The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Leadership Caffeine™—A One Line Job Description for Managers
What's the Best Place You Ever Worked? Think about the best place you ever worked. What made it great? I bet it was a combination of these factors: The boss was demanding, but she was positive and supportive. She had high standards and high expectations, but you felt...
Leadership Caffeine™—A One Line Job Description for Managers
If you manage, lead, or are otherwise responsible for the work of others, the working environment is everything. Creating a healthy working environment is literally your only job. Get this right and the results take care of themselves.
Great Things Happen When Confidence and Capitalism Collide
In this cycle of bad financial news, high energy costs, record deficits and global turmoil, it’s exciting to meet people that see opportunities in the headlines. I had the great fortune to meet someone recently that has the right attitude about making lemonade out of the bumper crop of lemons we are experiencing this year.
Living, Learning and Leading in an Increasingly Virtual World
Somewhere between the world I grew up in and the world that we are living in today, everything about working, leading and learning began to change. It’s increasingly a virtual world, and everything about communicating, interacting and developing relationships feels a bit different than it used to. While many/most of us are compliant with the changes in communications (telex to fax to e-mail to IM, web conferencing etc.), I wonder how many of us are truly working to become competent at living and working in this world.
Don’t Miss the 39th HR Carnival at HR Capitalist!
If you are after thought-provoking, practical content from scores of leading authorities in HR, Leadership and Management, then click-thru to the great Carnival being hosted by Kris Dunn at HR Capitalist. You won’t be disappointed. Thanks to Kris for an awesome job.
Decision-Making and The Three Rules of Risk Management
Your decision-making style says a lot about you as a leader. Some people make a lot of decisions with little more than a gut hunch to guide them and others spend a lot of time gathering insights and information to support their decision. Others struggle to make decisions on anything and might still be considering what to order for breakfast when it’s time for dinner. And still others avoid making decisions because taking a stand increases the odds that they will be held accountable for results.
Inspirational Leadership: The Victim of the Balanced Scorecard?
Today I’d like to cover what I believe to be a disturbing management trend. In today’s world of the Balanced Scorecard, companies have never focused so much energy on alignment of results with strategy. I applaud the approach. In fact I recommend it. But sadly it seems that for some organizations, results have become the sole focal point—the only thing that matters. What they are losing touch with is the fact that results are driven, at least in most companies, but living, breathing human beings.
From Imperial Court to Learning Organization
It’s time to quit talking about becoming a learning organization and start knocking down the time worn conventions, institutions and processes that stand in your organization’s way. In an ideal world, this change starts at the top with an insightful leader or leadership team that understand what it takes to move from an efficiency orientation to a learning focus. In reality, a lot of this change will need to be driven by leaders in the middle that clearly see what is happening in the external environment as well as what it takes to win in that environment. If necessary, let the royals executives posture and play while you go about the business of changing the business one initiative at a time.
Capturing Talent and Creating Great Customer Experiences: They Go Together
There’s no way that an organization that accommodates sloppy interviewing habits is landing and retaining the best and brightest. As a business leader, you want your customers to constantly be surprised and delighted. A manager that takes mid-interview smoke breaks and badgers a talented candidate about salary expectations is someone that I want working for my competitor.
Help Wanted: Great Leaders to Solve Vexing World Problems
Tough times and challenging circumstances provide outstanding opportunities for leaders at all levels to test their mettle and gain valuable experience. There have been few times in recent history with this number of complex challenges staring at us in everything that we do. As individuals, we cannot solve these issues alone, but we can hold our leaders from local politicians to congress and the next President accountable. We can make good decisions with our finances, demand accountability from our elected officials and challenge the leaders in our businesses to do more than focus on the short-term. We can support our troops even if we disagree with the policies, and we can cast our vote this November. It’s a great time for leaders everywhere to stand up and be counted.
The Art and Approach of Asking and Encouraging Great Questions
Learning how to ask compelling questions in a non-threatening manner is one of those un-exciting but absolutely critical skills for an emerging leader to develop. Questions are the leader’s lifeblood of information, and like most skills, learning to ask great questions in the right manner, is something best learned through repeated practice.