Management Mastery

Executive Presence is the ability to project an image of confidence, competence, and leadership that inspires trust and respect in others. Executive presence is a critical component of being a successful senior manager.  As you grow your career, understanding and displaying the behaviors and demeanor that define executive presence will be important for your development.  In this episode, we discuss Gravitas, a critical component of Executive Presence.  In a subsequent episode, we’ll cover the additional qualities of inclusiveness, communication, and authenticity.

In our episode entitled “The Basics of Speechmaking” from February 18, we said that half of the world’s population was terrified of making a speech and we discussed the basics of making a speech.  In this episode we’ll discuss how to think about your presentation and how to share what you’re passionate about with others.

How better can you learn about being an effective manager than listening to one of the masters in the subject.  One is Peter Drucker whose writings are the subject of today’s podcast.

Overview:  Leaders are all over the map in terms of their personalities, attitudes, values, strengths and weaknesses.  They range from extroverted to nearly reclusive, from easy going to controlling, from open to closed behavior.  Effectiveness is a discipline; it can be learned; it must be earned.

In previous episodes we’ve spoken about “Designing Jobs” and “Assessing Staff Wellbeing.”  Now we want to  talk about you and some issues related to managing your own career.  It’s important to remember that you’re both a manager as well as an employee of your company.  So, not only are you a boss, you also have a boss. In this episode we’ll discuss how to deal with your own manager in ways that’ll, hopefully, make you both more successful.

In almost any company of any size, managers do performance reviews.  And, as with anything, some managers are better at it than others.  Some have biases that they can’t get away from such as giving better reviews to people they hired, or that they know socially outside of the office.  Nevertheless, almost everyone agrees there is a valid place for performance reviews when they’re done fairly and objectively.  In this episode we discuss what goes into a good review.

In a previous podcast on one-on-one meetings with your staff, from December 17 of 2024, we discussed how to manage and conduct one-on-one meetings with the members of your staff.  Unfortunately, many managers either downplay the importance of one-on-one meetings or focus only on discussing what the staff member needs to do to successfully complete their jobs.  In this episode we expand on what outstanding managers do in discussing other areas that are also important to members of their staff.

In addition to the job performance of their staff members, a wise manager is also concerned with the general and emotional wellbeing of their staff.  This may require watching for signs of problems that’re outside of just job performance.  By being sensitive to general issues of staff wellbeing, a good manager can often head off performance problems down the road.  We discuss how in this episode.

Your relationship with your boss is critical, and the first meeting is among the most important you will have. In this encore episode, we will cover how to plan for and behave in this all important meeting.

Usually,  when a new manager is hired, the jobs of the current staff are already in place.  Nevertheless, it’s the manager’s responsibility to make sure that their staff members’ jobs are structured to fit the abilities of each staff member as well as best fulfill the department’s needs.  This may seem easy and straightforward, but it can be complicated.  In this episode we’ll discuss some of the challenges that you may face. 

All too often, people misjudge the impression they make on others, especially in initial conversations. Frequently, their anxieties and self-critical thoughts lead them to assume the worst.  Feeling one has made a bad initial impression on a new colleague can lead to poor outcomes in the workplace.  In this episode, we’ll explore ways to avoid this “liking gap”.