Dear Madeleine, I have been a student of leadership ever since I became a supervisor in my first job in the early 90s. I am now a VP of services for a collection of call centers across the UK. I have practiced to the best of my ability everything I have learned from Ken Blanchard’s…
Dear Madeleine, I manage a team of mostly young people, all of whom manage internal communications for a global manufacturing company. A few years ago the company went to an unlimited paid time off policy. I have read a lot about the effects of unlimited PTO, and note that the biggest risk is that people…
Dear Madeleine, I am a marketing director for a medical devices company. I manage all our social media and speaking engagements, which involves a lot of details and spreadsheets with tasks and tracking results. Part of my job is to conduct interviews with experts and write them up for our website, and to write articles…
Dear Madeleine, I read your last blog Not Sure How to Address Burnout? with interest. I work in consulting with one of the big five consulting firms. We hire go-getters and work them hard. The competition is fierce and only the most driven get promoted. The rewards are, shall I say, significant—but I won’t lie,…
Dear Madeleine, I am a regional president for a global financial services company. About five years ago, I hired a whiz kid to inject some creativity and innovation into our use of technology and how we approach our regional customer acquisition. He is technically a genius in terms of IQ, and he excels at grasping…
Dear Madeleine, I’m a tech founder and have developed a tool called “burnout tracker,” which is embedded into our 1:1 tool. Without going into too much detail, the tracker is able to predict when a support conversation between manager and employee is needed. Here’s my challenge: What is common sense to me seems to be…
Dear Madeleine, I work in fashion manufacturing. I was promoted about six months ago. I manage the supply chain, timelines for delivery of goods, etc. I have a huge team and work all hours because I am in western Europe and my teams are in China, Mexico, and Vietnam. When I took the job, things…
Dear Madeleine, I am an HR generalist working at a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust). Our CEO started the company about eight years ago, and I have been his right hand since the beginning. He is a genius in many ways—high IQ, a deep intuitive understanding of the real estate markets, a complete whiz with…
Dear Madeleine, I am a senior manager and have managed people for decades. I am a student of leadership and work every day to be a better leader. Here is something I am having trouble putting into words, but I hope you have some inspiration for me. I make a big effort to help my…
Dear Madeleine, I manage a small team in a big company. Here is my problem. I start my day at 7 a.m. with a meeting, and then my entire day is back-to-back meetings. Almost every meeting generates work for me to do or to delegate to someone on my team—which requires another meeting. When am…
Dear Madeleine, My boss is just awful. He is the son of a friend of the owner, and the owner has no idea how he treats people. Although he comes from a company in our industry, where he was the operations manager, he really doesn’t understand how different things are here. I love my job.…
Dear Madeleine, I just read one of your past columns entitled Latest Team Member Causing Chaos? I recognized the person as what I call HOF—“Hair On Fire”—and we have someone like that at our company. I have been working here for 35 years. I now work directly with HOF herself, and I’ve begun looking for…
Dear Madeleine, I work for a large publishing company. I started here because my dream is to someday be a published author, so I thought I would at least be in the industry. I have been here for four years. I started in marketing and am now an editorial assistant, which sounds a lot loftier…
Dear Madeleine, I am the CEO of a mid-sized business. I was the COO for many years and stepped into the CEO role six months ago. The good news is that the business is in good shape—there is a high demand for our products. The bad news is that it could be so much better.…
Dear Madeleine, I work on a team where I am the only member who is remote. Pre-Covid we all worked together at the office, but during the shutdown I took advantage of my company’s remote-work option and moved back to my hometown to be closer to my parents who need help. Many of our meetings…
