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
Reaching for the executive ranks? Cultivate these five skillsets—part one, developing as a strategist
Striving to Level Up? Focus on "The Big Five" While today's career world for many is about something other than "The Climb," my coaching ranks and workshop programs are filled with individuals striving to scale their impact and, for many, gain a seat at the executive...
Reaching for the executive ranks? Cultivate these five skillsets—part one, developing as a strategist
While today’s career world for many is about something other than “The Climb,” my coaching ranks and workshop programs are filled with individuals striving to scale their impact and, for many, gain a seat at the executive table. If you are motivated to grow your responsibilities and engage at a senior management level, you must cultivate your knowledge and skills in five critical areas. In part one of this series, I focus on developing as a strategist.
The Good, Hard Work of Developing Managers Who Lead
Enough with the false dichotomy between managers and leaders. Our priority must be to teach, coach, and inspire our managers to lead from day one. While those on the front-line live closer to the work of the organization, leadership behaviors are every bit as essential (maybe more so) for success as they are for those operating higher up the organization chart. Start developing your managers as leaders!
First-Time Manager #9—12 Ideas to Help You Build Better Meetings
Over a long career, few meetings are memorable. However, the cumulative pain of the many miserable, counter-productive meetings lingers long after they’ve ended. As a newer manager and an emerging leader, take the time to cultivate the habits that lead to effective meetings. Your team will thank you! Here are a dozen ideas to get you started:
New Program—Developing as a Manager of Managers
Transitioning into and navigating the role of manager of managers is one of the most important and potentially challenging career steps you will experience. My new Manager of Managers webinar series and professional development program is designed to fill the gap for practical, powerful guidance for anyone interested in succeeding in this challenging role. The program kicks off later in August, 2017, with early-bird pricing available until 8/5/2017.
Leadership Caffeine™—Real Strategy Demands Leadership Courage
Success with the work of strategy demands hard work and the irreplaceable ingredient of leadership courage. It is this courage that allows management teams and organizations to ask and answer the hard questions critical for survival and renewal.
Leadership Caffeine—Curiosity and the Leader
One of the most effective leaders I’ve worked for used his natural curiosity to infect us all with a sense of wonder, exploration and experimentation. Yet our practices in organizations today often stifle or manage curiosity out of the equation. Ironically, curiosity might just be that key ingredient required for survival and success in our era of change.
Two Strategy Tools Every Leader Must Understand
For any leader or management team struggling to navigate strategy, there are two tools I find incredibly useful in helping groups navigate complexity. They share a common trait in challenging strategy groups to focus their energy on cultivating a clear picture of a firm’s reality and then defining a way forward, before defining actions. Too many teams jump to the actions and skip the heavy lifting and deep thinking. These tools keep you honest when it comes to strategy.
Knocking the Negativity Out of Your Career and Life
“Research suggests that the human mind has a propensity to pay greater attention to and process the bad compared to the good, a phenomenon often called the negativity bias. Bad feedback has greater impact; bad impressions are quicker to form; bad information is...
First-Time Manager #8—Meet the Peers
Your promotion to front-line manager places some distance between you and your team members, however, it also offers you an entirely new peer group: other front-line managers. This article offers six ideas for you to jump-start your networking activities with your new peers.
Leadership Caffeine™—Lessons from a Failed Expedition
Building high performance teams is a critical part of a leader’s job. However, when you build the team without clarity and commitment for the mission, watch out for these 5 painful leadership lessons: