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
A Unique (free) Manager Development Event—Friday, May 12 at Noon Central
Solving Managerial Challenges Together—Friday's Leadership Caffeine Jam Session Join me and a cast of your peers from across industries and organizations on Friday, 5/12, at noon central when we come together for an hour to identify and develop solutions for some of...
A Unique (free) Manager Development Event—Friday, May 12 at Noon Central
Join me and a cast of your peers from across industries and organizations on Friday, 5/12, at noon central for the latest Leadership Caffeine Jam Session, when we come together for an hour to identify and develop solutions for some of the most vexing challenges all managers face
New Leader Tuesday—4 Big Benefits of Coaching Your Teams
Too often and with the best of intentions, we assemble a team of our best and brightest to tackle an important issue and then assuming our job is done and the task is in the hands of these capable people, we step away and wait for the results. And all too often, instead of something magical, what we get back looks and feels a lot like flailing heading towards failing.
Here are 4 big reasons why assigning a coach to your project team might be the difference between success and failure:
Leadership Caffeine™—Breakaway Leadership Part 2
Post number 1 in this series focused on the behaviors that often stifle the pursuit of moving into a new area while sustaining the legacy business. In this post, we look at 8 behaviors and approaches that YOU and your management counterparts directly control that contribute to success with this challenging endeavor:
Leadership Caffeine™—Exploring Breakaway Leadership, Part 1
If you’ve lived through a successful migration of a business from a legacy market to a new world, you know that it’s a sometimes messy, often emotionally turbo-charged experience. Here are 8 leadership behaviors that are guaranteed to create “tripping points” for any organization or team striving to breakaway from the past:
Strategy and Category—In Pursuit of Growth
Chances are your organization has plans to “change” and as part of your strategy, you have the challenge to identify and capitalize on new sources of growth. Those concepts make for pretty slides and create head-nodding executive and boardroom presentations. Actually doing the work is as I’m sure you know, far from simple. Here are some thoughts on the challenges to move into new growth categories while fighting the gravitational pull of the past:
What the Boss Learns About You in Every Conversation
While you may not know this, that idea you bounced off of your manager the other day and your response to her questions on one of your projects both play a critical role in your near future success and the speed of growth in your paycheck! Here’s what the boss is looking and listening for when she’s talking with you:
Leadership Caffeine™: Nine Key Skills Demanded By Our Times
In our world of constant change, there are (at least) nine critical skills that leaders and professionals at all levels must cultivate to succeed:
The Rocket Scientist and the Rock Star Effect
Good ideas and good strategies are plentiful. The weight of the research on why strategies fail points at the execution side much more so than the idea side of the equation. In a career hanging around mostly technology organizations, the limiting factor has NEVER been on the idea front. It’s been on the management side and the ability of management to produce what I describe as the Rock Star Effect.
At Least 10 Managers You Don’t Want to Meet On Your Journey
Here’s a fresh follow-on to some earlier posts on the habits of lousy leaders based on input from participants in my leadership and management programs and forums. It seems we don’t run out of content for this thread!
Leadership Caffeine™: Cultivating the Confidence to Act
For leaders at all levels, there’s much to gain from James D. Murphy’s excellent book, Courage to Execute: What Elite U.S. Military Units Can Teach Business About Leadership and Team Performance. Of the many quotable and thought-provoking items in the book, one that jumps out at me is Mr. Murphy’s perspective on courage. His words: “…but remember, courage is not bravado. Courage is the confidence to act that comes from preparation.”
It’s the lack of confidence to act that I observe as a derailment factor for so many teams from senior levels to functional or project groups. Here are 5 ideas to help cultivate the confidence to act on your team: