Is your feedback doing more harm than good for your employees’ performance? Feedback can be key to improving performance. Yet when feedback sessions are poorly delivered, they harm employee engagement and productivity levels. A pivotal meta-analysis suggests that although almost…
A “sandwich approach” for giving negative feedback to direct reports is a common method in which the negative feedback is sandwiched between two pieces of positive feedback. But this sandwich approach may be undermining both your feedback and your relationship…
Virtually all of the young executives want to be good managers and mentors; they just don’t have the time — or so they believe. It’s not easy to help your employees develop as you take advantage of every business opportunity.…
Almost every leader wants to make more time for strategic thinking. In one survey of 10,000 senior leaders, 97% said that being strategic was the leadership behavior most important to their organization’s success. And yet in another study, a full 96%…
“I get completely caught up in fire-fighting and can’t find the time to advance my longer-term priorities.”- It’s a common managerial wailing. We all have either used it ourselves or have heard people around us use it at work. The…
Humor in business is considered frivolous. It dilutes the message. Business is about achievement, productivity, making money, accomplishing tangible things. However, we as human beings learn best in moments of enjoyment, and by personal experience. Thomas Wright, a professor of…
There is a paradox when it comes to what we expect in leaders. On one hand, we believe that effective leaders display humility — they bring out the best in others, are open to admitting their shortcomings and mistakes, and give…
You sometimes hear managers complain that their organization has no strategy. This isn’t true! Every organization has a strategy: its strategy is what it does. Think about it. Every organization competes in a particular place, in a particular way, and…
Approximately 40% of CEOs are MBAs. Many large-scale studies have found that leadership based solely on MBA-trained logic, is not always enough for delivering long-term financial and cultural results, and it is often detrimental to an organization’s productivity. In one study,…