Dear Madeleine, I am a fairly new marketing manager for a large consumer goods firm. I have three great people who work for me—I inherited them, so I lucked out. We function like a well-oiled machine. The problem is my boss. She was promoted about two years ago and now oversees several managers of different…
Power. The word itself evokes a reaction. What thoughts or feelings do you have when you think of power? Perhaps you picture an organizational chart where the boxes at the top are imbued with more power than those below. Maybe you imagine an iron fist, representative of a person who rules over others with absolute authority.…
Measuring the impact of coaching is harder than one might think. That’s why it’s essential that any person being coached has a robust development plan that identifies a positive set of outcomes and steps along the way. Here is what we’ve learned after coaching executives for more than 16 years. Be specific—specificity is KEY. In…
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…
“Too many leaders have been conditioned to think of leadership only in terms of power and control,” says best-selling business author Ken Blanchard in the July/August issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine. “But there is a better way to lead—one that combines equal parts serving and leading. This kind of leadership requires a special kind…
Dear Madeleine, I am a young, new manager at a large health food grocery. I love the company, I love the job, and I am really learning a lot about being a new manager. Here is my problem: when I joined the company as a cashier, I told one of my friends about my new…
Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Each of these one-word questions can push organizational leaders and their team members toward the clarity they need to achieve success. In this post I’d like to focus on who and what. When leaders set clear expectations, outcomes are much more likely to hit the mark. And it’s just…
