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Leading in the New Millennium: Pay for (Lack of) Performance

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair

Although Sinclair’s words were uttered in 1935, they ring especially true when applied to the leadership void we face today. While Sinclair, a socialist, didn’t [...]

Tags: Digression, leadership development, leadership news and views, leadership observations, leadership traits

Time Management Blogwatch – December 2008
For what it’s worth, we cobbled together the best of the time management blog posts and articles from this past month of procrastination fascination.
Lest you think we’re kidding about the drivel that fills the time management blogs, imagine reading the thousands of posts we rejected including one that detailed [...]

Tags: Management Blogs, time management

Time Management Tools That Work – No Such Thing
If you’re a regular reader to this blog, you know we don’t put much stock in time management tips, tricks or techniques. We believe, like Stephen Covey, that you cannot manage time, you can only manage self. Any attempts, in fact, to manage time are just fruitless [...]

Tags: leadership books, Leadership Resources, Management Advice, time management

Brett “Cuatro” Favre and the Leadership Lesson of Humility
When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. The best thing to do is admit it. We are certainly humble enough to admit it.
At the beginning of the 2008 NFL season we predicted that the New York Jets would finish the season no better than 8-8… we were wrong. [...]

Tags: Leadership Advice, leadership news and views, leadership observations

Freakonomics: The Movie
During my extended time off between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I sat down with accomplished entrepreneur and filmmaker Chad Troutwine to discuss the most ambitious documentary ever to pique the interest of the editors of AskTheManager.com.
For those of you unfamiliar with Chad’s work, he is a founder (along with Markus Moberg) of [...]

Tags: Business Books, Digression, Leadership Resources, Management Blogs

More Leadership Lessons from Delta Airlines
In a recent post, we admonished Delta Airlines for the ill-conceived, confusing Delta Breezeway enacted in late 2007. It seemed that even months after its introduction, most Delta gate agents and Delta frequent fliers still had no idea how to use them.
We are proud to say that between Thanksgiving [...]

Tags: business situations, leadership news and views, leadership observations, management 101

Why Detroit Deserved Their Bailout…
(We understand we’re a little late to the party, but we were on hiatus during the whole Auto Bailout mess, and we felt we would be remiss if we didn’t provide our two cents.)
While there is no doubt that the Detroit automakers sowed many of the seeds of their own destruction, [...]

Tags: Digression, leadership observations

2008: A Lesson in Recession and Leadership
The axiom “sales cure all ills” rings more true today than ever. More than anything it teaches us an inarguable lesson: that is, we learn more about leadership in bad times than we do in good times.
To prove this theory to yourself, imagine your company just 18 months ago [...]

Tags: Leadership Advice, leadership development, Leadership Situations