Articles

One of my favorite movie scenes is found in the movie “Saving Private Ryan,” which was made in 1998. The scene takes place after a harrowing D-Day beach landing at Normandy, France, in 1944. Army Ranger Captain John Miller, played by Tom Hanks, and a hand-selected squad are assigned the task of traversing the French countryside on a dangerous mission to find the only surviving brother among four siblings — Private Ryan. The story was fictional but inspired by a Civil War memorial to eight brothers who died during that conflict.

A fellow by the name of Fred Fiedler and his associates developed this thing called the Contingency Theory. The basic premise of the theory is that a leader first must understand leadership style tendencies, assess three work environment parameters, and determine how to best apply those leadership tendencies in the workplace environment.

Within Contingency Theory there are two leadership style tendencies: task-oriented and relations-oriented.

A supervisor or manager position is vacant and you need to interview candidates. The reason the position is vacant is that the last person hired for that position was a colossal failure. You had gone through the vetting process as best you knew how. The guy had a...

I have a suggestion for any organization that wants to implement a restructuring and change management program. Evaluate the people who will be filling roles as managers and supervisors under the new system. One of the biggest problems for successful organizational...

What does it mean to have an open door policy? Does an open door policy mean that you have to drop whatever you’re doing whenever someone brings any issue to your attention? One of our clients is about halfway through a major maintenance management improvement...

Four of the most powerful words you can use as managers or supervisors are “what do you think?” Sometimes we don’t stop to think about how our team members feel about the way we interact with them. To be sure people like to have certainty with respect to boundaries in...

A good supervisor will know the organization’s policy or procedures regarding how to deal with performance problems. A really good supervisor has the interpersonal skills to address issues in a proactive manner before issues progress into disciplinary situations. The great supervisors will first determine if there is some sort of capability issue. Has the person been trained? Has the person been provided with the necessary tools? Does the person have a learning disability or physical issues that make things more difficult for this person?

A good supervisor will know the organization’s policy or procedures regarding how to deal with performance problems. A really good supervisor has the interpersonal skills to address issues in a proactive manner before issues progress into disciplinary situations. The...

When navigating in the open ocean, your ship may be on a consistent course and speed. There may be other ships that are underway, also on a consistent course and speed. Under this situation there may be a risk of collision. If the paths of the two vessels intersect at...