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
Why Gutting Management Layers Is the Wrong Response to AI
Time to 'delayer' is code for first, let's take out all the managers It's an interesting time to publish a book for managers. My new book, Wake Up Calls for Managers — Insights to Sharpen Focus and Elevate Results, will be published this summer at a time when large...
Why Gutting Management Layers Is the Wrong Response to AI
We’ve seen this movie before. A shock hits the broader system and organizations decide to ‘delayer’ focusing the brunt of their efforts on middle management. This time AI is the excuse. Yet the real opportunity and need here is to redefine the role of manager, not eliminate it.
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.
Leadership Caffeine: A quiet period to support family
At points in life, we are all called to care for family members. This has been my role for the past five weeks and will be a part of my focus for the near future.
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.
Leadership Caffeine — 60-second tips: raise your questions-to-comments ratio
The weekly 60-second leadership tip from leadership caffeine. This episode’s focus is on strengthening your questions-to-comments ratio to strengthen your effectiveness.
How the upcoming Leadership Caffeine Jam Session can help you amplify your impact
Our 3/28 noon central Leadership Caffeine Jam Session (Register Here) features Joel Garfinkle, a leading executive coach and one of the world’s experts on executive presence. If you work in an organization and are interested in solving problems, improving processes, exploring and gaining support for innovations, key changes, and strategies, you must cultivate and strengthen how others experience you.
Leadership Caffeine — 60-second leadership tips: frame your day for success
Who doesn’t like starting and ending their day with that feeling that you accomplished something positive? In one minute, learn a powerful, practical approach to framing your day for success!
Four Ideas to Improve Workplace Communication
In approximately 800 hours of executive and manager coaching each year, the one issue that arises in almost every call is a communication challenge. Here are four sets of ideas you can implement yourself or with your team to strengthen communication effectiveness.
Scale your impact as a manager—six areas where you need to do the heavy lifting
For those with managerial experience striving to scale their impact, there are at least six key areas to focus on developing your skills and abilities.
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.