The Bully Pulpit, Part VI: When You’re the Bully’s Boss
Recognizing a Bully As a manager, you might not know that you have a bully reporting to you. Depending on a bully’s style, you may never observe an inappropriate interaction yourself. In these...
View ArticleAre You Coaching? Or Just Waving Your Arms?
A lot of what passes for coaching — in workplaces, in homes, even on kids’ sports teams — is really just a lot of exhortations and fervent repetitions of normative statements. Here’s an example from a...
View ArticleReapplying the Platinum Rule: How to Coach Your Boss
“How about if Part III gives advice for those with managers who fit these descriptions?” A discerning reader posed that question after reading my last two blogs, A New Element of Management, Part I:...
View ArticleHow to Manage Conflict at Work, Part VI: Back In the Manager’s Office
As the boss, you’ve encouraged your people to work things out together, and you’ve tried to create an environment of congeniality and collaboration. You’ve also tried to address the underlying...
View ArticleHow to Manage Conflict at Work, Part VII: Are You in the Manager’s Last Ditch?
So far in this series, we’ve been assuming that the opponents in the conflict are working in good faith. But not all conflicts are straightforward disputes, unfortunately. Some can’t be resolved merely...
View ArticleManagement and Coaching: Developing the Home Team, Part II
As I discussed last week in Part I, some companies no longer expect their senior managers to develop their people: They turn management development over to outsourced coaching firms instead. Now, I’m a...
View ArticleWorkplace Drama 3: The Perfect Victim
“I’m a victim! I’m a victim!” Have you dealt with someone who sounds like that — maybe not as clearly, but just as dramatically? For Perfect Victims, everything that goes wrong is the result of someone...
View ArticleWorkplace Drama 4: Messenger on a Mission
Many workplaces have a person like Ermengarde, who’s an excellent worker and a dedicated employee in her own right, but often takes it upon herself to bring to management the concerns and complaints of...
View ArticleEpilogue: A Happier Ending to Workplace Dramas
For the last few weeks, I’ve been writing about various kinds of typical workplace dramas and their instigators: The eager beaver type who’s “Overwhelmed and Overreacting;” The intelligent, intense,...
View ArticleHow to Help Your Employees Learn Self-Reliance
Luckily, some people have a natural instinct for analysis, judgment, hypotheticals, calculation of risk, and recovery from error. Some people with these skills were well trained, managed, and mentored...
View ArticleHow to Cope When Disagreement is Required
In last week’s post, an exec who didn’t wish to appear picky or small-minded missed the chance to address difficult and inappropriate situations created by her subordinate Xerxes when they were still...
View ArticleHow to Deepen Feedback and Foster Improvement
The real problem with feedback is that, regardless of how skillfully it’s given, people often don’t know what to do with it. Recent neuroimagery research by Richard Boyatzis at Case Western University...
View ArticleHow Are You Reacting to Feedback?
It can be even tougher to accept feedback than it is to give it. It’s never easy to hear that your idea, behavior, or effort didn’t have the desired effect or wasn’t well received. When you’re given...
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How to Get the Best from an Anxious Leader
After working for a number of months with a vice president who’s had a successful career trajectory in a well-regarded firm, I realized that every few years I meet leaders who are noticeably anxious —...
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How to Get the Best from an Anxious Leader
After working for a number of months with a vice president who’s had a successful career trajectory in a well-regarded firm, I realized that every few years I meet leaders who are noticeably anxious —...
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The Painful Responsibility of Staff Failure
I just got a call from a senior leader: A community outreach staffer was causing his management team some consternation. When he was hired 18 months ago, he’d approached every job with zest,...
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This Is How to Give Feedback but Not Make People Feel Stupid
“Oh, heavens,” I thought, “I’ve offended her!” I had wanted to be helpful and friendly, but instead I was confusing and possibly insulting — I had given feedback as if the problem was with the person,...
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Warning! Coaching Won’t Improve these Employee Problems
Lately, more and more leadership development, employee feedback, and general management is being outsourced from actual business decision-makers to Human Resources business partners and professional...
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You’ll Want to Try This Surprising Twist When You Give Feedback
Standard guidelines for performance feedback call for content that’s specific, behavioral rather than personal, consistent, and delivered immediately after the triggering situation. But I’d like to...
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8 Ways to Prevent Participation and Innovation
Employees can be such a headache, especially the proactive ones! They’re always asking questions, wanting things to be either some new way or the way they used to be, or else they’re making suggestions...
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