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, I manage a team that has been working together for a long time, although one person recently left. Her replacement is a new high performer who is settling nicely into the job. He has all the experience and skills we were looking for, but he hasn’t quite figured out our culture or the…
Dear Madeleine, I get no feedback. I like my job, my boss, the team I work with, and my company. At every annual review I write my own review first and my manager adds her two cents, always pointing out ways I contribute that I hadn’t thought about or had forgotten. So I do get…
Dear Madeleine, I run a large team for a media company. The CEO has a lot of strengths but is inconsistent and often irrational. My team is constantly on the hook to respond to endless PR issues, so we never quite know what is coming at us. Before Covid we all came to the office…
People want an empathetic leader. Many managers strive to be one. But ask someone to define the term, and you’re likely to be met with silence. Let’s start with the definition. According to Merriam-Webster, empathy means “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of…
Dear Madeleine, I am a VP in an organization and I have a decent team, all of whom I inherited when I joined the organization two years ago. Everyone on my team is experienced and considered senior. I have done everything I can think of to make everyone’s role and responsibilities crystal clear—yet I find…
There’s been a flood of articles lately about psychological safety—and for good reason. It is essential if people are to be engaged and productive. It is the foundation for a dynamic, vibrant workplace. And it is woefully missing at most companies. Psychological safety happens in a workplace when people feel free to speak their mind,…
It’s Women’s History Month—time to celebrate women’s accomplishments in the workplace! It’s essential to take a moment to recognize our contributions when you consider that in 2020 women still made just 84% of what men earned for the same job and were significantly underrepresented in leadership roles, according to Pew Research. The argument about whether…
The hybrid/virtual work world presents many challenges for leaders. One of them is creating a culture of accountability. Some leaders still think accountability equals “butts in seats.” But that outdated belief has become completely antiquated during the pandemic. People have proven they can succeed in a remote work environment. Considering how quickly the workplace is…
In my new book Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust—cowritten with my colleague, trust expert Randy Conley—we take a look at some practical, day-to-day leadership principles leaders can apply in their organizations. Simple Truths of Leadership is broken down into 52 concepts/quotes, half on the topic of…