When I first started managing teams in my 20s, I was stubborn as hell. I thought I always knew best. If someone...
CATEGORY ARCHIVE
Manager
Lighten Up, Boss
Last week, while MC-ing a conference, I fell through a chair on stage. In front of a hundred people. Cue gasps. A...
Robots Can’t Replace Great Managers – Yet
AI … the new kid on the block. The shiny toy 🎁 we all need to play with (apparently). It's swallowing up a lot of...
Wrapping Up 2024 – Key Leadership Takeaways
As Father Christmas stocks up on wrapping paper from Costco, it’s a good moment to pause and reflect on another year...
Jekyll & Hyde Managers
This week, a Guardian article caught my eye: “Jekyll and Hyde managers: erratic behaviour bosses revealed by research”...
Beware The Angry Email
How do you deal with staff members who are difficult or annoying?That question was posed to me this week, by a manager...
Imposter Syndrome for Managers
When I was growing up, this didn’t exist. It was simply called, “lacking confidence”. Doubting yourself. Now, it's a...
Swimming in a Tuxedo
I hate swimming 😂 Yesterday at the pool, I was lucky enough to get a lane all...
More Meetings? No Thanks
“We used to make things. Now we have meetings.” So said James Surowiecki in an Economist article titled, “Why Satan...
Nah, I’m Not Like That
“The problem with self-awareness is everyone thinks they're self-aware." So said a C-Level Executive to me at a bar in...
Frustrated Managers – Dealing With Difficult Staff
“It will take me so long to get home I’ll have to go to bed straight away.” “Is my travel time considered work time?”...
Manager as Mentor
Struggling to retain staff? You need to mentor them. I moved from Perth to Sydney for work at the bright-eyed age of...
Are You A People Pleaser?
I listened to a podcast this week where a manager was talking about being afraid of losing staff due to the current...
Gen X, Y, Z – Who Cares?
I wrote recently about how managers and leaders are getting frustrated with the rise of Gen Me. That is, Generation...
First Job, First Boss
Remember your first job as a kid? Mine started at the age of 15 as a shelf-filler at Tesco supermarket, the UK...
Be My Friend?
Should you become friends with your staff? It's a question that gets asked in my talks and workshops. Here's my view:...
It’s The Little Things
Don’t sweat the small stuff - that's the classic saying, right? When it comes to managing people at work, does this...
A Bit Of Gratitude
Last night I put on a pair of runners and made my way to the Botanical Gardens (“the Tan”) here in Melbourne. It's a...
Check In … Not Up
Early April is an ideal time to run quarterly 1-on-1s with your staff.Over the years, I've found it's these meetings...
Manager vs Leader – The Silly Debate
Some years ago, a canny consultant spotted an opportunity to make lots of money. It centered around convincing people...