction in a poorly constructed attempt to create an environment of empowerment. The results of this approach include endless discussions without resultant actions and massive frustration of well-intended personnel that want to move projects and ideas forward.
Leadership Development: “This is Squishy Feely” Stuff
It’s not uncommon to run into resistance from the senior members of an organization that has just recognized that it might be good to professionalize and improve talent development and acquisition processes. I can even understand the “Squishy Feely” comment coming from a grizzled functional veteran that grew up in a world where the topic of talent identification, development and retention was not as front and center as it increasingly is today. However the statement: “We’re not going to do this,” is impossible to fathom. It’s a lot like saying, “It’s good to be ignorant.” Or, “It’s OK not to breathe.”
Has Your Management Team Decided to Be Successful Yet?
It is always great fun to work with management groups interested in growing their businesses, pursuing a new and bold vision or embarking upon new strategic directions. More often than not, these groups have enjoyed success, established themselves and their firm in a favorable position and have a common excitement about what the future might hold. They also talk about the fact that change will be necessary for growth, and it is usually about this point that the wheels start wobbling.
Leadership Development Carnival #4: A One-Stop Shop for Great Ideas
I am pleased to be included in some great company again this month at the latest Leadership Development Carnival hosted at Great Leadership. Dan McCarthy brings together the perspectives of some exciting Carnival newcomers and some industry stalwarts. Dan’s monthly Carnivals may be the best leadership deal going…great content, ideas that you can use immediately and the price is definitely right. Grab a cup of coffee or favorite beverage and take a stroll through the Carnival. You will be glad that you did.
“If I had asked customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
The notion of not asking customers what they want and responding directly to their needs may seem like heresy to those individuals and organizations consumed with improving customer satisfaction and creating customer loyalty. In fact, you should always listen and importantly, observe. The real art in this process is understanding what customers really need, what problems they really would like to solve and what approaches and experiences that you can create that can surprise and delight them.
Is it Time to Panic?
It is a time to adopt a philosophy that seeks to find opportunity in chaos. It is a time to carefully evaluate your strategies and check your assumptions. It is also a time to consider making some hard calls on your future.