Management Skills

4 sins of leadership

October 25, 2017
To succeed, you need employees to buy in to your goals and commit to putting in the effort to hit them. The last thing you want to do is alienate them by committing these leadership sins.

Break big challenge into little chunks

October 6, 2017
“We were only one-tenth of where we needed to be in terms of making progress on this initiative. Our chief operating officer advised me, ‘We’ve got to take on this problem in bite-size chunks.’”

Employee set to bolt? Read the signs

September 22, 2017
Given that recent research by the Society of Human Resources Management indicates just 38% of employees in the United States are very satisfied with their job, there’s a good chance your employees may be unhappy at work—despite what they share verbally.

Solving ‘unsolvable’ problems

September 15, 2017
One feature of good leadership is that only the intractable problems come to you. As long as you don’t micromanage, you should only be asked to solve problems your people can’t solve themselves.

Use your ‘poker face’ when hearing complaints

September 14, 2017
When listening to employee complaints of potential discrimination or harassment, your brain may be thinking “You’ve got to be kidding me!” but your face and voice need to say, “I hear your complaint and will investigate it fully.”

On keeping calm

September 11, 2017
No matter how emotionally intelligent we think we are, situations will test us. Try to put these tips into practice when your anger mounts.

Welcome dissent from everyone

September 10, 2017
The highlight of engineering firm Burns & McDonnell’s Principals Day is when the CEO presents a specific business problem to the 120-year-old company’s top employees and gives them one hour to come up with five potential solutions.

Myth: Happy people are more productive

September 10, 2017
According to this myth, all a supervisor has to do is to keep his or her people happy. If he or she does, the work will take care of itself.

Run an all-hands meeting

August 23, 2017
Gathering your entire organization together is a great way to share information and boost transparency. Follow these tips to run a meeting effectively.

The worst way to introduce a newbie

August 23, 2017
Got a new employee on board? Great! Now it’s time to introduce him to the staff. Just don’t make this misstep.