As a manager you’re constantly being pulled away from your strategic objectives by everyday tasks that may be important, but aren’t helping you to achieve your primary objectives. As the manager, you should continuously seek ways you can maximize your group’s overall performance. In this podcast we’ll discuss how to keep your focus on productivity while, at the same time, managing key relationships and caring for staff.

Most of us believe that we are good listeners. Research has shown that’s not true. Listening is demanding both cognitively and emotionally. It takes focused attention and effort to do it well. We’ll discuss mistakes that manager’s make and how to avoid them in this episode.

The damage that a bad boss can inflict upon their staff and their organization is substantial. Multiple studies have found that somewhere between 30-50% of both managers and workers leave their jobs because of a bad boss and a negative work culture. We’ll look at how to avoid being a bad boss in this episode

Every manager needs the ability to persuade internal and external constituencies to reach consensus to move issues forward. Sometimes it’s a major issue that needs to be decided on, like an issue with a client, or a change of direction, and other times it’ll be smaller, day-to-day operating decisions, such as moving a product out faster. As the manager, you’ll be called upon to use your skills of persuasion often: For both internal and external issues. Persuasion is the focus of this episode.

In the last episode we discussed the importance of understanding your leadership style and how it’ll be important to your success. Your style was developed over a series of events during your lifetime. In this episode we’ll discuss how you can use your leadership style to be a more effective leader.

Understanding and improving your leadership style is important to your success as a manager. They’re a number of ways you can approach this task. In this podcast we’ll discuss a simple, straightforward way to think about and develop an effective leadership style.

Almost everyone has had the experience of working with a toxic coworker. How to deal with that situation can be difficult and emotional. It is not something that most people want to deal with, but it is in your interest, and the other persons, to work out the problem. We will deal with ways that you can do that in this episode.

Former sales executive Jake Kilrain discusses his experience in dealing with a colleague who felt they should have his position and tried to undermine him at every opportunity.