Soft Skills - Ask a Wharton MBA
Develop Soft Skills – Work Smart & Live More
What should a manager do when they believe an employee’s performance rating was unfair? This leadership dilemma happens more often than people admit, and how a manager responds can either build trust or quietly weaken their leadership.
“Honestly, I think it was unfair to him.”
That’s how a manager I’ll call Roger started a coaching conversation with me recently. ...
Leadership transitions are tricky — even more so when your trusted manager goes on temporary leave, and you suddenly find yourself reporting to a skip-level boss. The dynamics shift, the expectations aren’t always clear, and even well-intentioned communication can be misunderstood.
In a recent coaching conversation, we explored Chelsea’s situation: a smart, capable team member grappling with this very challenge. If you’ve ever felt frustrated, confused, or unrecognized during a leadership transition, her story — and the lessons from it — may resonate with you. ...
During this month’s mental fitness connect, “Ashley” brought up an interesting scenario to get the group’s input. She has been at her new job for five months now. Last week, her manager approached her and asked what she wants to do next in her career. Ashley was both baffled and suspicious. ...
I was initially surprised when Raina (not her real name) asked this question – how to obtain meaningful feedback from my manager. As we had 10 minutes left in our coaching call, Raina shared her situation and her question. She acknowledged that her manager was quite busy. However she still wished that her manager would give her more concrete feedback in her performance reviews so she knows how to improve. ...
Unfortunately most of us spend at least 50-75% of our life working for incompetent leaders! Why? Four reasons:
There are 3 common traits of incompetent leaders. Your leader could have one of these traits or worse all three.
Trait 1: Absentee leader – this leader “lets” the team do all the work and doesn’t really set strategy, lead, or coach others. Their style is often to outsource any or all efforts that a leader usually need to do to one of his or her team members. ...
There are so many perks when working from home including saving commute time and the ability to work in sweat pants. However working remotely makes it a lot more challenging to build relationships, including the one you need to build with your manager. Whether you always worked remotely or just started due to COVID 19 crisis, you should know how to best build your reputation with your manager remotely. ...
This is such a common issue as well as a highly stressful one. I am so glad one of the members asked me to talk about it in our January group coaching call. Here is her question
“We are asked to be financially savvy and not outsource any activity during Q1. We still have smart goals to achieve and I am understaffed. I am already running a lean organization. To continue to deliver results with all activities done in-house I need to overload the team. What should I do? Should I do the right thing and continue to explain the need for outsourcing activities or do the right thing for my career?” ...