Leadership – Page 4

Explaining Compensation to Employees

February 4, 2014

Last week, the Ontario Government announced that after a 4-year freeze that they will increase the minimum wage from $10.25 per hour to $11.00 per hour. I never considered this as affecting my clientele until I was at dinner with a small business owner on Thursday evening. While she does not have any employees at ...

If you can’t manage your inbox, why would I trust you to manage anything for me?

January 24, 2014

Maybe I am old fashioned and expect a different level of business etiquette or maybe it is a generational thing, but I have a pet peeve with people who don’t or can’t manage their Inbox. Folks, we are not talking about cutting edge technology here. My first email account was set up circa 1985. In ...

Managerial Excellence: A case study in not.

January 21, 2014

It is always risky wading into any topic that involves politics or religion. That said, writing this blog was one that I could not just ignore. Stephen Harper, the Prime Minster of Canada is often cited in the media as being proud of the managerial excellence that his government has brought to office. I think ...

What is it that I do?

December 20, 2013

One of the toughest questions that I struggle to succinctly answer is: What do I do? The reason for this is that I am a generalist. Unlike many of my peers, I don’t have a detailed, specific practitioner level knowledge or certifications in accounting, finance, law, supply chain, marketing, project management, technology or human resources. ...

Being Vulnerable

December 7, 2012

A number of years ago, I learnt an important lesson about leadership. Many courses and business books talk about leadership attributes in terms of being strong, confident, assertive, driven, high energy, and focussed. I am sure you have heard or read this many times. What I learnt is the value of being humble, open, honest ...

Style versus Substance

December 1, 2012

One of the hardest parts of being a leader is developing the skill to differentiate between when an employee doing something wrong or when they are just doing something different from how you would. If you do not manage the process properly, you risk project failure or demoralized teams. A good leader does not micro-manage ...

Firing

July 5, 2012

Firing an employee is one of the hardest tasks that a leader has to do. I was recently in a discussion with an executive faced with the decision of terminating an employee. They wanted to discuss their thinking with me and get my opinion. After a long discussion, they reached the conclusion that they had ...

Self Awareness

April 7, 2012

In my coaching business, I often have discussions regarding the personal leadership skills and styles of the executives with whom I work. There is a plethora of low cost tools and services available such as Myers-Briggs, Kolbe, DISC, and 360o Benchmarks to help executives or a management team understand their leadership style; both strengths and ...

Leading in tough times, Managing tough messages

November 9, 2011

Your company is in the crapper. Its stock value has dropped by over half. You have just gone though the company's first ever lay-off. Good employees are resigning because they have lost faith. There is a daily onslaught of stories in the media predicting your company's demise. Employee morale is terrible. Critics say that your products have lost relevance. As a team leader or manager, your job is to maintain positive morale, keep productivity high, and retain and recruit talent. Your task seems impossible.

What happens when “It Happened Again” happens to you

April 17, 2011

In my last blog, I talked about a Business Analyst who had accepted a job and then resigned before starting to accept another job. I received a lot of feedback regarding that post, including a question on what to do if caught in a similar situation. Would I recommend that the person take the job ...

Category: Leadership