Continuing with our discussions on leadership frameworks, Pilar and Tim discuss John Adair’s Action-Centred Leadership which was first introduced in 1973. Adair uses three overlapping circles to illustrate that effective leadership happens at the intersection of the task, the team and the individual. And it is this deceptive simplicity which is a big part of… Continue reading #59 John Adair’s Action-Centred Leadership

Inspired by the article about leadership on the Asana blog, Pilar and Tim discuss Kurt Lewin’s 3 leadership styles. In a seminal study conducted in 1939, groups of 10 year old children were given a craft task and assigned an adult leader using either an authoritarian, democratic or laissez-faire leadership style. They concluded that democratic… Continue reading #58 Leadership on a spectrum: Laissez-faire and authoritative styles

Inspired by Liz and Mollie’s wonderful book “No Hard Feelings” we talk about the role of emotions in our work, especially when hiring. One of the key principles in this book is that our emotions are a part of who we are at work and they impact our behaviour. Being aware of this helps us… Continue reading #57 The role of emotions when hiring

One of the pressures we can feel as a manager is the pressure of attention. We watch our managers closely. We analyse their behaviours and motivations. We guess at their intentions. And this informs our judgements about cultural norms and which behaviours are encouraged or discouraged. In fact, the attention of our team gives us… Continue reading #56 All eyes are on you: Role modelling behaviours as a manager

For this episode we used a different format. Pilar and Tim spotted a question in a community they’re members of, and with the permission of the poster, we’ve chosen to discuss it over coffee. This was the question: “Remote workers are faking enthusiasm.As a manager, I struggle to assess the motivation and engagement of my… Continue reading #55 The risk of remote worker disengagement

We reference this book all the time. In today’s conversation we learn why Radical Candor resonates so much with us and how we’ve used it in our own work. The core principles of the book shouldn’t really feel radical, it should be commonplace to care about the people we work with and tell them our… Continue reading #54 Why we love “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott (and why implementing it is so hard!)

As a manager our success is really dependent on the success of our teams. Yet there is something a bit topsy-turvy about the idea that managers are responsible for the motivation of our people. Much of motivation is intrinsic, most people inherently want to do good work. In fact often times work, even the work… Continue reading #53 The problem with motivating others

Jeff Bezos called the one-pager the “smartest thing we ever did at Amazon“. And everywhere we look there are best practices and frameworks which worked wonders for big & successful organisations. So why do they often fail when we apply them in our organisations? We propose that best practices are not something to “lift and… Continue reading #52 The problem with adopting “Amazon’s one-pagers” and other best practices

The notion of a manager as a protector of the team is deeply embedded. After all, a primary part of any manager’s job is to remove roadblocks and distractions so their team can stay focussed on their objectives. But it’s not always easy to decide what will distract the team versus what might be helpful… Continue reading #51 Manager as umbrella: Protecting the team from the storm

We tend to miss the smaller moments of achievement. Our focus is often on big organisational or team goals, huge milestones where we come together to celebrate (like the 50th episode of Management Cafe!). But in today’s coffee catchup we are talking about more personal achievements. The sort of things which seem less consequential on… Continue reading #50 Celebrating big or small