Middle management gets a bad rap. It brings to mind terrible bosses from the Dilbert cartoons or Michael Scott from The Office, or a career graveyard for mediocre leaders unable to reach the upper echelons of management. And that’s too bad. Because the truth is, most of us are in middle management and always will be. So, rather than languishing in it — which only bolsters the lousy reputation — lean into it. With the right tools, you can be wildly successful as a middle manager. And...

 “My experience as a leader is that all the conversations that really mattered happened in corridors when I was in transition from one meeting to the next. And it would be really easy — because of the time constraint — to just say, ‘This is what I think you should do…’. And yet, one of the most effective things you can do as a leader is say, ‘What do you think?'” Jenny Robinson Phil Renshaw and Jenny Robinson joined me this week with some simple techniques for how to be a better...

Imagine you’re driving home from work one night around 8 pm. It’s cold. It’s raining. And there’s a dirty, slushy, melting snow on the ground. You glance out the car window and you see a young girl huddled up on the side of the road. She looks cold, scared, alone, and injured. You pull over and invite her into your warm car, and take her to a diner for a meal. She doesn’t speak to you the entire time. She just sits there, staring down into her plate while eating, dripping gray...

“Hi, my name’s John. I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m the new CFO here at the airline.” “So f–ing what?” That’s the beginning of how a senior airline executive learned to put employees first in their leadership communication. My guest this week who shares that story is Gary Ross, who started his career as an Emmy-nominated TV news reporter. He then led the communications departments at Hyatt Hotels, CDW, and Fortune Brands. Today he’s a trainer, coach, and...

How Michael Brody-Waite went from a drug addict on the street to CEO and what you can learn about leadership from his journey. read more

Humor Engineer, Drew Tarvin, recently partnered with the Procter & Gamble alumni organization to start a new podcast with former P&G executives called Learning from Leaders, and it’s open to the public. Join me on this episode with Drew for a brief discussion about the podcast, some of its early guests, and some of the early insights from his interviews with these industry leaders. You can find Drew’s new podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and most of the podcast servers. Or, find it...

“Hey Paul, I’m thinking about writing a book. Can we talk? I’d love to get some advice.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten that email since my first book came out eight years ago. I usually end up spending an hour explaining everything I’ve learned about the subject. And I’m always happy to do so. But on my podcast this week, I had someone on who knows far more about it than I do — publisher and global credibility expert Mitchell Levy. And his method...

Jason Hartman has been earned a small fortune in real estate across 11 states and 17 cities. His office boasts pictures of him with Richard Branson, Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Forbes, Tony Robbins, and Brittany Spears, among others. But he didn’t start his most profitable business until he sold his real estate company and created a business that had never existed before. And that’s where this week’s lesson comes in. Click play above to listen to my conversation with Jason where he’ll...

I normally don’t pull a bait-and-switch on my podcast guests. But this week I did. I was scheduled to interview Jacob Morgan about his new book The Future Leader: 9 Skills and Mindsets to Succeed in the Next Decade. But Jacob is a futurist, and specifically an expert on the future of work — he [read more]

Confession: I was a little disappointed when I started reading this book and realized it was fiction. I thought I was reading a serious, non-fiction business book. But then I couldn’t put it down. And by the time I was done, it was my favorite business book I’ve read in the last year.  That was [read more]

Confession: I was a little disappointed when I started reading this book and realized it was fiction. I thought I was reading a serious, non-fiction business book. But then I couldn’t put it down. And by the time I was done, it was my favorite business book I’ve read in the last year.  That was just one of six true confessions I admitted to author Skip Prichard while interviewing him about The Book of Mistakes: 9 Secrets to Creating a Successful Future. Like an experienced novelist, Prichard...

It wasn’t until Bobby Herrera was eighteen, in the Army and three weeks into boot camp, polishing his boots by flashlight at 11:30 p.m., that he began to re-evaluate the value of struggle in making him the leader he is today as the CEO of the Populus Group, one of the fastest-growing HR service companies [read more]

Not many people can claim that they taught Steve Jobs how to lead. But my podcast guest this week can. John Mattone is one of the world’s top executive coaches, along side other legendary names like Tony Robbins, or Marshall Goldsmith, or John Maxwell. He’s coached some of the most admired CEOs in the world [read more]

“People get more done when they enjoy their work. So, humor in the workplace isn’t about making work funny, or being the funniest person in the office. It’s about making work fun, and getting better results.”  That’s according to my podcast guest this week, Drew Tarvin. Drew is a comedian and former corporate IT manager [read more]

Most company founding stories are boring. And that’s a shame. Because nobody ever quit their job and risked everything to start a new business for a boring reason. But if you read the company website for most companies, their founding stories sound like this: “Our founder started the company in 1936 in her basement with [read more]

I got a surprising email in April of last year. It was from a woman named Meg Gibbons at a publishing company called Sourcebooks. She basically said she liked my work, and that she’d be interested in publishing one of my next books. But she said, “Here’s the deal. I only work on books designed [read more]

Joshua Spodek has five Ivy League degrees, including a Ph.D. in physics and an MBA from Columbia, is a bestselling author, and a professor at NYU. So, of course he had to try his hand at entrepreneurship as well. And one of his first attempts was both a huge business success, but at the same [read more]

When you’re trying to help your employees be more innovative, getting them to leave their office and do their work somewhere else might not be the first idea that comes to mind. But that’s exactly what Yann Toutant recommends, and with good reason — it works. Yann explains, “Having the same habits every day is [read more]

I’ve interviewed a number of people who’ve run multi-billion dollar companies. But this might be the first time I’ve interviewed someone who’s LOST a multi-billion dollar business. At the age of 26, and fresh out of Harvard Business School, Warwick Fairfax made a successful play to privatize one of the largest public media conglomerates in [read more]

If you’ve ever tried to use Myers Briggs in your organization, you know the problem with it. It’s just too complicated. Most people can’t remember which of the 16 personality types they are, or what difference it would make even if they could. My guest this week has a solution for that. Steve Cockrum is [read more]

This week I had a chance to talk to Rich Berens, the CEO and Chief Client Fanatic of Root Inc. (seriously, the best job title I’ve ever heard), and a noted speaker on the issues of strategy and change. Rich has a new book out called What Are Your Blind Spots? Conquering the 5 Misconceptions [read more]

This week I got the chance to chat with Kevin Kruse, the founder and CEO of LEADx, a company that offers a leadership development platform powered by artificial intelligence. He’s a New York Times bestselling author, host of the LEADx podcast, and he has a new book just out called Great Leaders Have No Rules, that we spent [read more]

Most leadership development is leadership training — you go to a class, listen to the teacher, take some notes, do a few exercises, and then you’re done. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It can work. The problem is that I think we all know that most leadership skill is learned on the job from the [read more]