Liz’s Leadership Insights Blog

The Middle Management Mess

I started focusing on what I call the Middle Management mess after I read an article in the March 2006 issue of the Harvard Business Review by Robert Morison, Tamara Erickson, and Ken Dychtwald entitled “Managing Middlescence.” Their article addressed the mid-career employees, aged 35 to 54, who “should be at their peak of productivity,” but instead “are the most disaffected segment of the workforce.” With one in four of these employees holding managerial or supervisory positions, this was a...

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Increase Your Power; Give It Away

I originally wrote this article in 2003, but it's theme is exactly what I discussed with a leadership group last week as we discussed my book, Something Needs to Change Around Here: The Five Stages to Leveraging Your Leadership and in particular Stage 2 Leadership. In Stage 2, if you don't let go, others can't do the work. I hope you enjoy this post from my archives. The old adage, “You're only as strong as the people around you” is true. Yet so many of us in management tend to forget it, and...

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Employee Support Investments – A Smart Move

  When was the last time you gave a co-worker a compliment? When was the last time you even acknowledged a routine task they do? Now ask yourself, when did I last receive a compliment? If it's been a while, it may be time to focus some energies that way. By simply saying "Congratulations" or "Nice Job" to a co-worker, your words help them by reducing stress, increasing their sense of worth, enhancing communication, and creating a greater sense of team support. That's quite a return for a...

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Employee Motivation Check-up

Employee Motivation Check-up

If you were asked to describe your employees, would "motivated" be one of the adjectives you'd use? If not, why not? If you respond by saying something such as "They just don't care…," or "All they want is a paycheck…," those statements are not true for most employees. Your employees want many of the same things in life you do; things such as a means to provide for and protect their families, strong family and social interactions, a stable work environment, and the opportunity to utilize their...

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Develop from Within / Lead the Business at Hand

  There's a great statement Bill George, the former CEO of Medtronic made about CEO's and successors. He said: 'As CEOs, we don't design anything, make anything or sell anything. Our job is to create the strategies for building the business and to create the kind of positive environment that enables our employees to do these vital jobs. The only way to build lasting value in our companies is to focus on our missions, our customers and our employees.' He continued by stating, 'We need to...

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