The Modern Manager

Are you living your values every day? It’s not always easy to do what’s right, to recognize your own biases and mistakes, to put people before profits. But these are things that moral leaders do. And the more you do them, the easier they become for yourself and for others who follow you. That’s moral leadership. Emily Miner leads LRN’s Ethics & Compliance Advisory practice. She helps organizat...

People and businesses are complex. In order for one to thrive, so must the other. Easier said than done. This is Shannon Adkins world. She lives it and helps others figure out ways to run a business that works for its employees and wins in the market. Shannon is a thought leader and CEO at Future State, a woman-owned, employee-owned consulting company with a triple bottom line where people get to...

Working 60, 70, 80+ hours in America has become the norm for too many teams. Yet it seems impossible to get everything done in only 40 hours.  Not for the employees of Wildbit. This week’s guest shifted her organization to a 32-hour, 4-day work week. Over a year into it, they’re seeing more positive results than they could have imagined. Natalie Nagele is the co-founder and CEO of Wildbit, the com...

For many teams, email is the primary form of staying connected, making it critically important but also a major point of stress. Logistically, the most obvious way to make email more manageable is to just have fewer emails coming in. But in reality, this might actually be the hardest thing to make happen because we’re not totally in control of how many emails we receive every day. But, there are a...

Employee handbooks are typically filled with procedural information, legal requirements and company policies. They provide an important function, but aren’t typically fun to read. Nor do they incorporate concepts for how the team will work together to build a positive environment in which people thrive and great work gets done.  Building off the idea of an employee handbook, this week’s guest crea...

Very few people are eager to add more meetings to their calendar, but what would happen if you scheduled a weekly check in with each of your team members? That’s what this week’s guest did. Chris Zaugg has been leading people for over 40 years, and according to his own reflection, had made LOTS of mistakes and had a few victories. He has trained people in leadership principles and communication al...

Ah, Millennials. This generation may be the most broadly stereotyped, yet often misunderstood. As managers, we may be Millennials ourselves trying to figure out how to manage and build relationships with older peers, or we may be struggling with how to manage this unusual cohort which seems to “know everything,” and “demand autonomy.” What is really going on with Millennials and what does it mean...

Email overload plagues almost every manager. After feeling frustrated with myself for missing important emails and watching my inbox slowly tick up, I decided to take a new approach to managing my inbox. I set out to learn more about various approaches to email management and then try them out. In this episode, I share with you the various practices I learned and the impact I’ve noticed on my own...

I typically follow the 80-20 rule when considering the challenges that managers face. About 80% of a a manager’s role and the challenges they encounter are the same regardless of the setting. But that 20% which is different can be drastically different. So what might we all learn from building culture in a retail setting? This week’s guest is Lorean Cairns, Co-Founder of Fox and Jane Salons, Skin...

What’s the tone of your team? Do you assume people want to work hard, learn, grow, and achieve results? Or do you feel like you’re constantly trying to motivate people to take ownership over their work? Do you set the bar high and support your colleagues to be successful? Or do you set average expectations and focus on compliance? This week’s guest, Bob Dusin, is the co-author along with Sue Bingh...

Flexible work hours, greater autonomy, freedom, virtual teams, work from anywhere… These are growing in popularity but not always easy to implement. To successfully manage a team “at a distance” (whether that be geographic or just being more hand’s off), you need solid systems and colleagues with the right skills to succeed in that environment. This week’s guest, Carissa Reiniger, is the Founder &...

Building psychological safety may be the most important thing you do as a manager. Creating an environment in which people feel comfortable acknowledging mistakes, asking questions, offering ideas and feedback, and experimenting and failing, enables a team to think big, be nimble, and accomplish great feats.  In this episode, I’ll touch on what psychological safety looks like in the workplace and...

You may have heard the idea of manager as coach before. It’s one of the core ideas I subscribe to as a manager - that we should coach our team members to unleash their potential. But what about coaching yourself? Is that even possible? This week’s guest, Jennifer DiMotta, is the Owner and President of DiMotta Consulting LLC where she takes her 20+ years of triple-digit growth success and transform...

There is an old joke that a manager’s work is to go to meetings. As a meeting expert, that sounds lovely to me, but as an experienced manager, I know that’s not the case. This week’s guest, Mike Tannenbaum, is Founder, Principal, and Lead Strategist of Humanity. Mike helps people create better experiences by deepening their understanding of humans. He focuses on helping people and teams become the...

Is your organization more like a stoplight or a round-a-bout? That may seem like an odd question but while they do the same thing (manage traffic intersections), they operate in fundamentally different ways. This week’s guest, Aaron Dignan , has spent the past 10 years studying organizations and teams with a new way of working that prioritizes adaptivity and autonomy over efficiency and control. A...

It’s been 1 year since I launched The Modern Manager podcast. To celebrate, I take a look back at some of my favorite episodes and lessons learned, and share plans for the future, including some exciting changes.   Get all the free mini-guides (episodes 1-52) in a single download.   There is a new community! Join the Modern Manager community to get the full guides, guest bonuses, access to the for...

How many languages do you speak or understand? Learning a new language helps you appreciate the importance and nuance of language and how it impacts your ability to communicate and connect with others. Leadership and management have their own language which you can learn. This week’s guest, Krister Ungerboeck , is a CEO Coach, and expert in The Language of Leadership.  Prior to retiring at age 42,...

Unfortunately, bullying is not limited to kids and playgrounds.   This week’s guest, Matt Paknis , is a senior management consultant who focuses on lessening bullying in the workplace. He was a former assistant coach at Penn State under Joe Paterno and has spoken publicly about being abused as a child. He is the author of Successful Leaders Aren’t Bullies and has over twenty-five years of experien...

Virtual meetings are laden with problems. Incorrect or missing call-in numbers, strange echoes, and the occasional choppy connection delay and interrupt what is already a difficult situation. But even without technological issues, virtual meetings have all the typical challenges of in-person meetings and more. So how do we make virtual meetings engaging and productive?   Get the free mini-guide wi...

What sets apart great leaders and high performers from everyone else? Why is it that some people seem to create magic over and over again for themselves in their personal life, with their team, or their organization? This week’s guest,  Rob Shallenberger , is one of the world's leading authorities on leadership, planning, and execution. Rob is the CEO of Becoming Your Best Global Leadership and ha...

We all experience stress at work. Ideally, it’s short lived and easily manageable. When a heightened state of stress becomes the new normal, you may be on the way to burnout. While burnout is the extreme and typically rare case, it’s critical to notice when stress, frustration, overload and overwhelm are taking over. They’re the signs burnout may be coming.   Get the free mini-guide with questions...

Team building can develop relationships in ways that profoundly impact the team. When people get to know each other, they are able to work together more effectively and efficiently.  This week’s guest, Amani Roberts , is a DJ, music producer, podcaster professor and creative who loves to help people unlock their creativity by teaching them how to DJ. After a successful career as a corporate execut...

Your team members are your greatest resource. When they succeed, you succeed. Taking time to focus on each of them rather than the work can have exponential impact on employee engagement, quality of work, productivity, trust, and more. That is the power of One-on-Ones.   Get the free mini-guide with the One-on-One agenda template I use.   When you join the Modern Manager community , get the full g...

This is the fifth bonus episode in the Parenting Your Business series. In these episodes, I talk about my experiences as a parent and manager / entrepreneur, comparing situations and learnings. In this episode, I reflect on moments when we are asked questions that make us uncomfortable and how we might be underestimating both our kids and our colleagues. Get in touch and join the conversation! mam...

Managers play many roles throughout their day: leader, task-master, visionary, advisor, facilitator, cheerleader, etc. One of the most important roles any manager plays is that of coach. When a manager puts on their metaphorical coaching hat, they’re shifting out of the role of telling people what to do and into one of encouraging team members to discover their own answers . This week’s guest, Amy...