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
How to tame your “I’m the smartest person in the room’ problem
Bottom Line Up Front: A leader's compulsion to always be the smartest person in every room not only stifles creativity but also undermines the potential of a high-performance environment. Leaders must recognize and change such behaviors. Seek feedback on how others...
How to tame your “I’m the smartest person in the room’ problem
A leader’s compulsion to always be the smartest person in every room not only stifles creativity but also undermines the potential of a high-performance environment. Here are ideas to help tame this destructive syndrome.
Reinventing Your Career—Purpose and Cause
For too many experienced professionals, the later stages of their careers feel more like prison sentences than rich opportunities to learn and grow. Yet, investing time to rethink your personal purpose and cause through the lens of your experience, can set the stage for the most productive, rewarding portion of your career and life.
Leadership Caffeine™—Learn, Adapt, Influence
The most effective leaders understand their role in breaking away from the gravitational pull of the status quo. They focus daily on the learn, adapt, influence cycle as they strive to help their teams and firms level-up
Leadership Caffeine™—The Liberating Power of Accountability
If you’ve ever worked in an environment where accountability was in short supply, you understand how toxic this can be for everyone. Effective managers understand and tap into the power of accountability. Of course, accountability always starts with the manager.
Webinar: The Six Challenging Conversations You Must Master to Succeed
Simply stated, challenging conversations are where we mine the gold from our leadership and management efforts. It’s too bad we spend so much time delaying or dodging these discussions. When we do engage, often, we muddle our way through and leave money and performance on the table. Join me for my free webinar on the six challenging conversations at work you must learn to master to succeed.
Transform Your Effectiveness with a Leadership Journal
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most effective. In this article, I share six ideas on how to use a leadership journal to strengthen your performance through continuous daily improvement.
5 Important Lessons of Successful Career Reinventors
For most people, the idea of reinventing themselves in their careers remains a fantasy. However, for those who do move from fantasy and ideas to actions, the career reinvention process is filled with obstacles to be overcome. Here are 5 big lessons learned from some successful career reinventors:
4 Tactics to Help You Survive Working for a Dictator-Manager
Very few of us escape our careers without working for a dictator-manager at some point in time. If it’s your time, here are 4 tactics you can use to keep your values and your sanity intact:
First-Time Manager #17—Effective Managers Clear the Path
As a manager, you have an incredible number of opportunities every single day to help your team members move further faster. Here are 5 ideas to help you clear the path and promote progress on your team:
It’s Time to Learn to Love Challenging Conversations
I learned to love challenging conversations the hard way. I delayed and destroyed a number of these earlier in my career until I recognized these are truly the opportunities for managers to mine gold in the form of development, learning, problem-solving and innovation. Here are some key reasons why you need to learn to love challenging conversations: