Seeing situations through the eyes of others may be the most crucial skill you’re not working very hard on in your professional or personal lives. It turns out when you do this—when you truly actually strive to understand how others view situations—the world takes on a decidedly different complexion.
The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Two Questions Every Leader Should Ask Repeatedly
As part of your leadership improvement program, it’s important to ask for input. The answers and perhaps even more so people’s reactions and responses to your questions offer valuable clues to where you need to strengthen your performance.
Nine Ideas to Help You Lead Effectively in Pressure Environments
It’s a fact of life as managers and leaders that we must generate results or we lose the opportunity to lead. While some environments are transactional, where the pressure for results at all costs breeds short-term behaviors, you always have the option to choose “How” you will lead. Here are nine ideas you can apply on the run to strengthen your team and promote great performance:
7 Management Lessons from a Home Renovation Project
Anyone who has invested time in renovating an older home understands surprises and conundrums emerge every time a wall or ceiling is breached. There are parallels in the world of management where the twists and turns of the marketplace demand change. Great tradespeople and great managers find a way through wicked problems using creativity and critical thinking. Here are seven lessons I was reminded of during a recent renovation project.
The Secret to Leadership and Career Success is Hiding in Plain Sight
One of the key success factors for leaders and for all of us is hiding in plain sight ready for all of us to use. Here are six key ingredients essential for ensuring respect is present in every encounter.
Three Big Priorities When You’re Stepping Up to Managing Managers
Succeeding as a manager of managers is another career adventure steeped in ambiguity and shrouded in uncertainty. This article offers ideas to help you successfully navigate your new job as a manager of managers.
Success as a New Manager Starts with the Right Attitude
Much like most other things in life, the attitude you bring to the job of new manager is a significant contributor to your success or failure.
Two Critical Conversations that Can’t Go Unspoken in Our Organizations
Not talking about the right issues at the right time closes off access to an unknown series of potentially game-changing outcomes. It’s like closing the door on your future as a firm and your career as a manager.
Great Managers Make a Hard Job Look Easy—Here’s How
My favorite part of working with good managers is their seeming superpower to make their difficult jobs guiding and engaging with team members and stakeholders look easy. Here are 8 key behaviors I’ve observed in these managers:
Who’s Your Leadership Role Model?
In case you ever wondered if you were making a difference, know that someone is paying attention. The example you set today may very well steer the lives of the people around you for decades to come. Make your example count!










