The Leadership Caffeine Blog

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10 of My Favorite Dumb Ass Management Mistakes

In the spirit of my post, “At Least 20 Things to Stop Doing as a Leader,” which has grown well north of 50 thanks to a deluge of reader comments, I’m back with a list of some insanely stupid and all-too-common management mistakes. These focus more on the decisions, actions or inactions that contribute to creating even bigger problems. While I’ve remained on the positive side of the law here (felons, you’ve had your day!), some of these mistakes are truly criminal. Please feel free to chime in with your additions.

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Leadership Caffeine™: What to Do If You Find Yourself Irrelevant at Work

Wondering whether you are still relevant in your workplace is one of those topics that many think about but few discuss. The “R” word after all is at the heart of our self-worth and self-esteem as professionals. If you find your relevance slipping away, here are some ideas for assessing your situation and taking action to rebuild your professional reputation at work.

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Art Guest Posts on Leadership at Tanveer Naseer’s Blog

My guest post at Tanveer Naseer’s blog, The Great and Perilous Leadership Journey Ahead, reflects my perspective on the rapidly and radically changing nature of leadership in our emerging environment. Perhaps my subhead says it best: “Welcome to the Leadership Blender.”

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A Leader’s List for Giving Thanks

As we take a momentary time-out in America from our significant challenges as a professionals, citizens and family members and give thanks for what’s good and right in our world and lives, those of us that serve as leaders owe a few additional toasts and thoughts for the privilege that we have in working with others. The Leader’s List for Giving Thanks, includes…

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Leadership Caffeine™: Mistakes are the Raw Ingredients of Leadership Courage

’ve made a number of mistakes over the course of my leadership career that make my head spin and my stomach turn just thinking about them. No life or death or business impacting mistakes, but, definitely some people and team impacting issues that created ill will and most definitely didn’t show me off at my leadership best. Learning from those mistakes helped me evolve my thinking on the role of a leader and on my true priorities in supporting my business, my peers and my team members.

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Leadership Lessons from Sherlock Holmes: Watch and Learn

Most great leaders that I’ve encountered are astute observers of their environment. They are good at reading people and situations, and they apply the insights gained through observing to improving their performance as leaders and to navigating the ever-present corporate politics. We spend a great deal of time helping individuals develop their skills as speakers, but when was the last time that you attended a workshop on improving your observation skills?

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November Leadership Development Carnival: Early Bird Edition

Thanks to the hard work of all-around great guy and great blogger, Dan McCarthy at Great Leadership (that’s a lot of great!), you once again have an opportunity to peruse 40 great posts from people passionate about all things leadership and professional development. Dan graciously has assembled content from far and wide to educate, entertain and stimulate ideas. Check out the line-up at the latest edition of the Leadership Development Carnival (Early Bird Edition).

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Don’t Be Naive When It Comes to Driving Change

There are ample reasons for organizations to change business processes and business practices in this fast moving and complex environment. The market drivers are strong, the business justification is clear and often, ideas on how and where to change are clearly visible to some inside organizations. It’s too bad that most change management initiatives fail, in spite of the best of intentions. With a bit of advance warning and some darned hard work however, you may be able to avoid the fate of so many that have come before you. Learn to ask yourself some core questions and keep asking these questions and you might just put one in the win column.

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