Dear Madeleine, I have been working for a company for a few years now. They moved to an Unlimited PTO policy just as I joined. It was heavily promoted in the recruiting stage. Things went fine the first couple of years. I took the typical PTO breaks—December holiday time, a couple of days in the…
Dear Madeleine, This isn’t really a work problem, it is a life problem caused by success at work. I am the CEO of a respected company and have been successful beyond my wildest dreams. I was the first in my family to go to college, let alone get an advanced degree. I am incredibly persistent…
Dear Madeleine, I am the operations lead for a region in a global manufacturing company. I oversee physical plants and offices, and work closely with HR around issues of safety and compliance and supply chain. You name it, most problems end up on my desk. I manage four teams that report to me. I am…
Dear Madeleine, Is it naïve to want people to like me? I have been very successful at sales and developing partnerships in my job, partially because I am so good at knowing how to relate to people and getting them to like me. But recently I am beginning to wonder if having people like me—and…
Dear Madeleine, A few years back, I started working for a boutique real estate investment trust (REIT) company. I was inadvertently so good at it that I was made a junior partner in two years. I relocated to California to open the West Coast office and my opening move was to land a massive deal.…
Dear Madeleine, I recently got a new manager. At first everything was fine. She did a big reorganization of our group, some of my duties where shifted, and I took on some new ones. I am still on a learning curve but I am getting there. She also hired four new people who followed her…
Dear Madeleine, I have a great job in a company I love. I was recently offered a promotion. Even though I thought the change in compensation didn’t reflect the increased responsibility, I was so happy to even be considered that I jumped at it. I now have four direct reports. Here’s the problem: as the…
Dear Madeleine, I am senior project manager for a global construction firm. I am one of the very few women in the organization, and wouldn’t you know, my problem is with one of them. She is a peer to me, and we have very different but overlapping roles. The fundamental problem is that she changes…
Dear Madeleine, I am going to start a role in a new team soon. I’m hoping you can give me some advice on how to seem confident and establish credibility. I am on the younger side and I am not a very confident person to begin with. In my previous roles, I noticed that some…
Dear Madeleine, I am a regional sales director for a company that installs gutters for houses. I have spent endless time training my people to map out exactly what is needed for each house. We created beautiful online templates so salespeople could provide the detail that the install team needs to show up with the…