PODCAST · business
Management Mastery
by Fred Ball & Rick Kendall
Senior Executive Coaches discuss the problems new (and, often, experienced) managers regularly face and give practical advice on how to prevent them, or deal with them when they occur.
Episodes
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Getting Rid of Old Rules & Regulations
When skilled leaders meet with their staff members and ask, “What’s keeping you from being more productive?” The answer they often hear is about unnecessary rules, policies, and procedures that have long outlived their usefulness. That’s the subject of this episode.
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Are You Contributing to an Employee's Lack of Success?
When an employee fails, managers usually don’t blame themselves. Whatever the actual reason may be, the problem is assumed to be the employee’s fault and the employee’s responsibility. But, what if the manager has also contributed to the poor performance? That’s the focus of this week's episode.
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What Is the Leader's Role In Presentations?
In this episode we discuss both types of communicating: one-on-one and with groups. HOW something is communicated is as important as WHAT is being communicated.
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What is the Leader's Role in Communication Preparation?
Communication skills, the ability to prepare, interact, and understand messages, are among the most important skills and abilities any leader must have to be successful. Preparation for communicating with one or more people is the focus of this episode.
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What is the Leader's Role in Relationship Building?
The leader’s role is to build and maintain a high-performing team that outperforms the competition. In a past episode we discussed EQ, the first of the core skills and abilities to be a successful leader. In this episode we will discuss Relationship Building, another critical skill.
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A Better Approach to Problem Solving
Whether you’re a new, or experienced, manager you’ll face problems at work. The way that you approach solving them will prove to be an important aspect of your success. In this encore episode we’ll discuss a good process to follow.
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Encore of Dealing With a Difficult Coworker
Almost everyone has had the experience of working with a toxic coworker. How to deal with that situation can be difficult and emotional. It is not something that most people want to deal with, but it is in your interest, and the other persons, to work out the problem. We will deal with ways that...
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What Is the Leader's Role in Relationship Building?
The leader’s role is to build and maintain a high-performing team that outperforms the competition. In a past episode we discussed EQ, the first of the core skills and abilities to be a successful leader. In this episode we will discuss Relationship Building, another critical skill.
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What Is a Leader's Role? Emotional Quotient or E.Q.
The leader’s role is to build and maintain a high-performing team that outperforms the competition. In this episode of Management Mastery, we discuss Emotional Quotient or E.Q., one of the core skills and abilities needed to be a successful leader. In future episodes we’ll discuss additional core...
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Receiving Information From Your Staff
As the manager, the information you receive can be slanted toward a point of view, suspect, or compromised. Taking steps to improve the information you receive can make a huge difference in your success.
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Asking for A Promotion
Having done your preparation to ask for a promotion as we covered in our previous episode, you’ll then need to schedule a meeting with your boss to discuss your career progress and to ask for a promotion. It’s important that you prepare carefully for that meeting. How to prepare to meet with your...
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Preparing to Ask For a Promotion
Before you can consider asking for a promotion a number of things must happen. You need to stand out in your current position, and you must build your case for a promotion.
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Career Progress: Making a Career Change
If you feel you’ve selected the wrong career field, don’t be upset. Many people, young and old, at some point in their careers realize that another choice would provide a better alignment with their values, interests, and skills. Discussing making a career change is the focus of this week’s episode.
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Career Progress: How to Achieve Your Business Goals
In assessing your career progress, achieving your business objectives will be one of your most important goals. In this episode we’ll focus on those things that you should be doing to successfully achieve those objectives, and provide some suggestions about what you can do if you’re not achieving...
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Career Progress: What Are Your Career Goals?
If you already know your career goals consider yourself lucky. Many of us don’t really know our career goals and passions and it becomes a matter of investigating and questioning before we identify a direction. The purpose of this episode is to help you think through that process.
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Encore: Terminating an Employee
Every manager, at some time, has to fire an employee. It is one of the most difficult tasks a manager has, but it must be done caringly and professionally. Layoffs are a special subset of termination. We’ll discuss the process for both in this Encore episode.
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Encore Episode: Three Mistakes New Managers Make and How to Avoid Them
There are a number of honest mistakes new managers often make. In this Encore episode, we discuss three of the most common and often some of the hardest to totally avoid making.
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How to Stand Out in Your Current Position
There are a number of ways you can stand out as a performer in your company or department. All of them require you to have mastered all aspects of your current role first, and then to have your head up so that you’re listening, observing, and understanding the goals of your department and…
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Failures In Communicating About A Significant Change
Major changes can be upsetting in any organization, no matter what kind of change it is. The manager’s responsibility in such cases is to communicate clearly and effectively about the change as much as possible in order to keep rumors and unnecessary anxieties at a minimum. We’ll discuss several…
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Power Dynamics: Identifying Sources of Power
Power dynamics are essentially the ways in which influence and control are manifested among individuals or groups and how they impact or controls relationships and interactions. Power Dynamics include both formal authority as well as informal influence, They exist in both the workplace as well as...
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Do You Know Your Boss's Goals?
Do you know your boss’s goals and specific objectives? If you answered “Yes” to that question you’re ahead of a number of your colleagues. If you answered “No” then you have an opportunity to make up ground. We’ll discuss some ways to do that in this episode.
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Encore: Changes That Come With The New Role of Manager
The minute you get promoted, you will no longer be the same person to your boss, your colleagues or your new staff. In this encore episode of Management Mastery, we cover these changes and how to deal with them.
