Leader Feeder

What happens when you’re enlightened, but you are surrounded by peers who just don’t get it? Many organizations require help when they are experiencing rapid growth or some other change and pressure. For example, when a senior leader changes in the organization and they want employees who are on the same page as them. Leaders […]

How should you as a leader, deal with worker to worker accusations? What happens when one worker tells you something that another worker might be doing? This can be a touchy situation for many leaders because the informant likely wants you to take action and say something to another worker, however, you may not have […]

How do you correct some of the unacceptable behavior and performance in your team? One of the top topics people look to us to deliver to their front line teams is how to deal with unacceptable behaviors that workers can sometimes give their supervisor. Keep this advice in your tool kit, because you will use […]

How do you motivate Millennials and Generation Z workers on your work team? One of the most requested topics from supervisors, managers, and team leaders is how to motivate the younger people in their work group. A lot of managers and supervisors tell me that it’s really tough to get people to do especially difficult […]

What do you do if you’ve been told you’re an abrasive leader? How do you become less abrasive over time? Today’s Leader Feeder is part two of a series. The first one dealt with abrasive people that you interact with. But what happens when you’re the abrasive leader yourself? Abrasive behaviours will usually come to […]

How can you, as a leader deal, with the fluctuating workloads that might be impacting your team? We know that some companies are dealing with dramatically increased production volumes, while others are dealing with a drop off in production right now. Assuming things are settling in to either slowing down or speeding up, how does […]

How do you deal with the abrasive personalities that you interact with every day as a leader? One of our most popular and most requested topics is how to deal with abrasive people. These abrasive personalities could be your employees who report to you, or they could be your colleagues you interact with, or they […]

Can a leader be too nice? Are you trying to be so nice and friendly with your team that you are actually hurting your perceptions of leadership effectiveness with them and probably not achieving anywhere near what you could be with your team? The reality is many frontline leaders struggle with how friendly they should […]

How can you cross train your team to deepen your bench strength? You would think cross training is something most of us would embrace naturally. After all, wouldn’t it be great if so many members of your team could easily do the jobs of other team members? That is especially true when you have attendance […]

Can you push your team to do more? Now is a great time to think about how you can push your team to an even greater level of performance than they are able to achieve right now. In this current COVID-19 situation, which is when we are actually taping this segment,  it is amazing how […]

How can you, as a leader, start to lay the plans for your post crisis recovery? It’s time to think more positively about what you’re going to do as a leader to position your team and your organization for success post crisis. Eventually we’re going to get through the current situation and at that point, […]

It’s important to stay connected with your team as a leader, especially in uncertain times. Leaders have the tendency to become less supportive of their team in times of stress, when in fact they need to be even more supportive. When people are under stress, they have some interesting human behaviors and many people, instead […]

Why do you as a leader need to motivate yourself in order to motivate others? Taking care of yourself and focusing on self-care is important as a leader so you can be motivated enough to engage your team. The reality is, just like everyone else, leaders can become demotivated, frustrated, or even worried and anxious […]

How can you as the leader retain your level of confidence even in challenging times? The reality is that when you’re under stress and in uncertain times, it can test the resolve of many leaders to remain confident. Both about the short-term viability of the production environment, and the long-term success of the enterprise. Here […]

How do you as a leader set goals that maximize employee engagement? How high should you set goals so your team is the most motivated to achieve them? In the book Switch, How to Change Things when Change is Hard, written by Chip and Dan Heath, they tell the story of one of their friends […]

How can you, as a leader, focus on building your leadership habits even though you’re busy taking care of your day to day activities? Who hasn’t gone to a training session or a conference and written down a ton of ideas, only to come back and several weeks later look back and say, “Man, I […]

How can you add to your team rapidly and accelerate your hiring process, when business is booming because of the crisis or uncertainty out there? Even though a lot of businesses have had to cut back during this crisis, we’ve actually seen a number of companies having to rapidly scale up because the demand for […]

How can you as a leader lead a virtual team? There are special challenges to leading a virtual team and ways that you, as a leader can be more effective with these challenges. The first thing to realize is that trust often erodes with distance, so the fact you’re not around those people and talking […]

How should you as a leader lead during a crisis? How you lead your team through a crisis is definitely different compared with normal times. First of all, recognize that even though part of your role as a leader is to act as if nothing else has changed, that probably won’t fit in times of […]

Today, we’re going to be talking about stress-resiliency. In the video and podcast related to this week’s episode, you’ll see and hear the interview I did with stress resilience expert Brad Coulbeck. Brad is the author of the book The Resilient Mind: How to Achieve Success by Building Mental and Emotional Toughness. Here are the […]

Why should you as a leader, focus on eliminating frustrations and roadblocks for your team? Front line supervisors should be focused on making it easier for their teams to achieve results. Employees can get irritated when, despite their best efforts, the system seems to block them from being able to achieve the desired results. They […]

What do you do when people take too much time socializing when they should be working? It’s a tough situation because most people think a little bit of socializing is okay, it’s only when it gets carried away that it becomes a problem. This is all based on the concept that a steady pace of […]

How do you, as the leader, get people to do the less desirable jobs on your team? Inevitably, there are some jobs employees prefer not to do. It’s important you rotate employees through those less desirable jobs so it doesn’t create favoritism or reverse favoritism punishment. How can you reduce the resistance? Give them a […]

How can you as a front line supervisor deal with dominant personalities on your team? There are two types of defensiveness people use to protect themselves. Passive defensive, and aggressive defensive. We’re not going to focus on passive defensive, which simply means  the person protects themself by laying low and following the rules and checking […]

How can conflict increase performance? It shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that conflict is usually viewed in a negative way. After all, it can either be destructive or it could create breakthroughs in a positive way. Remember  conflict is totally natural and normal at work. There will be disagreements over methods or goals, and […]