The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Leadership Caffeine™—Who Are You?
You aren’t a leader until people know who you are and why they should follow you. People comply with the title. They follow the person. While many individuals deliberately keep their work personas and their personal personas separate, I checked, and each of us is one...
Leadership Caffeine™—Who Are You?
While many individuals deliberately keep their work personas and their personal personas separate, I checked, and each of us is one person. Yet, the faster you grow comfortable letting them see you as that whole person, the faster they’ll trust you. And yes, trust is the critical foundation for high performance.
Leadership Caffeine™ Podcast #7: Kevin Eikenberry on Making the Shift from “Bud to Boss”
The most difficult job in the professional life of any leader may very well be that first role…when he or she moves from individual contributor to suddenly being responsible for the outcomes of others. This truly critical issue receives some much needed attention in the recent book, Bud to Boss-Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership, by consultants, authors and leadership experts, Kevin Eikenberry and Guy Harris, in their recent book, Bud to Boss. While the focus is on helping the first time leader successfully transition from one of the gang to leader, this book is important for those responsible for developing and supporting first-time leaders as well.
Leadership Caffeine™-Always Lead with Context
Context in this case is that not-so-secret ingredient that helps people understand the idea or issue and how it connects to something important in the workplace. Context provides the basis for understanding and assessing a situation or a request to do something. It has the equivalent workplace outcome of adding yeast to the process of making bread. Without it, everything is flat. Improve performance by providing critical context at the organizational, strategic and personal levels.
Leadership Caffeine™ Podcast #6: Scott Eblin on Succeeding at The Next Level
Navigating the move from one executive level to the next is both exciting and daunting. Depending upon your career stage, successfully executing on your new responsibilities might require drawing upon a significantly different set of skills than those demanded in prior positions. And while many professionals do successfully navigate the transition, a good number…up to 40% according to one study actually fail during the 18 months following a promotion. That’s a big number by anyone’s measure. Scott Eblin, executive coach and author of The Next Level is here to help us all improve our odds of success.
Leadership Caffeine™-Surviving and Thriving Under the Tough Empathy Leader
If you work for a leader who practices what Goffee and Jones described in their HBR classic, “Why Should Anyone Be Led by You,” as Tough Empathy, you can expect to be on edge a good deal. Respond well to this demanding but respectful leader’s style, and instead of teetering precariously on the bleeding edge of survival, you will be reaching constantly for the high performance edge. Read this leader incorrectly however, and you might be setting yourself up for a miserable experience.
September Leadership Development Carnival-Back to School Sale Edition
Run, don’t walk to get a jump on the other shoppers over at Dan McCarthy’s Great Leadership site, with the September Leadership Development Carnival-Back to School Sale edition. Dan is marking down and moving out the best ideas in leadership and management to help make the unofficial end to summer a bit more bearable for all of us.
In Case You Didn’t Have Enough to Worry About…
Here’s my slightly serious, slightly tongue-in-cheek listing of things that are truly frightening and worth worrying about. Feel free to add your own.
Leadership Caffeine™ Podcast-Bob Lucas on Customer Service
For managers and executives, customer service is either a golden opportunity or, as some seem to treat it…a cost center. However, perhaps one of the outcomes of this great recession and the on-going economic malaise…is that many organizations and managers are waking up to the reality that they need to try just a little harder to earn and retain our business. Enter Robert W. Lucas, an expert, and the author of a number of top selling books on customer service, with some valuable guidance for managers, executives and customer service professionals from his latest, Please Every Customer-Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.
Towards Your Growth as a Management Innovator
One of the exciting parts of living and working through “these interesting times,” comes from the opportunity to apply the tools of management in new ways and forms to today’s complex problems. This “management innovation” as Dr. Gary Hamel describes it, is much about the search for approaches to organizing, planning, leading and controlling that better fit the challenges of the 21st century. The implication is that in many cases, we’re still trying to solve new and emerging problems with 20th century management tools.
Leadership Caffeine™ Podcast-Linda Finkle on Partnering
The lure of “partnering” with others is strong in our society, particularly as more and more high quality professionals pursue their own businesses outside of the not-so-cozy confines of corporate walls. Much like marriage, there are some remarkable upsides and unfortunately (according to the numbers), some pretty significant downsides for many. Enter Linda Finkle, CEO of Incedo Group, and author of the book, Finding the Fork in the Road-The Art of Maximizing the Potential of Business Partnerships, to share some sage guidance on this important topic.