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Project Management: Winding Down the Project
When overseeing a project in their department, the manager must continuously evaluate progress and make the decision when to wind down the project. We covered, in a previous episode of Management Mastery, the manager’s role in monitoring the progress of a project. In this episode, we cover the...
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Project Management: Monitoring Progress
We’ve discussed defining the problem a project is meant to address, selecting the team for the project and conducting the initial team meeting. Ideally, once the project is underway, the manager’s role becomes one of monitoring the team’s progress to ensuring its success. The project needs to be...
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Project Management: The Kickoff Meeting
After understanding the project and choosing the best staff to achieve success, we now move to the important initial meeting with staff. This meeting, if handled well, will dramatically increase your odds of having a successful project.
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Project Management: Selecting the Best Team
While it’s easy to say, “A project is only as successful as the people behind it,” it also requires time and attention to get the process of selecting the team right. Finding the right balance between technical skills, social skills, and interpersonal fit are all important considerations.…
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Project Management
Managing a project is a complex process influenced by a range of factors that can make it challenging, both on a personal and an organizational level. We’ll look at managing and overseeing a project in this episode beginning with defining the problem. In future episodes we’ll examine setting up a...
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Decision Making Can Be Difficult
The ability to make decisions Is one of a manager’s most important skills. Making a good decision involves having a clear focus on your priorities and then choosing between two or more options. Doing it well shows business acumen, confidence, leadership and, sometimes, even courage. Doing it…
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A Better Approach to Problem Solving
Whether you’re a new, or experienced, manager you’ll face problems at work. The way that you approach solving them will prove to be an important aspect of your success. In this week's episode of Management Mastery, we’ll discuss a good process to follow.
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Focusing on Your Strategic Role
As a manager you’re constantly being pulled away from your strategic objectives by everyday tasks that may be important, but aren’t helping you to achieve your primary objectives. As the manager, you should continuously seek ways you can maximize your group’s overall performance. In this podcast...
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Improve Your Listening Skills
Most of us believe that we are good listeners. Research has shown that’s not true. Listening is demanding both cognitively and emotionally. It takes focused attention and effort to do it well. We’ll discuss mistakes that manager’s make and how to avoid them in this episode.
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How to Avoid Being a Bad Boss
The damage that a bad boss can inflict upon their staff and their organization is substantial. Multiple studies have found that somewhere between 30-50% of both managers and workers leave their jobs because of a bad boss and a negative work culture. We’ll look at how to avoid being a bad boss in...
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Persuasion: A Necessary Skill
Every manager needs the ability to persuade internal and external constituencies to reach consensus to move issues forward. Sometimes it’s a major issue that needs to be decided on, like an issue with a client, or a change of direction, and other times it’ll be smaller, day-to-day operating...
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Using Your Leadership Style
In the last episode we discussed the importance of understanding your leadership style and how it’ll be important to your success. Your style was developed over a series of events during your lifetime. In this episode we’ll discuss how you can use your leadership style to be a more effective leader.
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Understanding Your Leadership Style
Understanding and improving your leadership style is important to your success as a manager. They’re a number of ways you can approach this task. In this podcast we’ll discuss a simple, straightforward way to think about and develop an effective leadership style.
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Dealing With A Difficult Coworker
Almost everyone has had the experience of working with a toxic coworker. How to deal with that situation can be difficult and emotional. It is not something that most people want to deal with, but it is in your interest, and the other persons, to work out the problem. We will deal with ways that...
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Guest Jake Kilrain: Dealing With A Difficult Colleague
Former sales executive Jake Kilrain discusses his experience in dealing with a colleague who felt they should have his position and tried to undermine him at every opportunity.
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Executive Presence Pt. 2: Other Behaviors
Executive presence is a critical component of being a successful senior manager. It’s the ability to project an image of confidence, competence, and leadership, inspiring trust and respect in others. As you continue to grow your career, developing and exhibiting the behaviors that define…
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Executive Presence Pt. 1: Gravitas
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...
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Speechmaking Revisited
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...
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Peter Drucker on Effectiveness
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…
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Managing Your Own Career
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…
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Productive Performance Reviews
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,...
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Questions for One-On-One Meetings
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…
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Assessing Staff Wellbeing
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...
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Encore: First Meeting With Your New Boss
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.
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Designing Jobs
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...
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The "Liking Gap"
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…
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Thoughts on Authority
The traditional concept of authority is simply exercising control over others because of one’s position in an organization. In today’s world that may not be the best strategy. Indeed. it may not even be an option. A more realistic and, indeed, effective approach on the use of authority is to lead...
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Solving Difficult Problems
A difficult problem requires a manager, and their team, to take the time to break it down into individual steps, thinking through potential solutions, considering alternatives from all sides of the problem, and providing follow-up. In each step formulating and asking effective questions is...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Senior Executive Coaches discuss the problems new (and, often, experienced) managers regularly face and give practical advice on how to prevent them, or deal with them when they occur.
HOSTED BY
Fred Ball & Rick Kendall
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Management Mastery have?
Management Mastery currently has 191 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Management Mastery about?
Senior Executive Coaches discuss the problems new (and, often, experienced) managers regularly face and give practical advice on how to prevent them, or deal with them when they occur.
How often does Management Mastery release new episodes?
Management Mastery publishes regularly with 191 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Management Mastery?
You can listen to Management Mastery on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Management Mastery?
Management Mastery is created and hosted by Fred Ball & Rick Kendall.
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