The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Leadership Caffeine™—Good Managers Observe The Characters, Not Just the Action
I love movies and books that are more about the characters and less about the action. I’m addicted to character study so much that when presented with the opportunity to watch an action movie (where character development is typically shallow) or do something tedious...
Leadership Caffeine™—Good Managers Observe The Characters, Not Just the Action
The best managers are devoted students of the art of character study—not out of some desire to play armchair psychologist, but rather out of the desire to help.
Leadership Caffeine™—Curing the Leader’s Communication Conundrum
People are complicated, vexing and remarkable all at the same time, and the only way to tame these forces and harness the hearts and minds of the people around you, is to strengthen your effectiveness as a communicator. Every day. Here are 3 ideas to help you get started:
Art of Managing—The Questions Come First
My first manager routinely asked a question that turned out to be a powerful teaching tool and a life-long reminder to pause before leaping. The question was, “Have you thought of everything?” While “thinking of everything” in a literal sense is impossible, her intent wasn’t to push us down to ground level in an endless field of details (as interpreted by my colleagues), but rather, it was to push us to think through and around a situation in as thorough manner as possible. Here are 5 situations where the questions absolutely must come first:
New Leader Tuesday—4 Ideas to Improve Front-Line Management and Team Performance
When it comes to sub-par performance on teams and between a supervisor and his or her department members, communication is almost always an issue, but rarely the root cause of the problem. Here are 4 ideas to help front-line leaders strengthen performance and improve communication with their teams:
Management Inanities, Annoyances and Other Observations
Here are a few observations and annoyances from the world of management. Enjoy your week wherever your travels take you. May the airport lines run flawlessly and may you be spared the time sink of having to fight for the right to consume cell, satellite and digital services at the promotion price!
It’s Your Career- 6 Ideas to Help You Define Your Professional Value Proposition
Part of the process of moving up or moving on involves a hefty amount of self-marketing, and it’s at this point where we attempt to share who we are and what we bring to the table that we often fall short. Here are 6 ideas to help you jump-start the process of creating an effective professional value proposition:
Leadership Caffeine™: Beware Leadership Drift
For many leaders, circumstances have an annoying habit of drawing our attention off of what we should be focusing on towards something more immediate or more novel. For anyone leading a team, this loss of focus (or loss of edge) is what I describe as “Leadership Drift.” Here are at least six ideas to help you and your team avoid the drift that can keep you from reaching your destination:
Art of Managing-The Best Measure of Employee Engagement
On the heels of yet another study indicating most U.S. workers are disengaged from their jobs, I recently had occasion to witness an interesting comparison and contrast in levels of employee engagement at two different organizations in the medical industry. One of those encounters provided an insight into what may just be the best measure of employee engagement.
New Leader Tuesday-Setting Great Expectations
Setting proper and challenging expectations is absolutely a part of promoting performance on your team. However, setting lofty expectations without doing the heavy lifting of forming an effective working environment is a hollow exercise in something ranging between comedy and futility. Here are 5 ideas to help you put the “Great” into your team’s performance expectations:
Leadership Caffeine™-Of Crucibles and Leadership Character
Two job candidates walk into a coffee shop. One has a spotless record of achievement and accomplishments and a career that runs upward like a steep staircase from early career until now. His life reads like a storybook we can all smile about and wish ourselves to be so fortunate. This is a solid professional. The other candidate’s record is good, however, there are several points in time when things went wrong… . The first candidate is compelling, but the second candidate is likely my choice. Here’s why.