For Bill Gates, tirades came at a cost

  • August 22, 2017

In February 1985, Ida Cole joined Microsoft as one of its first female vice presidents. Within months, her relationship with the mercurial Bill Gates worsened. His...

Positive vs. negative leadership

  • August 22, 2017

Being negative solves nothing—and more often than not, it causes people to shut down and disengage, says Jon Gordon, author of The Power of Positive Leadership.

Conduct appraisals fairly and accurately

  • July 27, 2017

Many supervisors are sensitive about rating their people on the basis of a generalized standard or in terms of a numerical scale. Use these tips offered by Elwood N....

Managing the workplace martyr

  • July 18, 2017

Martyrs are willing to take things on and sacrifice for the team—and boy, do they let everyone else know it. While on the surface, such employees seem like a...

What do you really know about your customers?

  • July 05, 2017

Knowing which customers are spending more or less is the ultimate metric for tracking and analyzing performance. Understanding customers starts with collecting data, and...

Credibility is your most important asset

  • June 28, 2017

Although supervisors need a wide array of people skills and certain technical abilities, nothing is more critical to supervisory success than credibility. When...

Never give an order that…

  • June 27, 2017

Issue a command that people disregard because you’ve allowed them too much power to write their own rules and your demise as a leader will be slower and more...

Leadership secrets from Lego

  • June 01, 2017

Jorgen Vig Knudstorp has been Lego’s “master builder” of the company’s turnaround since 2004. At the time, Lego was losing $1 million a day. Now...

5 questions to test your culture

  • May 30, 2017

Trying to motivate employees with games, incentives and pizza parties might work to some extent. But lasting results only come from fully engaged staffers who believe in...

Why aren’t you celebrating failure?

  • May 25, 2017

Most leaders like to celebrate success. But if you want employees to innovate, think about the benefits of celebrating failure, too. After all, no less sweat, toil or...

Motivate those ‘average’ employees

  • May 23, 2017

The management challenge is to figure out how to keep the average employees motivated. Here are three principles managers should apply to motivate average...