Being a good coach and being a good manager involves a very similar set of skills. In our modern workforce, being a good manager means you have to be a good coach.

Managing others well involves a specific set of best-practice, tried-and-true management skills. We’ve narrowed them down to what we call “The Top 15 Management Skills” based on years of observing managers and following the research.

Employees just want to know if they’re influencing, deciding, or neither. They’re usually OK with whichever one it is.

The SCARF model gives us insight on how to intentionally engineer the work environment so employees feel safe to bring their best, authentic selves to work every day.

We’ve seen organizational cultures truly damaged by workplace negativity, and often the leaders in these companies have no idea of the source or even the nature of the problem.

When they’re done right, remote meetings can foster an environment of connection and collaboration where stuff gets done. When they’re done poorly, they can really suck.

Some of us have been managing remote teams for years, but for many this is a brand new experience. Here are some quick and easy(ish) practices and tips to help you set your remote team up for success.

The only thing worse than a poorly run meeting is a poorly run meeting filled with people who are behaving poorly. So how do you get people to bring their best selves to meetings?  Here are a few tips.

Meetings are a microcosm of the broader organization’s culture, which leads to a piece of really good news: In many ways you can actually reverse engineer an organization’s culture by improving their meetings!

Building trust and respect in the workplace is a layered, complicated, and nuanced process. A great starting point is teaching your team to recognize the differences in the way people show up and the qualities (and otherwise) each behavior style brings to the workplace.

Here is a simple management tool that will help your team avoid the pitfall of a low-trust culture.

We have found that there’s not a more effective, broad-reaching, morale- and relationship-building practice than intentional, regular, scheduled one-on-one meetings with employees.

Here are some things to consider that could help keep both the work relationship and the personal relationship not only possible, but also healthy and enjoyable.

Most organizations fail to prepare non-managers for the challenges associated with moving from being a peer to being a manager. Here are some hints to guide you through your first weeks following your promotion.

For employees to become fully engaged, they need to know that the person they report to directly cares about them as a human being, and not just as a cog in their system. 

Listening so people feel respected, showing up non-defensively, controlling our emotional impulses and owning our mistakes – these skills are vital to the health of our relationships.

Any time a group of research subjects are asked what they want or need from their manager/boss at work, some version of “caring and respect” usually comes out on top.

One of the only contexts in which we as adults consciously enter into relationships characterized by actual “authority” (where one person is “superior” to the other in rank and decision-making control) is at work.

When someone is in relationship with someone else who has power over them AND that person believes that the more powerful person doesn’t really care about them…well, that’s (literally) scary.

Morale isn’t the only thing that matters in the workplace, but here’s the bottom line: If employees aren’t “volunteering” their hearts and minds – if they’re just showing up to get a paycheck – you’ll never get the things you really want.