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:

Leadership Caffeine™: Making Time to Glimpse the Future and Re-Think

As technology finally begins to catch up to our long-standing vision for how it can positively change our work lives and our businesses, it may just be time for us to rethink our stone-age approaches on how we work. If you’ve not pushed yourself to explore the new tools, and if you are responsible in some form or fashion for pushing the envelope on how your firm competes in the market, engages clients and arms its people to win, it might just be time to spend a few minutes focusing on the future.

Leadership Caffeine™: Coping with Workplace Critics

I’ve yet to accomplish anything worth a damn when I didn’t have a fair number of critics lined up and all too happy to tell me why I was out of my mind. It’s a fair bet you’ve seen this before as well. In my experience, the more audacious and creative the idea, program or strategy, the more vocal the critics become. Here are five ideas to help you cope with the worst of your workplace critics.

Go to Top