As you go through the process of building your teams, which is really a process of creating strong leaders (a good overview of my key posts on this topic is here), you’re going to be asking a lot of your folks.
You’re going to be asking them to change. You’re going to be asking them to […]

So, you think you want to be in charge. Be the bossman. Everyone comes to you to ask for permission to start new projects, buy new laptops, whatever. It comes through you. You are The Man. Or The Woman. Whichever.
Congratulations, you aren’t qualified to have the job.
If you are leading—not managing, herding, or driving—your team […]

I read an article over at CNNMoney.com this week, “In defense of bosses from hell.” It’s an interesting piece that got me thinking.
Most books about leadership read like the Scout manual: CEOs and top managers should be authentic, considerate, sensitive, and modest, as well as creative, smart, and strategically brilliant. All true—but not very useful […]

Ok, so we’ve talked about why you should recruit mentors as you develop your own ability to get your job done better/faster/stronger. That’s pretty safe stuff.
But here’s something you don’t hear nearly as often: you should be a mentor, starting now.
Start at the beginning
Most of us think as mentoring as an activity that benefits the […]

I work for the Federal government and I spend a LOT of time in meetings. I’m tempted to replace the “and” in that sentence with “therefore,” but I had just as many meetings when I was part of big industry, too.
Meetings can be frustrating and often have a pretty low productivity-per-minute, but the answer is […]

Ok, so let’s say you are already a team leader, or even a senior level manager in an HPC company or center somewhere. You’re interested in this leadership thing, but you recognize that you’re going to have to do a lot of culture changing to enable leadership to grow at all levels of your organization. […]

At least some of the personal interactions you are going to have as a leader are going to fall into the category of a difficult conversation.
Difficult conversations happen when there is conflict, or anticipated conflict, between the ways two people perceive a given situation. For example, when you have to tell a coworker that […]

If what you are going to talk about is important, prepare ahead of time.
This suggestion is one you’ve heard and most likely take seriously for formal presentations given with slides. For most of us, the prospect of speaking to a larger audience in a formal setting is disturbing enough that we don’t need too much […]

Since leadership and career management are my thing these days I like to keep up with what the Joneses are saying. I talk to folks, read blogs, check out online magazines, and even read an old-fashioned book every now and then.
There’s a certain type of leadership/career pundit that insists on referring to all this […]

When it comes to careers a lot of us spend way too much time on autopilot, letting someone else decide what promotions we should be interested in and what career paths we should take.
I think some people handle their careers this way because they are pleasers at heart, and when they are asked to take […]