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 — Do Something Courageous (60-second tips series)
In this brief video, I encourage you to take a step forward on one of those big, vexing issues that you've been delaying dealing with. I share the Big Five areas I encounter with leaders from the front lines to the C-Suite and draw upon the wisdom of the late, great...
Leadership Caffeine — Do Something Courageous (60-second tips series)
In this brief video, I encourage you to take a step forward on one of those big, vexing issues that you’ve been delaying dealing with.
Winning the Inner Game of Leading With Positive Self-Talk
Fear, self-doubt, and the tendency to catastrophize situations are your adversaries as a leader. The essence of life is overcoming challenges. Instead of allowing your negative emotions to rule you, engage in a little self-trickery and reset and reframe the negatives to positives.
Career Reinvention Journal—5 Reasons Why Self-Discovery is Critical for a Career Makeover
It turns out, the first place to start looking for “next” in your career is staring back at you in the mirror. Here are five reasons why the work of self-discovery is critical for a successful career pivot:
Leadership Caffeine™—Five Questions that Will Help You Strengthen as a Decision-Maker
Effective decision-making demands discipline and process. A good starting point is asking yourself and your team some key questions.
Insights from the Latest Feedback Boot Camp
Every few months, I run a three-hour boot camp on strengthening your skills as a receiver and a giver of feedback. Here are the top ten insights from the recent cohort group.
Fresh Opportunities for Professional Growth (and a free resource)
There’s never been a better time to help yourself or your team members move from good-to-great and add the skills essential for success in what will be a still-challenging world filled with new opportunities. Here’s our Spring 2021 Professional Development Catalog:
Leadership Caffeine™—Six Steps to Help You Start Strong with Your New Team
The point in time when you step into a new leadership role is simultaneously exciting and uncomfortable. Your start-up as the new boss is the early-awkward phase for everyone involved. Here are six steps to help you start strong with your new team:
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.