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 and Management Lessons from Losing Dad
In the past four months, I spent most of my time and energy advocating for my elderly father across a variety of healthcare facilities. He passed away during August, and while it was merciful for him, we're left with a gigantic hole in our family and hearts. There's...
Leadership and Management Lessons from Losing Dad
In the past four months, I spent most of my time and energy advocating for my elderly father across a variety of healthcare facilities. He passed away during August, and while it was merciful for him, we’re left with a gigantic hole in our family and hearts.
There’s also a mix of guilt, frustration, and anger at much of the healthcare management, leadership, and delivery we encountered along the way.
Why the New Manager Failure Rate is So Ridiculously High (Guest Post)
Most everyone agrees it’s critical to build a leadership pipeline in our firms. Unfortunately, when it comes to new managers at the front of this pipeline, without proper care and support, the failure rate is abysmally high. Here are five areas where new managers flail and fail along with some help to improve the situation.
I Know Something You Don’t About Your First-Time Managers
In every cohort of our live-online First-Time Manager Academy, I know something that no one else knows. In this group, there are people who will change the world.
Leadership Caffeine™—15 Simple Things You Can Do Today that Will Help
Every day, you have countless opportunities to exhibit behaviors that leave people and situations a little bit better off than you found them. Here’s a list of fifteen behaviors that will help you improve the situation for everyone:
Use Strategic Message Design and Proper Posture to Cultivate Influence
Cultivating influence in your firm and industry is a long-term process. However, there are a few communication adjustments you can make immediately to ensure you are properly projecting yourself when it counts:
Asking the “Six Whats” Will Help You Strengthen Workplace Problem Solving
It’s an understatement to suggest this is a time for creative problem-solving in our organizations. Yet, too often, we react to symptoms or throw solutions at poorly defined problems. The failure to get to the root cause and underlying assumptions behind something that seems to be a problem results in half-measures and new, resultant problems. Here’s a technique to stop the madness!
Set the Stage for Fierce Listening With the Artful Use of Questions
While listening is essential for successful communication, the behavior that sets the stage for Fierce Listening is artful and empathic questioning. Our use of questions—type and tone—controls the direction of the dialog.
Want to Lead Change at Work? Focus on Growing Your Influence With a “Clean Power” Approach
If your mission is to get work done through and with others across your organization, you need to develop and apply influence. In this article, I share ideas and approaches you can use to engage and succeed in your organization’s political environment without compromising your values.
The Right Way to Prepare for Asking for a Raise or Promotion
Why is asking for a raise or promotion so difficult and sometimes scary? It is not something you do on a regular basis, and there are many complexities involved. Here are ideas to help you prepare for and succeed with this important ask:
Leadership Caffeine Podcast—The Conclusion Trap with Dan Markovitz
Dan Markovitz, consultant and author of The Conclusion Trap: Four Steps to Better Decisions, joins Art Petty on this episode of the Leadership Caffeine podcast.