The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Just a Few Seats Left for the Next First-Time Managers Academy Cohort
A Few Seats Left for This Unique New Manager Development Program If it’s time for you or a new manager on your team to take a big step forward in developing as a manager, it’s time to enroll in First-Time Managers Academy-Live-Online. The new cohort kicks off on 4/28...
Just a Few Seats Left for the Next First-Time Managers Academy Cohort
If it’s time for you or a new manager on your team to take a big step forward in developing as a manager, it’s time to enroll in First-Time Managers Academy-Live.
What the Boss Hears When You’re Talking and Why It Might Hinder Your Career
I’m not quite certain if this post is a violation of the “Boss Code,” much like that masked man on television who blatantly betrays the Magician’s Code (and ruins our fun in the process) by showing us how magic tricks work. Nonetheless, here goes. Every time you open your mouth around the boss, she learns something about you that may determine your fate, or at least your fate while you are working for her.
Thoughts on Leading and Managing in the Era of Disposable Workers
Note from Art: this topic has me deep in thought. While the issue is generally a negative one, I do wonder whether it contains the seeds of significant management and leadership revolution. I would love your thoughts here. –In case you missed it, the article, “The Disposable Worker” in the January 7, 2010 issue of BusinessWeek offers a sobering look at the increasing trend for employers “to create just-in-time labor forces that can be turned on and off like a spigot.” And guess what folks, this trend is not just for those near the bottom rungs of the ladder, this current fashion extends all the way up into the CEO Suite.
To Lead or Not to Lead? 7 Key Questions for Managers and Aspiring Leaders
At some point in your career, either as an individual looking at your career path, or as a manager supporting the development of his/her team members, you will be faced with a decision on whether a leadership role is a good next step. As an individual responsible for your own career or as a manager responsible for the development of individuals on your team, why take the chance with such lousy odds, when you easily improve your success ratio by asking and answering seven simple questions?
Leadership Caffeine™: Learn to Manage Your Team’s Rhythm-6 Ideas for Improving
All teams and groups have a rhythm and natural energy for their tasks that ebb and flow based on a variety of factors, including personal, environmental and seasonal to name a few. As a leader, you should be aware of these cycles that are characterized by either intense creativity, outstanding productivity or on the other extreme, by a slow, plodding march through the days and weeks as if everyone’s feet were encased in clay. It’s your job to help smooth out the highs just a bit and minimize the time spent in the lows.
Fear, Self Confidence, Development, Renewal and Branding: Content from Art in Other Publications
As I continue expanding my writing and publishing activities in my growing multi-media and multi-medium world with multiple blogs and an e-newsletter as well as frequent writing for other publications, I feel duty bound to highlight some of the content that you won’t catch in this blog alone. Here’s the update on what idea and action stimulating content you might have missed on my Building Better Leaders blog or in the first edition of The Management Excellence Newsletter. Enjoy!
The Leader's Journey from Fear to Self Confidence
In spite of the popular myth of the fearless leader, it is my belief that a large number of leaders at all levels struggle with fear. Some work through their fears on the way to developing self-confidence and others battle it daily and resort to various coping strategies, including over-compensating with extreme aggression or extreme timidity. Learning to positively and productively cope with fear is an important part of developing as a leader.
Leveraging The Power of Value Discipline Thinking
From the list of, “Books that I truly wish had updated editions” comes one of my top 10 favorites, the 1997 book, “The Discipline of Market Leaders,” by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersma.
I re-read this book…or at least parts of it every year and I still carry through the concepts in my academic and client strategy work. While the examples are brutally dated and some of the companies have moved from good to great to gone, I find the framework of Value Discipline thinking to be a powerful tool that is easy for students and clients to digest and one that is useful in guiding strategic choices.
Develop the Courage to Lead by Pushing Out of Your Silo
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in my career shuttling between departments and scaling silo walls, and now I find myself working with and mentoring individuals that do much the same. Hey executives, haven’t we advanced at least a few steps beyond the work style and structure invented somewhere around the industrial revolution? Or is organizing in and hanging out in self-referencing professional or vocational groups a distinctly human issue?
Leadership Caffeine™-Develop a Big Picture View or Risk Becoming a Carp
Far too many leaders that I work with lack awareness of the broader forces swirling around their firms, their customers and those shape-shifting clusters that we describe as industries.
Given the hurricane like market and societal forces buffeting our globe today, a strategy of boarding up the windows and hunkering down is tantamount to committing corporate suicide. Yet, mostly by the sin of omission, this is exactly what I’m observing inside too many organizations.