Leadership Caffeine Archives

Leadership Caffeine™-Effective Leaders Learn to Pivot

Like the brother-in-law that you dodge at family gatherings to avoid his pitch on the latest “can’t fail, get rich quick” business scheme, some people are involved in a constant game of that childhood classic, Chutes and Ladders. Catch one ladder and you skip over the rest of us as we wind our way along on journeys of unknown destination and duration. Occasionally, these short-cut seekers find their way into positions of business and leadership responsibility, and the results range from a preoccupation with the near-term to overt decisions to cut corners in an attempt to move faster. However, the effective leader recognizes that there are no true short-cuts.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:38:51-05:00June 14th, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|1 Comment

Leadership Caffeine™-5 Ideas for Improving Your Ability to Engage as a Leader

Some leaders move through their days like a flat rock skipping over the surface of a pond. They are focused on personal efficiency and speed, and the faster they move and the more decisions that they make, the better they believe they are doing as leaders. They are transactional leaders. Their days are blurs of decisions, quick meetings, hurried hallway exchanges and even more hurried text and e-mail messages, often created while they are present but not engaged in the event or conversation of the moment. If improving performance, fostering a culture of learning and innovation and developing the confidence to tackle the tough topics are all important for your firm, it’s time to engage more and transact less.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:39:52-05:00May 24th, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|9 Comments

Leadership Caffeine™: 7 Ideas to Help Leverage Different Perspectives on Your Team

One of the most common tripping points of both early-career and experienced leaders is assuming that people are looking at issues and drawing similar conclusions. Your goal as a leader must be to help create a common picture and to facilitate the development of creative solutions. This starts with recognizing that differences in perspective are the building blocks for creative solutions.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:39:59-05:00May 10th, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|9 Comments

Leadership Caffeine™: 3 Ideas for Sharpening Your Skills

Fresh from a weekend of rediscovering the lawn and gardening muscles that clearly took the winter off, I found myself happy that I was able to quickly access freshly sharpened, well-oiled tools. As any good tradesman or craftsman (or weekend gardener) will tell you, there is no substitute for the right tool, properly maintained, when you need it. The same goes for leaders.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:40:01-05:00May 3rd, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|7 Comments

Leadership Caffeine™: For a Change, Look At What’s Working

Consider these common refrains from two different leaders:Leader 1: “That’s great! Congratulations! How do we do more of that?” Leader 2: “That’s broken and we need to fix it right away.” We have all met both of these characters. One sees opportunity and achievement and building blocks everywhere she looks and the other sees flaws and problems that need fixing. And while you are free to accuse me of making a hasty generalization here, my “blink” assessment of the two is that I want to hire or work for Leader #1

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:40:04-05:00April 26th, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|7 Comments

Leadership Caffeine™-It’s Time to Frame Your Professional Positioning Strategy

What do peers and managers perceive is unique about you in the workplace? What do you do so well, so uniquely that makes people stop and take notice? What’s your personal positioning strategy that meaningfully differentiates you from others in the minds of your customers, managers and stakeholders? You’re to be excused if you need to reach for another cup of coffee while you contemplate these “brand called me” questions that you likely only think about once every two years when you update your resume.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:40:08-05:00April 19th, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|6 Comments

My New Project: Leadership Caffeine™-The Book

My long list of life-goals includes a few that are underlined and even circled to connote priority. Write one book per year is one of those that is double-underlined, circled and highlighted for emphasis. It’s high time that I quit thinking about this personal and professional Big Hairy Audacious Goal, and started executing. So, after too much thought and not enough work, I am excited to make public my next project: Leadership Caffeine-The Book. (Expect the title to evolve a bit.)

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:40:09-05:00April 18th, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|6 Comments

Leadership Caffeine™: Learning to Adjust Your Altitude

While the phrase is most commonly referenced as attitude adjustment, I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that one of the abilities that leaders must develop to be effective is the ability to adjust their altitudes. Good leaders learn to scale institutional and intellectual heights with ease and comfort, quickly adapting to the audience and situation.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:40:12-05:00April 12th, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|14 Comments

Leadership Caffeine™: 8 Ideas for Remaining Personally Strong as a Leader

The paternal twins, Arrogance and Laziness are experts at biding their time and waiting for an opening to slip into your leadership party. Constant vigilance is the only way to keep these destructive gatecrashers from moving in and taking up residence as permanent parts of your leadership style.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:40:15-05:00April 5th, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|16 Comments

Leadership Caffeine™: 7 Signs that Monotony and Routine Have Taken Over

Let’s face it, there’s much about the world of work for many that is monotonous or at least fairly routine. It’s easy in many roles to get lulled into the rhythms and routines of days, weeks and months. Wake-up, dress, get on the train, drink coffee, meet, talk, write, plan, meet some more and run to catch the express train home. Rinse and repeat. Monotony and routine are the natural born killers of creativity and innovation. Like weeds invading a spring lawn here in the Midwest, these twin killers quickly overwhelm the healthy pursuit of better, new and different.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:40:16-05:00March 28th, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|12 Comments