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
Where Too Many Managers Hit the Wall on Their Level-Up Journeys
Developing as a manager is a perpetual exercise in leveling up. Just when you think you've developed some competence at the role and are asked to take on more responsibilities, WHAM, you hit the wall of new, ambiguous challenges. In my work as an executive and...
Where Too Many Managers Hit the Wall on Their Level-Up Journeys
Developing as a manager is a perpetual exercise in leveling up. Just when you think you’ve developed some competence at the role and are asked to take on more responsibilities, WHAM, you hit the wall of new, ambiguous challenges. Here are the six big level up challenges I see for rising managers:
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:
New Leader Tuesday—Learning to Adapt Your Approach to Individuals
You will cultivate a leadership style over time…in large part by learning from trial and error. You can accelerate the learning process and improve your effectiveness by remembering to adapt your interaction style to the behaviors and preferences of others, while never compromising your commitment to fairness, your firm’s values or your obligation to drive results.
Leadership Caffeine™—Leading into the Fog
It’s the challenging times that build your leadership character. During the rising tide situations, the game is simplified…the way forward is clear and the challenges defined. Exploit the opportunity; move fast to deliver more; execute, execute, execute. It’s when conditions change that the view ahead becomes one giant fog bank and leading suddenly turns difficult.
Art of Managing—Steering Clear of Flail and Fail
Businesses of all sizes, shapes and ages run into rough patches. Rapid growth, disruptive competitors or technologies, regulatory changes or the end of the road for well-worn strategies are all potential culprits in the move from success to struggle. It’s critical at this point for a firm’s leaders and managers to react carefully and appropriately in this unfamiliar terrain or they risk moving quickly from flail to fail. They invite flailure. Here are 5 ideas to stem the tide when the flailing starts: