For most of the later career re-inventors I’ve worked with, the wake-up call wasn’t so much a single trigger event as it was a confluence of several issues. It's a big decision to leave behind something you've been doing for decades. It may be the best decision for you, but a bit of planning goes a long way. Here are 9 suggestions for anyone considering answering the career-reinvention wake-up call:
For all of us operating in the relative safety of corporate walls, there's more than a few powerful lessons on leading we can gain from those operating in harm's way. The first lesson is humility.
New and emerging leaders are our future. It’s essential to support their development as they take the reins in our challenging world. They are and will remain the focal point of my content here at Management Excellence. However, there’s an audience whose needs in my opinion are grossly under-served in the career and leadership blogging and writing ecosystem: the later-career (read: over-50) senior leaders and executives. With this post, I'm announcing a new blog feature focused on the needs of this experienced audience.
Strategy processes mostly disappoint. That’s too bad, because there are few things more essential to an organization’s success and security than getting strategy right. Here are (at least) 17 ways your strategy process will break bad:
I can tell you with absolute certainty that I didn’t think about my own leadership legacy during the early part of my career. No one does, and that's often a mistake. Here are 3 provocative questions to help bring your future as a leader into focus:
While a leader’s competence is viewed as the most important attribute to engender trust, the fact that he or she genuinely cares about team members is an important number two.
Establishing yourself as a credible and positive leader is important and challenging. Here are some all-too-common missteps of first-time (and even some hapless, experienced) managers. Avoid them in good health!
When things break bad (even momentarily) in an organization, a number of predictable reflexes kick-in. Expenses are cut. Operations reviews evolve into extended, public proctology exams with everyone taking a long look searching for answers and blame. Some of the responses are reasonable and expected. Others are destructive. Suspending the work of developing your leaders and managers is destructive. Instead of letting your training budget dictate your team and leadership development efforts, here are 5 high-contact ideas to turbo-charge your efforts:
If you’re interested in gaining critical insights into how things work in a prospective employer, look to the style, values and priorities of a firm’s top leader.
Almost every person who’s ever held a managerial position has spent time walking on eggshells around a deliberately difficult employee to avoid inciting a confrontation. I describe these individuals as “Boss Bullies.” They’re particularly fond of first-time managers because their tactics tend to work on the new managers for a period of time. Here are 6 ideas to help you navigate this sticky situation:
