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
Thinking of Managing? Six reasons why you might love this role
I run a variation of this post the day before every New(er) Manager Development cohort kick-off. (January 2025's group includes 12 emerging leaders who will be with me for 5 months in this blended cohort/coaching program. We're enrolling for our Spring/Summer session...
Thinking of Managing? Six reasons why you might love this role
I run a variation of this post the day before every New(er) Manager Development cohort kick-off. Here are six reasons why you might love the role of manager.
Help Aspiring Managers Explore and Experiment Before Leaping into the Role
Moving from contributor to manager is one of the most awkward transitions a person will undertake in their working life. It’s an unnatural act, where you take almost everything you know about success in your day job and push it over into the “Never Mind” column.Instead of perpetuating the “hope” approach to identifying and developing new managers, try my favorite question, “Why manage?” three times, backed by some exploration and experimentation.
Gray-Zone Leadership—A Powerful Formula for Career Success
It turns out, learning to spot and seize gray-zone opportunities is a spectacularly great way to get ahead in your career.
Ignore these Five Facts of Organizational Life at Your Peril
The “I” topic for influence comes up regularly in my emerging leader coaching calls. Individuals frustrated with their assignments or feeling as if they’re being bypassed for the best opportunities mostly share one common thread: they are under-invested in striving to grow their workplace influence. Here are five unavoidable facts of life that suggest influence development must be part of your work.
Career Reinvention Journal—Four Key Tips to Help You Start Strong with Your Career Pivot
Getting started with a career pivot is as challenging as getting started writing a book. Both seem like great ideas, and they’re the stuff of daydreams and momentary fantasies. For the aspiring book writer or career changer, these are intoxicating thoughts until reality sets in, and we realize how difficult this work is actually to start and ultimately complete.
Leadership Caffeine™—Here’s Where You Should Slow Down to Move Faster
It’s easy to swallow the dogma that has emerged around the “Cult of Speed” in our management thinking and teaching. Yet, the pursuit of speed in poorly designed systems exposes weaknesses and often precipitates project, strategy, and even organizational failure. Said simply, raw speed kills. Sometimes you have to tap the brakes and slow down to ultimately move faster.
Career Reinvention Journal—”It’s Exciting Taking Back Control of My Career”
It’s not easy to reinvent yourself in your career, and it’s not fast. However, if you don’t get started now, you’ll never get to your next adventure.
For Positive Change, Focus on Displaying Gratitude
There’s a growing body of research evidence—and a lot of commonsense—that suggests we benefit on many levels when we regularly display gratitude to the people who help us on our journeys. I checked, and the world can use the positive impact of more gratitude right about now.
Career Reinvention Journal—You Have More Options Than You Think
One of my favorite parts of helping experienced professionals identify their “next” in their careers is helping them open their minds to the many alternative paths available to them. Typically, we hold narrow views of our options and close our minds to paths that will challenge and change us.
Love the Role of Manager: Six Big Reasons
There’s a reason I devote on average one-day per working week to supporting the development of new managers in my practice. It’s important. And while I spend a good deal of time highlighting the challenges of the role, there are at least six big reasons why you might love this role.