Setting expectations is one of the basic fundamentals of management; yet, many managers fail to do this very important step effectively. Setting expectations first requires planning. The more time you invest on the front end, the more effective your team will be when it is in operations mode. The second component of setting expectations requires communication skills. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Education
5 Transitions Great Leaders Make That Average Leaders Don’t
The secret to leadership is there aren’t any real secrets. The best leaders have simply gone to school on improving their tradecraft. While the capabilities possessed by the best leaders might seem otherworldly to many, they are merely the outcome of hard work, experience, perspective, and yes, a bit of luck. The best leaders have just learned to make certain transitions that less effective leaders curiously remain blind to.
Some leaders hit their stride early in their career, others find their path later in life, and regrettably, far too many leaders never seem to get their footing. Great leaders discover pivot points and transitions that create a certain rhythm and balance, while average leaders tend to be somewhat tone deaf and awkward. We all recognize great leadership when we see it, but many fail to see what it is that actually makes the leader great. Following are 5 key transitions great leaders make that average leaders do not. Continue reading
Getting that First Promotion
by John Beeson
If you’ve been at your company for a few years and hope to move up to the next level, you may feel like you’re standing at an airport looking up to see one plane after another stacked up in a holding pattern. That’s because promotion rates in most industries have slowed dramatically since the recession, creating a backlog of talented employees intent on moving ahead. Continue reading
Impact Players Make More Money
by Gayle Hilgendorff
We got two feet of snow in Boston last weekend. It was an all out blizzard. The city shut down on Friday at noon and reopened Monday morning. It was like Christmas Eve – “Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse”. As of Friday night, if you were caught driving on the road, you were given a $500 ticket and threatened jail time. All public transportation closed at 3:30 – ALL of it. Buses, trains, subways, everything.
There was nowhere to go and nothing to do but sit inside and wait it out. Continue reading
Want Productive Employees? Treat Them Like Adults
by Tony Schwartz
For more than a decade now, I’ve struggled to define what fuels the most sustainably productive work environment — not just on behalf of the large corporate clients we serve, but also for my own employees at The Energy Project. Perhaps nothing I’ve uncovered is as important as trust.
Much as employers understandably hunger for one-size-fits-all policies and practices, what motivates human beings remains stubbornly complex, opaque, and difficult to unravel. Perhaps that’s why I felt so viscerally the shortsightedness and futility of Marissa Mayer’s decision to order Yahoo employees who had been working from home to move back to the office, and Hubert Joly’s to do the same at Best Buy. Continue reading