Dear Madeleine, I read your last blog Not Sure How to Address Burnout? with interest. I work in consulting with one of the big five consulting firms. We hire go-getters and work them hard. The competition is fierce and only the most driven get promoted. The rewards are, shall I say, significant—but I won’t lie,…
Dear Madeleine, I manage a small team in a big company. Here is my problem. I start my day at 7 a.m. with a meeting, and then my entire day is back-to-back meetings. Almost every meeting generates work for me to do or to delegate to someone on my team—which requires another meeting. When am…
Dear Madeleine, I work on a team where I am the only member who is remote. Pre-Covid we all worked together at the office, but during the shutdown I took advantage of my company’s remote-work option and moved back to my hometown to be closer to my parents who need help. Many of our meetings…
Dear Madeleine, I am a senior sales manager in a mid-sized company. I love the company, the work we do, and the people. I have been identified as a high potential. My team always hits goal, I get consistently excellent performance reviews, and I have every expectation that I will have a shot at chief…
Dear Madeleine, I work for a national mortgage company and recently took over a team from a leader who had led it for 37 years. Every single person on the team is more experienced in the business of the team than I am. And every one of them is very disengaged because their former leader…
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, I live and work in a third-world country. I got scholarships and completed a master’s degree in business and computer science and have an excellent, high-paying job. I have built a strong team of people who work for me. My problem isn’t them, it is the culture we work in. Many of my…
Dear Madeleine I work at a large global company. I was recruited right out of college. I was homeschooled, went to college early, and completed my undergrad and masters in four years. I only mention this to explain how I am a senior manager at 30. The only people who know my age are in…
Dear Madeleine, I manage three large global teams. They do similar customer service, but for different product lines. They all have very seasoned team leads and produce excellent results. Our business really took off because of the pandemic and we implemented a data-driven way to measure results that has worked well. For a long time…
Dear Madeleine, I manage a small team for a startup health and wellbeing subscription platform. I was super excited at the beginning—the founders seemed to have the right values and care about their employees. As time has passed, though, the competition has increased and none of the strategic targets have been met. With every all-company…