The Leadership Caffeine Blog
The Culture, Strategy, and Performance Killing Spiral of Poor or No Feedback
Do These Describe Your Environment? In my programs, consulting work, and coaching, I regularly encounter these situations: Managers struggling with an employee's performance, yet they've provided little to no feedback, or their feedback was watered down to the point...
The Culture, Strategy, and Performance Killing Spiral of Poor or No Feedback
While we regularly focus on feedback as an individual performance tool, it’s also a critical communication tool for driving improvement across groups and for processes and initiatives. Yet, this important, honest communication is in short supply in too many organizations.
Part 2: Focus, Identity and the High Performance Management Team
While it’s reasonable to think that a group of intelligent, accomplished professionals…all peers, with deep individual expertise in their functional areas might be the stuff of a management dream team, reality suggests that we shouldn’t count on it. Here are two key challenges that must be overcome and 5 ideas to help jump-start senior management team performance:
Leadership Caffeine™: Get Your Team Moving on Change
The Leadership Caffeine series is 200 installments strong and is dedicated to every aspiring or experienced leader seeking ideas, insights or just a jolt of energy to keep pushing forward. Thanks for being along for the journey! -- We all know that leading and...
Decorum, Drinking and the Company Holiday Party
It’s time for my annual Scrooge-like post on how a few drinks at the wrong time can damage credibility and derail your prospects. This is a season filled with potential social traps and ripe with opportunities for awkward moments as we blend the ever-present and oft dreaded holiday event with the opportunity to drink with coworkers. Here are at least 6 big reasons to hold back at the office holiday party:
Politics and the New Leader
As your responsibility in guiding and managing others grows, you are increasingly involved in the organizational dialog around budgets, projects and talent. Congratulations, you’ve entered the political arena in your workplace where power and influence decide who goes where and which teams and projects are on the receiving side of new investment. Here are 3 ideas for playing in your firm’s political arena while maintaining your integrity:
In Pursuit of the High Performance Senior Management Team: Part 1
Most senior management groups are teams in name only, but not in performance. Sadly, the costs to the organization of this failure to coalesce at the senior management level are heavy. Great functional performers are not automatically great team players, and the hard work of moving from a team by name to a team in performance is just that, hard work. In part 1, we kick off our series on creating high performance senior management teams with a look at some of the key conditions for successful teams and an exploration of the 4 key areas senior management teams fail and flail when it comes to pursuing high performance.
4 Reasons Why Questions are a Leader’s Best Friend
The best leaders wield questions precisely, respectfully and always with a clear objective in mind. Here are at least 4 reasons why questions are a leader’s best friend:
Leadership Caffeine™: 6 Key Decision Areas that Shape You as a Leader
There are a number of decisions in every leader’s life that stand head and shoulders above all others. These are the decisions that change the trajectory of people, teams and organizations and on a bigger stage, nations. As you navigate your career and your growth as a leader, be prepared to stand up and be counted on these challenging issues:
A Leader’s Reasons to be Thankful
Note from Art: This is an annual post at Management Excellence, offered in the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. It’s a nice time for leaders to pause and recognize the many reasons they have to be thankful for the privilege of serving.
It’s Your Career—Show Your Boss You Want to Learn and Grow
An employee interested in developing is like catnip for a conscientious boss. We’ll put in extra effort to support your development; find ways to relax our training budgets to push you along, and frankly, if you are genuinely, authentically pushing the envelope on your own development, you will gain access to the challenging assignments that set people up for advancement. Here are 5 ideas to make sure the boss knows you are interested in learning and growing: