“I think how you handled that situation was just perfect!” It’s wonderful to hear how great I am. Compliments are so nice. This employee was always telling me how great that idea was or how that decision I made was the right one. He never disagreed with me or asked me questions about anything I did. When I realized that all he was giving me was positive feedback, I knew I had fallen for the seductiveness of positive feedback…
What makes a good leader? I’ve given this much thought during the years I’ve been managing. I don’t believe any person in a leadership role sets out to be a bad leader – and bad leaders, unfortunately, usually think they’re good leaders. What exactly does “leader” mean? I looked it up and one definition is “the person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country.”* It also means “a short strip of nonfunctioning material at each end of a…
In a prior post, I wrote about having skip-level meetings with team members and the benefits of doing so. Skip-level meetings mean I skip one or two management levels and meet directly with individuals on their teams. We talked about the benefits of doing skip-level meetings, now let’s talk about the down sides. One down side to skip-level meetings is that my managers may feel like I am going around them or disrespecting their authority. Perhaps the manager is insecure in…
I’m an introvert. There I’ve admitted it in public! It’s difficult and uncomfortable for me to talk to people at team gatherings or company meetings. Even just talking to folks that report to one of my managers or directors is hard. Yet, I find that if I sit closed off in my office, which I prefer to give myself some peace and quiet, this results in people thinking I am aloof and distant and uncaring. I’m always surprised when people…
When the end of the fiscal year approaches it means it’s time to create goals for the next year. At a large company, this can be challenging, as often the corporate goals are sometimes very high-level. Frequently, I’ve seen people get very cynical about high-level company goals. Or worse yet, software developers who think the company goals have nothing to do with them personally. That’s simply not true. Everyone in the company needs to support the company goals. The work…