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 you need to start treating your words like Lego Blocks
Bottom-Line Up-Front: Words are what we have to inspire, motivate, clarify, empower, and enable. Yet, too often, our words work against us and create problems. Start thinking about words as building blocks of great conversations. They're like Legos, and you can...
Why you need to start treating your words like Lego Blocks
Words are what we have to inspire, motivate, clarify, empower, and enable. Yet, too often, our words work against us and create problems. Why you need to start treating your words like Legos.
Surviving and Thriving When Presenting to Executives
The invitation to present to your organization’s senior executives is a pivotal career moment for many young professionals. Crush it (in a good way), and you make a name for yourself and show up on the radar screen as someone on the rise and worth watching. Stumble, and you make an impression as well, just not the one you wanted to make. This article outlines ten tips to help you crush it with this great career opportunity.
Leadership Caffeine™—The Mess is the Opportunity
Before saying “no” to that messy situation, recognize that the mess is the opportunity. Being invited to fix a messy situation is like receiving an engraved invitation to success on a silver platter.
Using Your Communication Superpowers to Overcome Workplace Blockers
Great workplace communicators are tuned-in to the power of their communication superpowers and they deliberately deploy them in pursuit of individual, team, and organizational success. In this article, I share four powerful communication tactics you can use to melt the resistance of workplace blockers and gain support for your initiatives.
Three Communication Styles That Can Derail Your Career Progress
In any given workplace, there are a wide variety of communication styles on display. While the variation creates a rich environment for engaging and sharing ideas, there are a few styles and behaviors that get in the way of your communication and career success. If you or someone you know resemble one of the three styles: watchmaker, interruptor, or arguer, it’s time to get help and adapt your communication style.
Leadership Caffeine™—Seven Symptoms that Suggest You Have a Leadership Brain Clog
The clogged thinking of leaders translates into strategy and execution misfires and abysmal levels of employee engagement and job satisfaction. Ultimately, the best defense against developing a brain clog is your vigilance. Here are some ideas to help you root out any developing clogs:
Leadership Opportunity—The Leader as Composer and Conductor
The view of the leader as symphony conductor is appealing on multiple levels. One helps create beautiful music and the other enables high performance. However, there is one big difference between the leader and conductor—the leader must compose and conduct at the same time.
Why You Should Obsess Over Challenging Conversations (and what to do about them)
The road to career success runs through a nearly endless string of challenging conversations. Learn to survive and thrive in the most difficult of communication circumstances and watch your career grow. This article offers three big ideas to help you navigate challenging conversations and come out a winner.
Leadership Caffeine™—Navigating a Leadership Slump
Organizational life is wearing on us, and for those charged with leading and guiding others, it’s natural for fatigue to set in on occasion. However, if the fatigue lingers, you might find yourself facing a leadership slump. Here are four big ideas to help you navigate a leadership slump.
The Leadership Opportunity—Incredible Adventures in Creation Ahead
There’s the practical dimension of leading where we focus on the grind-it-out, get-things-done-through-others heavy lifting. However, there’s a higher-order opportunity with this work. The leadership opportunity is truly about the potential to create by working with the ultimate medium: the ideas and efforts of others.