The Blog by Mark Murphy and Leadership IQ

Quiz: Does Your Company Need Better Leadership Training?

Answer these 5 simple questions and then you'll see how 32,410 American and Canadian executives, managers and employees answered. It's a great chance to benchmark your organization!

Posted by Mark Murphy on 20 July, 2016 no_cat, no_recent, sb_ad_30, sb_ad_5 | Read more →

How Smart CEOs Use Employee Engagement Surveys

CEOs don’t get many chances to hear the unfiltered voices of their employees. So when you’re conducting your next employee engagement survey, don’t let that opportunity slip by.
Some employee engagement surveys limit themselves to questions about whether employees have a friend at work or like their job.

Posted by Mark Murphy on 14 July, 2016 Employee Engagement, Forbes, Leadership Skills, no_cat, no_recent, Research, sb_ad_30, sb_ad_5 | Read more →

Stop Being Stressed On Sunday Night With This Simple Time Management Trick

Whether we call it the Sunday night blues or Sunday evening dread, we’ve all experienced the anticipatory anxiety and depression that occurs as we mentally end our weekend and prepare for the stress of another Monday morning. Fortunately, there’s a simple trick to quell this anxiety and give yourself another full evening of weekend time.

Posted by Mark Murphy on 13 July, 2016 Forbes, no_cat, no_recent, Research, sb_ad_30, sb_ad_5, Time Management | Read more →

Don't Let Fear Of Failure Ruin Your 2016 Goals

New Year’s resolutions are practically an institution. Maybe your big goal for 2016 is to lose weight, quit smoking, work out, advance your career, start a business, double sales revenue, run a marathon, go back to school, save more money, etc.

Posted by Mark Murphy on 06 July, 2016 Forbes, Goal Setting, no_cat, no_recent, sb_ad_30, sb_ad_5 | Read more →

Don't Conduct A Job Search, Conduct A Company Search

This is probably going to sound like pretty weird career advice, but if you’re looking for a new job, don’t conduct a job search. Instead, conduct a company search. Let me explain.
The best companies out there, the kinds of organizations you really want to work for, hire people that are great fits for their culture.

Posted by Mark Murphy on 04 July, 2016 Forbes, no_cat, no_recent, sb_ad_30, sb_ad_5 | Read more →

What Having Hernia Surgery Taught Me About Time Management

For years I’ve effectively taught leaders that there are four kinds of activities that consume our work time: Green Light work, Yellow Light work, Orange Light work and Red Light work.
Green Light work is good. It’s the stuff you were hired to do. It’s essential to your job and your work goals, and without it, you might as well not even be there.

Posted by Mark Murphy on 01 July, 2016 Forbes, no_cat, no_recent, sb_ad_30, sb_ad_5, Time Management | Read more →

Email Can Hurt Your Career: Develop Better Communication Skills With These 5 Other Tools

Email When we think about all the ways we have to communicate with each other, and there are a bunch of them in the workplace setting, most communication modalities offer some possibility of messaging beyond the words we say.
Face-to-face communication, which has the biggest communication bandwidth, for example, lets us stuff a whole lot more information than just words into our message.

Posted by Mark Murphy on 29 June, 2016 Communication Skills, Forbes, no_cat, no_recent, sb_ad_30, sb_ad_5 | Read more →

4 Words to Calm Down Your Office Drama Queens (and Kings)

The Drama Queens (and Kings) at your office need to be the center of attention. They’re provocative, emotional and reactive. And they are highly skilled at getting everyone around them worked-up, frazzled and emotional (that’s how they stay at the center of attention).
So you’re going to manage them by doing the opposite (i.e. you’re going to be calm, cool and Factual).

Posted by Mark Murphy on 27 June, 2016 Communication Skills, Forbes, Leadership Skills, no_cat, no_recent, sb_ad_30, sb_ad_5 | Read more →

Don't Bring Your Boss Only One Solution To A Problem

Imagine you discover a significant problem at work; the kind you need approval from your boss to solve. So you work up a proposal, bring it to your boss, and wait for approval. You’re a problem solver, and that’s what problem solvers do, right? You find a problem and generate a solution.
But imagine that instead of giving your proposal the green light, the boss says “that’s a good try, but I’d like to go in a different direction.”

Posted by Mark Murphy on 22 June, 2016 Communication Skills, Forbes, no_cat, no_recent, sb_ad_30, sb_ad_5 | Read more →

Don't Make Constructive Criticism So Soft That People Miss Your Message

Effective constructive criticism maintains a delicate balance. When criticism is too harsh, recipients shut down emotionally, get defensive, and fail to hear a word you say. When criticism is too soft, recipients fail to hear the message that they really do need to change.

Posted by Mark Murphy on 20 June, 2016 Communication Skills, Constructive Criticism, Forbes, no_cat, no_recent, sb_ad_30, sb_ad_5 | Read more →

Mark Murphy / Leadership IQ Blog