The main premise of this blog entry is that among all the leadership skills taught to prospective female managers and leaders, education in the successful use of personal and organizational power is still sorely lacking. It is well accepted that the skills that enable a person to excel in their chosen field are very different than the ones necessary to lead and manage others. However, for women, the challenge is different than for men, not necessarily only because of possible discrimination, but because our socialization still does not prepare us to handle organizational power and influence well.

Good crisis management is rarely about attracting a lot of attention and staying in the news. In fact, many fine examples of crisis management have gone nearly unnoticed except for the parties involved. This quote from a NY Times article explains: “Companies that typically handle crises well, you never hear about them,” says James Donnelly, …

A guest post by Terrence Seamon I recently watched a documentary on TV about the finalists in the 2009 international Van Cliburn piano competition held every four years in Fort Worth, Texas. These young virtuosos were incredibly talented, the best pianists in the world from many countries including the U.S., Japan, Russia, China, Italy, South …

From the days of ancient warfare, large armies have struggled with an inherent disadvantage: Sheer size presents an easy target for a quick and nimble attack force. The red-coated, regimented British struggled to fend off undisciplined American revolutionaries. The Vietnam era Americans could not defend themselves adequately from the pesky, unpredictable Viet Cong. In the …

There is a lot of information written about motivation. New manager/leader training found in organizations and books everywhere has at least one course or chapter devoted to the topic of employee motivation. Located within the material, one will find lists of tips and tricks to keeping employees happy and motivated to meet performance objectives.

I recently provided a training on Supervising Millenials. We discussed whether in our digitally driven life we are becoming more attention deficit that in previous eras. There are so many opportunities to be distracted- such as reading interesting blogs! If you feel you must answer that email, text or IM immediately, you may want to …

According to a recent survey conducted by Kelton Research, The Cornerstone OnDemand “Employee Attitude Survey”, you may not be alone. The survey reveals a look at the perceptions employees currently have about their workplace. If we were to use the survey as a scorecard, then we would see that many organizations are failing in some very critical retention areas. Using the familiar grading scale of where a 70% get you a C, let’s take a look at the areas with a failing grade.

Most employees in companies today are all too familiar with the concept of the performance review. Just the mention of this often dreaded occurrence of discussion with one's supervisor where they get to critique every move you've made during the year while you sit ideally by is sure to send negative feelings throughout the mind's of employees everywhere. The performance review generally has a similar effect on managers and supervisors as well. So why is this performance review so dreaded and loathed by many?

It was 1968 when an obscure academic at the University of Edmonton, Ludwig Von Bertalanffy, publish the book General Systems Theory. It was the first major look at the foundations and applications of systems thinking across a broad array of practical and scientific fields. Starting with the individual organism he demonstrated that the systems view …

Today’s New York Times published another in a string of articles highlighting safety issues on the Deepwater Horizon rig at the heart of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis. A confidential survey of workers on the Deepwater Horizon in the weeks before the oil rig exploded showed that many of them were concerned about …