Dear Madeleine, I lead a business unit for a global manufacturing company and have been in the role for about 18 months. I took over for someone who was completely checked out and it was a bit of a mess. It has taken me this long just to untangle the log jams and uncover all…
Dear Madeleine, I lead a team of eight employees. One of them is dealing with a personal crisis outside of work and I can see he is struggling. This isn’t the first time I’ve had an employee dealing with crisis, given COVID, but somehow I have managed to get by. I want to be the…
Dear Madeleine, I am a VP in an organization and I have a decent team, all of whom I inherited when I joined the organization two years ago. Everyone on my team is experienced and considered senior. I have done everything I can think of to make everyone’s role and responsibilities crystal clear—yet I find…
Dear Madeleine, I started working for a US-based company about nine months ago. It is a hybrid role where I go into the office two to three days a week and work from home the other days. The job is perfect for me—just challenging enough. I feel that I can do my best and do…
Dear Madeleine, I supervise a number of educational professionals who are required to report to a team (including parents) regarding their evaluation. A recent hire, with more than 25 years’ experience in the field, uses phrases such as “um” and “you know” excessively when giving his evaluation results to the team. At a recent meeting,…
Dear Madeleine, My boss is amazing. She has been a mentor for me and I admire her and learn from her every day. She has freakish stamina, is extremely bright and creative, and has a ton of experience and a huge grasp of strategy, management, and execution. There is nothing I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking…
Dear Madeleine, About three months ago, my boss told me that I was in line for a promotion. It is now the middle of December and I haven’t heard a word. I asked about it at my last one-on-one and he looked at me funny and then changed the subject. I don’t think he remembers…
Dear Madeleine, I know I am supposed to have regular one on one meetings with my employees and I have been doing it for a long time. It works well—I feel more connected to each of them and they are all doing really well. Except one. I have one direct report who is very good…
Leadership, learning, and talent development professionals are sometimes a little nervous talking with chief financial officers. CFOs ask hard questions and want to see demonstrable bottom-line impact for training initiatives being proposed. It doesn’t have to be an adversarial relationship, says Craig Spitz, CFO at The Ken Blanchard Companies. “As gatekeeper of the financials, the…
Dear Madeleine, I am a senior leader in a large commercial services organization. I spent many years learning how to make good use of an assistant and I’ve always made sure I had a great one. Over the last few years, the company has been reducing the size of the administration group and I have…