Tag: leadership wisdom

On Martin Luther King Day, Remembering His Famous Letter from Birmingham Jail

Editor’s Note: I originally published this Skeptical Guy post on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on King Day in January 2024. It seemed appropriate to republish it again this year. HOLIDAYS ARE GREAT because they give us a chance to take a break. But sometimes, we take that break without thinking about just WHY

Continue reading

Bad Managerial Advice is Everywhere, So Take What You Read With a Grain of Salt

Editor’s Note: I’m occasionally republishing some of my classic posts here on The Skeptical Guy. Here’s one that was originally published back in August 2012. HERE’S A STORY I SAW saw over at Forbes that was so odd that it caught even my cynical and jaded eye — Six Lines Your Boss Should Never Cross.

Continue reading

Everything Old is New Again, or Why an Old Management Practice is a Big Deal Today

LEAVE IT TO Josh Bersin to push an old-school management practice in a AI-focused, 21st Century world. This past week, Josh had an interesting blog post titled The Labor Market Has Totally Changed: Are You Really Ready? As always, he made some great points about how the labor market has changed as Baby Boomers like me

Continue reading

It Happens Too Often: Good Employees Must Leave to get More Pay or a Promotion

HERE’S A PROBLEM that I struggled with when I was a middle manager. It popped up in places I worked from Kentucky to Hawaii, and was detailed recently in a Harvard Business Review story titled When New Hires Get Paid More, Top Performers Resign. First. As the summary in HBR describes it: “To attract new

Continue reading

It’s sad but true: Nobody gets a great idea when they’re being chased by a lion

Editor’s Note: I’ve been reposting some of my popular articles from the past. This one was published here back in August 2017. THE OLD ADAGE is true — there’s nothing new under the sun. But once in awhile even I get surprised by a new insight that makes up for the crap that passes for management

Continue reading

The One Really Important Question that the Best Leaders Always Seem to Ask

Editor’s note: From time to time I’ve been reposting some of my most popular articles from the past. This one was published here and on LinkedIn back in September 2017. I’VE WORKED WITH a lot of leaders during my career, and I could go on all day about the qualities that separate the good from

Continue reading

Wherever You May Work, Meetings are a Pain in the Ass for Just About Everyone

SOME WORKPLACE ISSUES seem to pop up over and over again, and if you stick around long enough you’ll get another round of suggestions on how to handle them. Last week, I found an article at Chief Executive on a workplace topic I’ve written about a lot over the years, and you may have dealt

Continue reading

Something to Remember on King Day: His Famous Letter From the Birmingham Jail

ONE OF THE GREAT THINGS about holidays are that they give us a chance to relax and take a break. But sometimes, I think we take that break without thinking about the important reason why we’re getting a day off in the first place. It’s easy to do that with the mid-January holiday we get

Continue reading

The End of the Year Job Market? It’s a Pretty Odd Way to Close the Door on 2023

Editor’s Note: This is the final Workplace Week That Was for 2023. We’ll return next year. HERE’S A FINAL THOUGHT on the year-end job market — it’s an odd and frustrating time to try to find a new job. One of the indicators of just how odd an employment market we have is a story

Continue reading

When Words of Wisdom are not so wise, and the very best things go unappreciated

I’M ALWAYS HUNGRY for good advice no matter where it comes from. And advice from a former boss or mentor is usually the best. That’s why a recent Wall Street Journal article titled ‘The Best Advice a Boss Ever Gave Me‘ grabbed my attention. But it was the subhead that really pulled me in, because

Continue reading