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
FIve Big Ideas to Help Get New Manager Development Right
I'm opinionated on the challenges (and solutions) for new manager development. Here's why: Why I Care About New Manager Development so Passionately I know the potential of these individuals. As a corporate manager and then executive, I dedicated time and energy to...
FIve Big Ideas to Help Get New Manager Development Right
Managers are the individuals we need to create engagement, deliver quality results, and serve as critical enablers of change and adaptation in our world. And if Gallup. is even half right with their measures of disengagement and their pointing to managers as the cause, we’re failing at manager development. Here are five big ideas to help.
Beware of the Leader Who Demands Loyalty
We’re loyal to teams, candidates, and even political parties, but when it comes to a leader at work demanding your loyalty, this should raise red flags and trigger alarm bells. Effective leaders never demand loyalty, they earn it, and even this appropriately has limits.
Is Your Decision-Making Style Holding Your Team Hostage?
It was a fascinating experience in contrasting decision-making styles. One moved fast and made decisions on the run. The other studied an issue until the perfect answer emerged. According to HBR, high performing CEOs exhibit speed and conviction when it comes to decision-making.
Rethinking Emerging Leader Identification and Development
Growing the leadership pipeline is mission critical for every organization. Unfortunately, this process is either missing in action or based on old-world approaches in too many organizations. This articles offers 6 ideas to jump-start your thinking on refreshing and reinvigorating your emerging leader development efforts.
Rethinking Effective Followership in the Workplace
Few of us are exposed to what it means to follow effectively, yet followership is requisite for success in every organizational and business setting. This article offers a fresh perspective on the role and 8 key behaviors of effective followers.
Never Forget
The best of our society are those brave men and women who selected service in support of country over self. Our way of life and our hope for the future rests on the foundation so many have labored so long and sacrificed so much for in our still young country. To those...
Treat Your Career as an Adventure into Parts Unknown
Instead of worrying about career planning, treat your professional work as a series of adventures and explorations, and prepare accordingly.
4 Big Gaps to Close in Your Emerging Leader Program
Most executives and CEOs agree on the importance of identifying and developing leadership talent in their firms. However, many emerging leader developpment programs have one or more key gaps. This article identifies four of the most common gaps and offers ideas to eliminate them and improve results.
Remote Working Reset? View from Afar
Remote work policies are under fire in technology and other pioneers of this practice. IBM’s recent announcement that all remote workers must either rejoin a physical IBM location or leave the company is the latest example. After a decade of living and supporting remote working in my technology companies, I still see some pros and cons, but it is not a binary issue.
First-Time Manager #6—Navigating the Jump From Peer to Boss
The transition from peer to boss is awkward, clumsy, and filled with opportunities to misstep. This article offers 9 ideas to help guide you through this process.