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
Introduction to The Manager’s Journey
The Parallels Between The Hero's Journey and The Manager's Journey Are Strong Joseph W. Campbell's description of The Hero's Journey has 17 distinct stages, starting with The Call to Adventure, navigating The Road of Trials, and ending with the Freedom to Live. Of...
Introduction to The Manager’s Journey
Joseph W. Campbell’s description of The Hero’s Journey has 17 distinct stages, starting with The Call to Adventure, navigating The Road of Trials, and ending with the Freedom to Live. Of course, the action occurs between those stages, with untold challenges, exhilarating highs, and soul-crushing lows. Campbell might have been writing the story of The Manager’s Journey.
Giving Thanks for Those Who Serve
Veteran’s Day 2017. Giving thanks to those who serve today and those who have served and sacrificed to protect our freedom.
Leadership Power-Up #1—Pay it Forward
A Leadership Power-Up is a positive action you take to strengthen your energy, enthusiasm, and resolve for the hard work of guiding and developing others while driving results. This new series share simple, powerful approaches for powering up your performance as a manager and leader.
First-Time Manager #14—Management Lessons Learned the Hard Way
In workshops and live settings, I’ve been asked numerous times about my biggest mistakes as a manager. I’ve made a fair number of them over three decades of leading and managing (and I regularly share these via my cases and articles), however, my Achilles Heel earlier...
Leadership Caffeine™—Be the Hero of Your Own Story
Being the hero of your own leadership and management journey isn’t about focusing on yourself. To the contrary, it’s about focusing on those around you and striving to leave every encounter, situation, and person a bit better than how you found it. Here are 4 questions to use daily to strengthen results on your own heroic journey:
Moving Beyond a Plateau— 9 Lessons in Career Reinvention
Getting started on the hard, important work of reinventing your career is a challenging proposition. Here are 9 lessons I’ve learned from working with some great professionals on this process, along with some ideas for you to consider.
Struggling as a Manager? Try Revisiting These 3 Foundational Issues
If you’re growing frustrated and fatigued with your life as a manager, you might want to take a step-back and review and strengthen the foundation for your role. Three items provide structural integrity for your managerial foundation: role clarity, values, and connectedness
All three components inter-operate to support your effectiveness and to eliminate many challenges in this difficult role. Alternatively, the absence of the three is potentially disastrous.
Leadership Caffeine™—Communication Lessons from Charlie Brown
How confident are you that your message is getting through to others? Too often we perceive we are communicating clearly and effectively, when all anyone hears is something resembling the adults on a Charlie Brown feature. You know the noise they make: “Wah wa wa wa wah wa.” Don’t let this be you.
4 Big Career Mistakes of Otherwise Smart People
It turns out, just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you make good career choices. Some of the smartest people I know keep tripping all over themselves as they stumble from one bad situation to the next. They fall victim to at least 4 big career mistakes. That’s too...
4 Big Obstacles in the Way of Organizational Transformation
F. Scott Fitzgerald offered, “There are no second acts,” and mostly, this holds true for our organizations. What’s good or great one day often succumbs to market forces and disruptions. Organizational transformation on a large scale is a difficult act, yet some do succeed. In this first in a series of articles, I offer my perspective on at least 4 of the big obstacles that get in the way of success.