Leadership Caffeine™—10 Situations to Throttle Back on Speed

Somewhere on the way to this world we now live and work in, “speed” became a proxy for success. Speed is undoubtedly important, but beware relying on it as the sole indicator of effectiveness. It’s a cruel tyrant, demanding fealty from followers, while discouraging critical and deep thinking and focusing solely on time-to-response as a metric of success. Here are at least 10 situations where you should resist the need for speed and call a timeout:

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™-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.

Leadership Caffeine™: Fun at the Cousin’s Reunion with Luck, Hope and Hard Work

Luck, while nice when she smiles on you, is a fickle and elusive relative. She rarely shows up at family events and when she does, it’s all about her. She raises expectations of ridiculous things to insane levels, and then disappears after disappointing, without a word. Hope, is much more accessible than Luck, but in some regards, she is even more frustrating to deal with. Hope is comfortable and comforting, providing us with possibilities, but most often leaving us disappointed. What Hope doesn’t tell you is that she relies on her cousin, Luck, and of course we’ve already established that Luck is undependable. The quiet one in the crowd at this family reunion is Hard Work.

Leadership Caffeine™-Churchill on Overcoming Adversity

You’re to be excused if you feel like you live in a world under siege. From wars and violence to natural disasters and man-made financial and governing catastrophes, these are most definitely challenging times. Winston Churchill, the remarkable wartime leader of Great Britain, served as a source of strength and motivation for an entire nation with his dogged determination to survive and ultimately succeed in the face of incredible adversity. And while perhaps today’s situation doesn’t quite rival that of the early 1940’s, a little dose of Churchill seems appropriate at this interesting point in time.

Leadership Caffeine™: Respectfully Speaking, Let’s Cure Respect Deficit Disorder

Newsflash: The Center for Leadership Diseases (CLD) has just announced an addition to their growing list of maladies and afflictions running rampant through the leadership and customer service communities. Respect Deficit Disorder (RDD) has officially been added to a list of maladies that includes Two-Dimensional Leader Disease (2DLD) and Tired Leader Syndrome (TLS). In this era of runaway deficits, it seems that the need to treat others…especially those who work for and with us well..it has run away.

Leadership Caffeine™: Assessing the View on You

Understanding how big your “perception gap” is and working to close this gap is an important part of your professional development program, regardless of your role. And like everything else in life worth pursuing, measuring and managing your “perception gap” takes time, effort and the willingness to do something about the problem-areas. Here are 11 Actions that will help you measure and manage your perception gap.

Leadership Caffeine™-Quit Sending Mixed Signals

How consistent are you in your approaches to dealing with people and problems? Is there an early warning system in place in your office that tracks your every move from the car through the parking lot and into the office? How you respond to people and to situations (victories, losses, mistakes etc.) goes a long way to forming the working environment on your team.

Leadership Caffeine™: In the Face of Strong Headwinds, Learn to Tack

We face dozens of moments every day where instinct tells us to turn straight into the wind and apply brute force to solve problems, resolve squabbles and keep people moving. Sometimes, our instinct is wrong. Instead of offering a quick solution or mandating an end to squabbling, effective leaders adjust their course by learning to tack. Here are 5 ideas to help you learn this valuable skill when facing significant headwinds in the workplace...

Leadership Caffeine™: Motivate with Context

We waste fortunes inside our organizations on misguided programs and oddball incentives, seeking ways to motivate and inspire people to work hard, innovate, create, care and to live up to their potential, when the real solution is literally on the tip of our tongues. Here are 5 ideas for curing Context Deficit Disorder:

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