Blog

“Am I an effective manager?” It’s an important question to ask yourself. But how do you answer it? Is the answer yes if your team meets its deadlines? Is the answer yes if you have a satisfactory performance review? Does your answer depend on how your superiors or subordinates view you?

You shake your head in frustration. Your jaw is clenched tight, and you want to throw something. Instead, you roll your shoulders back and inhale deeply. It doesn’t really help, but at least your coffee mug is still intact. This is the third resignation letter you’ve received this month. And not from an intern or easily replaceable position. This is the third letter from a man you had high hopes for. Maybe you should have promoted him earlier, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. He is one of you...

Do you remember those games on the back of cereal boxes when you were a kid? While shoveling your favorite sugary cereal in your mouth on a lazy Saturday morning, you could analyze two pictures that looked identical at first glance. But the challenge was to spot the differences. The house on the left had two-paned windows, while the house on the right had single-pane windows. The tree on the right was filled with apples while the tree on the left was empty.

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” John F. Kennedy understood that there is never a point in leadership where we arrive, where our own education is no longer important. To progress in leadership is to continue learning. When your company’s current managers and future team leaders invest in leadership training, they sharpen their skills which in turn elevates employee performance and team effectiveness. Everyone wins when leadership training is a priority. Front Line Le...

Management styles of yore still lurk in the hallways of business big and small all around the world today. However, with Generation Y beginning to take a larger stake in those same businesses, it may be time for managers to take a look at those traditions and see how to make them work with Generation Y employees. Generation X and Boomers grew up in a world where they had to earn the right to be heard, respected, and valued. On the flip side, Generation Y has had a heard and valued voice from day...

Leading comes with a myriad of challenges and obstacles. There are numerous reasons for and catalysts of the downfall of a team or group of employees. But what about when the largest factor in a team’s disfunction is the leader themselves? What are ways leaders sabotage their own teams and how do we avoid these behaviors

In a simple black frame, on a shelf in my office sits a picture that never ceases to put a smile on my face. In it, 4 women stand side by side, faces full of toothy grins in front of my childhood home. From left to right stand a woman born in 1902, another in 1929, the third in 1957, and lastly, a gangly legged teen born in 1979. The not-quite-brown eyes and slightly oversized noses all share a similar stance and smile, but beyond that, the lives of these women share history and blood, but not m...

Robert Winter will be speaking at the MindLab conference on April 24th in Denver, Colorado. His session will focus on productive conflict, an assessment offered by Wiley/Everything DiSC. He will also discuss his FrontLine Leadership Development Program and how its implementation can help transform your organization's managers into strong leaders. This program has successfully equipped leaders in a wide variety of industries.

The year is new, and everyone has made a list of goals to work towards to make 2019 their best year yet. For anyone working in a leadership capacity, their New Year goals should include leadership training. With every passing year, the workplace evolves as an ever-changing environment. New technologies, differing views on personal and organizational branding, culture shifts, and the rapid-fire growth seen in many industries have leaders struggling to keep up. Hence the shift toward leadership tr...

DiSC assessments are a great tool to help good leaders understand not only their employees’ personalities and conflict styles, but also their own. Each of the DiSC traits has a specific reaction to communication when moving from normal conversations to conflict conversations.