Dear Madeleine, I had my first baby three years ago and now have another one on the way. I am an attorney in a New York law firm and the main breadwinner in our family. My spouse works from home and does the lion’s share of the child care. As soon as I started showing…
Dear Madeleine, I am a fairly new manager for a giant tech company, with only one direct report. Over the last year our upper management has been consolidating departments and flattening things out. I am pretty sure my direct report and I are going to be either folded into another group or let go altogether.…
Leadership, learning, and talent development professionals are sometimes a little nervous talking with chief financial officers. CFOs ask hard questions and want to see demonstrable bottom-line impact for training initiatives being proposed. It doesn’t have to be an adversarial relationship, says Craig Spitz, CFO at The Ken Blanchard Companies. “As gatekeeper of the financials, the…
Leadership needs to be more of a partnership. And the responsibility for leadership has to rest with more than just the leader says Susan Fowler, co-creator of The Ken Blanchard Companies newly redesigned Self Leadership program. “Some people in organizations don’t realize that the quality of their work experience depends on their being a good…
Responsibility for leadership shouldn’t fall on only the person with position power. Leadership needs to be more of a partnership, according to Susan Fowler, co-creator of the newly redesigned Self Leadership program from The Ken Blanchard Companies. “We have to look at leadership as a two-sided coin,” says Fowler. “Some people in organizations don’t realize…
I can’t get what I need. My boss doesn’t understand me. My organization’s systems don’t work. I don’t have the resources I need. My job doesn’t take advantage of my strengths. No one appreciates me. My boss micromanages me. There’s no room for me to grow. They don’t understand how much I could be contributing…
Dear Madeleine, I work in a very large company and have managed a small team for a couple of years. About a year ago, my department got a new leader, who is my manager’s boss. This new leader came from another part of the company and apparently is being groomed for the senior leadership team. …
An essential mindset for achieving your goals and contributing to the goals of others is recognizing and appreciating your power at work. I’ve witnessed many amazing transformations as individuals altered their mindset related to power, explored their points of power, and proactively created positive change. This transformation begins by recognizing an important truth about power:…
Dear Madeleine, I’ve recently been promoted to my first managerial role. Prior to my promotion, I had been an individual contributor here for more than 14 years. My new role has me climbing a steep learning curve because I am not working in the same group I had been in before. I’m not worried about…
The fast-paced nature of today’s work environment can create stress and anxiety for workers at all levels in an organization—but especially those responsible for getting things out the door on a daily basis. Even the most organized and efficient among us can feel the strain. Looking for some relief? Recent research confirms that a little…