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
Are You in Trouble if the Boss Offers a Coach?
In a recent Leadership Caffeine Jam Session, I asked, "How do you react if your boss suggests you will benefit by engaging a coach?" The feedback was largely positive. Most of the responses were in the neighborhood of "That would be great," or "I would love it." A...
Are You in Trouble if the Boss Offers a Coach?
In some organizations, “being assigned a coach” has a negative connotation. That’s too bad. If you are on the receiving end of an offer from your boss to take on a coach, strive to understand the rationale and then embrace the opportunity for the learning and growth experience it offers you.
The Saturday Serial Number 1—Welcome to ACME John Anderson
The Saturday Serial is an on-going management and leadership story and case based on a fictional firm and fictional characters all dealing with very real challenges in leadership and management. The intent is to stimulate thinking and discussion in a format different than the traditional “how to” blog post. Each episode includes a series of discussion questions for your consideration (or use with your team). I’ll share my views on the prior week’s chapter and questions in a subsequent post. Welcome to Episode 1:
Introducing The Saturday Serial—An Ongoing Management & Leadership Case
Welcome to The Saturday Serial! This new series reflects my intent and attempt to share and cultivate management and leadership lessons beyond the format of a stale blog post and endless lists of “10 ideas to… .” While I love writing the Management Excellence blog and the first 1,025 posts are testament to my commitment, I’ve wanted to experiment with the serial and management fable format here for a long time. Beginning with my first episode, “Welcome to ACME John Anderson,” you will meet a growing cast of characters facing a series of very real management, leadership and career challenges in this fictional high-tech, global conglomerate and its various units and divisions. Enjoy!
Six Ideas to Help You Have Better Days at Work
Everyone has difficult days, however, when every day feels like a slow, painful, stressful march up a rock-strewn path toward certain calamity, it’s time for you to take action. Here are a few ideas to help you re-frame your daily activities and reset your attitude.
Revisiting The 5 Priceless Lessons from Amundsen and Scott
Given the recent storms and polar-like weather in the Midwest and Northeast, it seems fitting to revisit the priceless management and leadership lessons gleaned from Amundsen and Scott in their race to 90-degrees south. These lessons never grow cold!
For a Change, Try Embracing Change at Work
We all know that we live in an era of constant change. And more often than not, the thought of change at work is enough to send us scurrying for cover. However, hiding or simply allowing fear of the unknown to seize your emotions is the wrong approach in a situation that stands to be both a rich learning experience and an opportunity for you to showcase your value to your managers and your firm.
Leadership Caffeine™—Humility and the Effective Leader
The most effective leaders I know are simultaneously courageous and humble in the face of ambiguity and adversity. Courage as we all know is essential for facing and making the tough decisions demanded in difficult situations. I referenced this attribute in my recent post, Leading into the Fog. A healthy grounding of humility serves as a powerful check and balance influence that helps effective leaders fight the pressure to make rash decisions in the drive to be perceived as omniscient.
The Importance of Owning Your Own Career
Too many of us wait for someone else to create the circumstances that allow us to be happy in our work. Expecting someone else to lift us up from our current situation is a fool’s errand blended with a real life frustration dream. No matter how much we sulk or complain about our lot, the only person responsible for changing the situation is the one staring back at us in the mirror.
Just One Thing—New Leadership Role? Try Warmth Over Strength
Let’s face it, the new leadership role is a great testament to your prior success and the faith that your firm’s senior leaders place in your abilities to help build the future. You’ve gained their confidence and trust, but the hard work is still in front of you. You’ve got to earn the trust of your new team members. Here’s a view on an approach that has an increasing body of behavioral science evidence on its side:
Art of Managing—The Quest to Sustain Success
The business and management equivalent of The Quest of mythology and story is the pursuit of the secret ingredients…the behaviors, actions and approaches that if adopted, will allow one firm to outperform (measured by one or more of: growth, profitability, innovation, share price, market capitalization) a peer group for an extended period of time. Here are 7 core behaviors for successful management teams to adopt that will help them survive with their quest to sustain success: