Dear Madeleine, I was promoted to VP of sales a few months before the pandemic hit. I feel like I have been in an industrial washing machine ever since, and am just starting to come up for air. There was a lot of training at the beginning but then our entire book of business and…
Dear Madeleine, I read your article called Terrified about Doing a Presentation at Work? and I am writing to see if I can get some help. I have spent 23 years in the IT industry and am still nervous about presenting. I have challenges remembering the right words during the presentation. I tend to rush and…
Now that we’ve dealt with the initial implications of leadership and development in a COVID environment, L&D professionals are increasingly turning their attention to what the future will look like in a post-COVID world. Remote working will not go away after COVID—in fact, many research firms predict that 2021 will see the number of employees…
Dear Madeleine, I manage an IT group—12 people—that does the tech stack for all supply chain management for a national chain of service providers. We also sell some product, but not a lot. I report directly to the CTO and have a good relationship with him. At the beginning of the year, after much discussion…
Dear Madeleine, I am a senior leader in a large state government agency. I’ve been here a long time. I came to the job as a high-ranking, decorated veteran and have earned an excellent reputation. I hired an employee about a year ago who seemed to have everything I was looking for. He was young,…
Dear Madeleine, I am a manager at a fairly new and fast growing software-as-a-service company. I have been managing people forever and nothing like this has ever happened to me. I recently gave some feedback to a new employee I’ll call LK. Despite having received step-by-step directions on a certain task, she had done it…
Dear Madeleine, I am a branch manager for a regional bank. We are a small crew, and everyone reports into me. Things run smoothly for the most part. I have one team member—an older woman—who has terrible body odor. It is so off putting that I lose focus each time she comes near my desk.…
Dear Madeleine, I am in a high potential program at a large global company and am being considered for fast track promotion. As part of the program, everyone did a battery of assessments. I have learned all kinds of things about myself, my strengths, my preferences, how others see me, etc. It has been enlightening…
With his first two books, Never Eat Alone and Who’s got Your Back, Keith Ferrazzi taught us the importance of building collaborative relationships. In his latest book, Leading Without Authority, Ferrazzi reinvents the art of collaboration to break down silos, transform teams, and improve overall performance of individuals. He explains that in a world of…