As you struggle to balance your work and life, two things you're likely desiring are more time and more energy. Especially, now when the lines between work and life tends is blurry—you can feel short on both. As you worry about not having enough time to do everything you want to do, your stress levels climb and your energy levels plummet. And that creates this vicious cycle … [Read more...]
5 Tried-and-True Motivation Tactics
Looking for new ways to keep your employees motivated? Don’t trust your team’s motivation to quick fixes that promise to boost morale. Instead, depend on these good old-fashioned management strategies: Make sure workloads are reasonable. The current mantra is “do more with less.” Be extra diligent in ensuring that employees’ workloads are realistic. How do you know if … [Read more...]
Putting Out Fires: Stop, Drop and Role
I’ve worked with well-meaning, highly-principled leaders and managers for years. When the topic of coaching and developing their employees comes up, I often hear that they know coaching is important, they want to coach more, but they don’t have time because they are too busy “putting out fires.” Right now, that probably has never been more true. The pandemic put many leaders … [Read more...]
When You are Leading Your Former Boss
Leadership can create some interesting personal dynamics. This is one that's not all that uncommon. https://youtu.be/3l87vFTEpds?rel=0&showinfo=0 Tweet it out: Leading your former boss requires conversation, confidence, finesse and plenty of humility. @KevinEikenberry … [Read more...]
8 Qualities the Best Managers Possess, According to Real Managers
What skills do the best leaders possess? The answer might depend on whom you ask, the industry you're in, your organizational culture, and even your team dynamics. Still, it's a question worth considering, and who better to answer it than real managers doing the work everyday. The folks at MindTools.com set out to gain some insight by surveying 15,242 managers and … [Read more...]
6 Steps to Spur Your Team to Work Together
On your team, you want everyone working together, striving to hit the same goals. It seems like it ought to be easy. After all, everyone is on the same team. However, the more people who are involved on your team and in your organization, the harder all that becomes. People create their own goals and purposes for work. They become more self-focused and seem to have less of a … [Read more...]
3 Times You Should Change Your Perception
Have you ever left a movie and talked with someone about it, and it seemed like the two of you saw two completely different movies? You each noticed different things, cared about different aspects and were moved in different ways by different parts of the film? Since we each have our own powerful perceptions, that is easy to understand. Each person sees what his/her brain … [Read more...]
9 Communication Tips You Need to Master if You Want to Lead
If you want to be a great manager and leader, heed these 10 important bits of advice: Listen. We all need to spend WAY less time talking and A LOT more time listening. And I don’t mean just keeping your mouth shut for the sake of keeping it shut. I mean really listening. Listen to what’s being said, and what isn’t. Listen for clues about office culture and politics. Listen … [Read more...]
It’s Time to Hire: Don’t Botch This Critical Task
Most leaders can cop to hiring the wrong person at one point or the other. Perhaps they were dazzled by an impressive resume and overlooked key requirements for the job. Maybe they were tight on budget so they hired someone on the cheap, when much more experienced (and expensive) talent was needed. They could have been influenced by someone to make the hire, rushed through … [Read more...]
[Infographic]: 10 Productivity Hacks to Transform Every Business Meeting
It's that time of year again when businesses across the U.S. start gearing up for next year. Budgets are analyzed and set. Marketing and sales plans begin to take shape. Teams assess their resource and manpower needs. And more. What does all that mean? Nearly everyone will be in meetings, potentially time-sucking, energy-draining meetings. That's why it is perfect timing to … [Read more...]