High performing teams are a joy to watch, aren’t they? Team members are committed to the team’s purpose, each other, and work seamlessly together to achieve the team’s goal. Each person knows his or her role, is highly motivated, and will willingly sacrifice their moment in the spotlight if it helps the team win. Why?…
Dear Madeleine, I recently took a director level job with a huge Fortune 50 organization. I have been thrown into the deep end and I am worried about completely bombing out. I have had zero onboarding, so I am constantly making errors and spending tons of time backtracking and clearing things up. I am really…
Learn six strategies for turning a pressure situation into an opportunity. In this episode, Judd Hoekstra, coauthor of Crunch Time: How to be Your Best When It Matters Most, talks about the skill of reframing—intentionally thinking about a situation in a new or different way to improve performance. “When faced with a stressful situation, it…
In his work consulting with business leaders at top organizations around the world, best-selling author Ken Blanchard explains that for best results, leaders need to combine a focus on people with a simultaneous focus on results. It’s this one-two combination that delivers the greatest impact. Managers need to have a shared responsibility with direct reports…
Dear Madeleine, I am a senior leader in a large nonprofit. My big struggle is with one employee who seems emotionally unstable. One day she is completely reasonable and easygoing, and the next she is reactive and flying off the handle for no apparent reason. I’ve learned to expect it, but her behavior is affecting…
Dear Madeleine, I head up one of several R&D teams at a global consumer goods company. My team is amazing—brilliant, eccentric, creative, fun people who are blowing away their goals. (It takes a certain type of person to be good at what we do.) Here is my problem. Some of my folks are good at…
Too many leaders have been conditioned to think of leadership only in terms of power and control. But there is a better way to lead, says best-selling business author Ken Blanchard—one that combines equal parts serving and leading. This kind of leadership requires a special kind of leader: a servant leader. “In this model,” says…
Dear Madeleine, I am a new manager. I have twelve folks reporting to me and it is going perfectly, except for one person (I will call him “A”). There seems to be a fundamental disconnect between how he sees his own performance (superior) and how others see his performance (subpar). I am continually confused by…
Those of us who work with or are followers of Ken Blanchard have all heard the expression “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” We’ve also read dozens of examples of when and how to give feedback to get to best possible outcome. Read on for a slightly different take on how to approach feedback. As…
Dear Madeleine, I am a mid-level manager with a large team in a low-profile but significant government agency. I say significant because substantial numbers of citizens depend on us for critical services. The chaos here has been profound over the last year or so. Senior leaders keep quitting or getting fired, mandates turn on a…