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, What do I do if I just can’t connect with one of my direct reports? I was recently promoted and inherited a whole new team in addition to the one I had before. The team is good and was well led (the leader left for another opportunity). I get along really well with…
Dear Madeleine, I have a new friend at work, and she is so great. At least she was. We met when we volunteered to be on a committee for a big company community outreach event. We work in different areas of the company. I have been here a lot longer, and am senior to her,…
Dear Madeleine, I was recently promoted to lead a team I’ve been on for over a year. We started out with a very good team leader, but it became apparent that he was leading too many teams and didn’t have the time. He recommended to his boss that I take it on. He asked me…
Trust is the foundation of success, and the pandemic is putting enormous pressure on it. COVID has created a historic amount of stress and anxiety, which is testing the bonds of trust we have with each other. Making things more difficult is how seldom leaders and team members meet face to face these days, combined…
“Relationships And Results.” Which of those three words is most important? I posed that question to over 100 participants in a series of workshops I recently conducted for a client. As you might suspect, about half the people thought relationships was the most important word. Their rationale essentially boiled down to people are the ones…
Dear Madeleine, I had a best friend at work for several years, but about six months ago she left and took another job. I was very sad but after a while started becoming friendly with a newer employee. I’ll call her Rose. I thought Rose and I were on the same page until last week…
Dear Madeleine, I am a team lead in the R&D department of a pharmaceutical company. We are all scientists and engineers and the work is interesting and fun. I really like managing my team and they seem to be happy with me. My problem is that my new boss is just awful. We loved our…
Dear Madeleine, It still will be months until my company invites us all back to work in the office, so until then, we are all WFH. I miss my work friends and the hallway conversations that helped us deal with situations on the fly. I definitely don’t miss the commute or having to make myself…
Dear Madeleine, I am a middle-aged accounting professional; I pride myself on working quickly and accurately. I was hoping this would be my last position and I could enjoy having a solid job that would take me to my retirement. I am in a CPA firm with three partners who are pretty much hands-off. Recently…