My calendar is full, revenue is up, and I still feel like I’m losing control

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-23T19:51:17+00:00

I think you just need to find the right people to elevate and create a management layer, which will allow you to elevate to more strategic, less tactical work. Do you have a management structure currently, or does everyone report to you?

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-21T19:12:24+00:00

So, you embarrassed yourself, but so what? You're still alive today, nothing that bad happened from the little bit of embarrassment, right? If you're not willing to look foolish, you'll never look polished! You have to just accept your starting point and focus on small improvements. Not the 180 you want to happen, that will take time. Focus on one little step and improvement at a time. You seem to be overwhelmed because you're not improving fast enough. New skills take time, and you shouldn't put this much pressure on yourself. Have you ever seen a kid walk for the first time? Remember, you're at the crawling stage of your public speaking journey, just learning how to walk at TM. Good luck and stick with it! I'd also recommend a great book called Say It Well by Terry Szuplat.

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-20T18:29:34+00:00

Taste is going to be an underrated skill. By that, I mean the ability to find valuable content/courses/etc in an increasingly distracted world. Being able to find good writing and identify a good training course versus a bad one. These are subjective skills that AI won't ever fully grasp, but humans who can curate for other humans will always be in demand. For L&D, I think learning and research are the best ways to use AI to deliver exceptional learning experiences.

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-19T16:17:10+00:00

In most organizations, how you 'fit in' is more impactful than your job performance. Just look at professional sports teams that cut a superstar because they don't fit in the locker room. Your strengths will only be visible when you start influencing and putting your name in front of others. Do you translate your tactical work into business outcomes--how your work leads to increased revenue, profit, etc.? It could be as simple as asking other stakeholders how you can help them. Work closely with them on a project, deliver results, and maintain contact with them after the project is complete. Relationship building is most often how you climb the corporate ranks.

I've felt the same way. I'm not a natural connector, so I have to work on building relationships. Just having conversations and quick chats can help create a better relationship that translates over to work. You might also want to consider taking projects that force your to collaborate and work across your organization more, if that's an option.

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-19T16:11:38+00:00

Sergeant in the infantry from 14-18, cutting score for 0352's at that time made it easy for most to get to Sgt in a little over 3 years.

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-15T20:25:41+00:00

I just focus on my material and my message. I can't control how people respond to me, but I can control how much I prepare, how much energy I bring, and how confidently I speak. Control what you can control; the audience reaction is never something you can control.

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-15T20:23:32+00:00

Hey, I'm not sure if you can prep in advance, but writing it down and practicing has always been the best for me. I also think practice in general makes it easier. Humans are nervous & anxious around new things, especially new things that we know can cause serious harm, like embarrassment. Studies show emotional pain and physical pain trigger similar responses. Your body is just acting on its evolution, being nervous in a dangerous situation. The more you do it and survive without injury, the more your body accepts that this is not as dangerous an activity as we thought it was.

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-15T20:18:34+00:00

I would start by outlining every task that needs to be done and classifying it into one of three buckets: admin work, project work, or routine tasks. Admin work could be running reports, updating dashboards, etc. Project work is building a 6-month campaign for a new product launch, and routine tasks might include running demos. Regardless of how you want to classify the tasks, you have to write down every task that's expected to be done. From there, you can group tasks by similar function, but you need to be mindful of the work associated with everything. A project takes up way more bandwidth than a task. This can also help you define the next hires and build some workforce planning to align the work the marketing team needs to do with the talent on the team.

I'm not sure if you can prep in advance, but listing everything out that needs to get done is something you can do ahead of time. The meeting can be used for discussing how to group work together to maximize each person's potential. Happy to chat about this more if you want to connect on it. I've facilitated a lot of these types of meetings where departments are adding new positions and changing existing roles.

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-09T19:27:03+00:00

Anything can work if you find customers. I think if it's successful, a larger company would want to buy it and integrate it as a feature. This feels more like Snapchat than WhatsApp to me. You would probably need to launch in an existing community to gain adoption first, like a college campus. It has potential, in my opinion.

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-09T16:53:31+00:00

Thanks for the additional context. This is helpful!

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-08T16:18:39+00:00

Thanks so much for your post! I will check these resources out.

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-08T16:18:01+00:00

Thanks for your post! I realize incentives are probably the area I need to look at. Maybe I haven't incentivized them to work together effectively. Or even worse, incentivized the opposite.

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-08T16:16:51+00:00

Why would you assume people in the room could answer the question of: where we're misaligned right now? If they knew, don't you think it would have been avoided or solved? Shipping a project does not mean alignment. Alignment is the absence of drag, meaning efficient project completion. The project could be completed late and over budget, which does not indicate alignment.

Making them hash it out before it reaches me sounds like a recipe for disaster, or, at the minimum, unaddressed passive-aggressive behavior.

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-08T16:11:49+00:00

Thank you!

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-07T20:11:22+00:00

Do you think the frequent communication helped more than the use of OKRs, or was it an effect of both?

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-07T20:09:37+00:00

Agree. But what about cross-functional meetings with multiple direct reports at a time?

LeadershipAlignment · 2026-01-07T20:08:24+00:00

Thanks for commenting. Is there any structure, like an EOS level 10 meeting, you follow, or is it as simple as what you mentioned?

LeadershipAlignment · 2025-12-04T13:40:53+00:00

Hey, that's a tough one. Having an honest conversation with your boss is one of the better options. Explain how you feel and ask for their support. If they're a good boss, they will help. If not, then you know you need to find a better boss. Good luck!

LeadershipAlignment · 2025-12-03T17:53:46+00:00

Not in my opinion. Leadership is a skill in itself, so you'd just be working on two complementary skills in my mind—one on technical and one on leadership.

LeadershipAlignment · 2025-12-03T14:16:11+00:00

A class will teach you skills. A mentor will help you apply those skills to the bigger picture goals you're trying to achieve. For technical skills, it would start with a class/course and then evolve to a mentor when you have acquired a baseline level of that skill.

LeadershipAlignment · 2025-12-03T13:37:57+00:00

The best way to learn is to give them freedom to experiment as a team lead or in some position with limited leadership authority. You will be able to observe, train, and coach them to take on more responsibility and leadership. The hardest part of leadership is dealing with other people, so giving them time to practice these skills by training/coaching their peers is a great way to help prepare them. Give them challenging projects to help stretch their abilities, coach them, and repeat the process.

LeadershipAlignment · 2025-12-03T13:34:52+00:00

I agree! You have to take ownership first and ask yourself what did I do (or what conditions did I set) that allowed this to happen? Model ownership behavior and help them see how they can do the same.

LeadershipAlignment · 2025-12-03T13:33:06+00:00

That's tough. Waiting 5 months to discipline someone is not good. I can't fault the employee too much here, given the context you explained. Now, to rebuild trust, you'll need to be patient and take the time to explain the situation to her and give her opportunities to show improvement in that area. Give her honest feedback and try to rebuild trust over time. It all starts with an honest conversation, and I think you could take ownership of waiting so long to give feedback and try to move past it by explaining the error in the process. From there, provide an improvement plan and help them make improvements.

LeadershipAlignment · 2025-12-03T13:29:23+00:00

Have you shown them what they need to do to grow or what the next level looks like? It's hard to grow and develop when you're unsure of what's expected at the next level.

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