I have the opportunity to work with a wide range of leaders, from CEOs to first-time managers. Regardless of the experience level, everyone can benefit from some management fundamentals. Here are some of the patterns I see:

• A new manager with no formal management training.
• An experienced manager with no formal management training!
• A leader looking to expand their capabilities, looking for alternate perspectives.
• A leader looking for resources to support coaching and mentoring other leaders.

I worked with a leader recently looking for alternate perspectives, and I started to pull together relevant blog posts to share with them. I realized this is a good time to assemble an anthology of fundamental management blog posts to help readers navigate the archives. May this benefit you and your team.

Managing People

• 1:1 101 – Best practices for 1-on-1 meetings with your direct reports.
• On Hiring – Hiring best practices.
• Understanding Trust – A trust framework that helps you understand how to strengthen relationships.
• Leading Through Coaching – Ways to bring more coaching into your leadership style.
• Managing managers – Helpful as you move from managing individual contributors to managing managers.

Developing People

• Put On Your White Belt – Understanding common “Enemies of Learning” that could stunt your growth and the growth of your team.
• Discovering Our Strengths – Understanding and leveraging your employee’s strengths rather than focusing on weaknesses.
• More of What You Love – A simple exercise to understand what you love and loathe. Useful for your development and your employees.
• We Can Do Hard Things – Embracing a growth mindset.
• A Tale of Two Paths – Dealing with poor performance.
• New Manager. Feeling Unsure. – Advice for the new manager and a perspective to help senior leaders empathize with a newly promoted manager.

Communication

• Two Ears. One Mouth. One Brain. – Best practices for listening well.
• Missing Conversations – These are types of conversations we should be having with others that we may be avoiding.
• Courageous Conversations – Demonstrating Courageous Authenticity by leaning into difficult conversations.
• Meaningful Conversations – Deepening the quality of your conversations.
• Importance of Face-to-Face – Recognizing when a situation can benefit from face-to-face interaction.

Executive Presence

• Onstage vs Backstage – Understanding when you are “onstage” and when you are “backstage” so you can tailor your message to the appropriate audience.
• Strengthening Connections – Identify your key stakeholders and strengthen those relationships.
• Great leaders speak last – Understanding your impact on your team as a senior leader.
• Presence – Developing your presence.
• Authenticity – Leading and living with authenticity.
• Your First 90 Days – A framework for maximizing your first 90 days in a new role or looking at an existing role with fresh eyes.

Delegation

• By Request – A framework for making effective requests.
• Enemies of Delegation – The most common pitfalls that prevent us from delegating.
• Delegation 101 – Part one of how to overcome the enemies of delegation.
• Delegation 102 – Part two of how to overcome the enemies of delegation.
• Taking Initiative – Understanding the different levels of initiative/empowerment to clarify the degree of delegation.
• Building Bridges – A framework for joint escalation to empower your team to escalate issues more effectively and collaboratively.

Giving and Receiving Feedback

• Feedback is a Gift – Techniques to create a culture that encourages feedback by demonstrating your openness to receiving it.
• Zen and the Art of Feedback – A framework for delivering feedback effectively.
• Your 360 Feedback – Common themes from 360 feedback.

Goals

• Gooooooooooooooooooooooals! – Understanding the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) framework for goals.
• As measured by… – Some best practices for implementing OKRs.

Strategic Thinking

• Strengthening Strategic – Strategies to build your strategic thinking muscles.
• From Operational to Strategic – Additional strategies to shift from operational to strategic thinking.

Putting It Into Practice

If you want to dive deeper into any of these topics or explore leadership workshops for your team, DM me or schedule time with me.

Walkabout Corner

I have one more week in Albuquerque before heading to Phoenix for two weeks. I’ve been nomadic for three months now, and I am grateful for the gifts of awareness and personal growth that have come my way during this time.

In a time of such incredible disruption for all of us, both in the US and globally, those gifts have grounded me and helped me regulate my emotions. This, in turn, has enabled me to be a grounding and calming influence for those around me.

May we all take a few deep breaths, pause, center, and support ourselves and those we love. May the circle of people that fall into “those you love” be ever-expanding.

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I am an executive coach and life coach with software executive roots in higher education and EdTech. I coach because I love to help others accelerate their growth as leaders and humans. I frequently write about #management, #leadership, #coaching, #neuroscience, and #arete.

If you would like to learn more, schedule time with me.

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