Contagious Commentary by Monica Wofford

Podcast: Download (Duration: 4:45 — 4.4MB)

Why is that we spend more time with our poor performers than our star performers? Are we operating off the adage “if it ain’t broken, why fix it” or are we forgetting “people do what they get paid attention to for doing”?

Star performers are usually highly internally motivated and complain the most about things like paperwork, administrative follow up and slow systems that get in their way. How can you as the leader, stay out of the way of the star performer and make sure that they continue to get what they need to thrive and grow? Read Full Article »

Podcast: Download (Duration: 5:00 — 4.6MB)

Have you ever had someone talk down to you in a way that left you feeling utterly silly? Has your boss ever been the culprit who caused you to feel that way? What would those you lead say about you? While intuitively, we know that others don’t make us feel a certain way, the truth is we don’t believe what others say unless we already, to some degree, believe it to be true. So what do you do or believe when your boss “talks down” to you? Read Full Article »

Ever made a mistake?

We’ve all done it. We’ve all made a big blunder in our leadership. Heck, the book Contagious Leadership  is a collection of the lessons I learned in years of learning to lead the hard way. The trick is not to avoid ever making a mistake, but to jump right in and fix it, learn from it, and move forward.

Think about it this way, Read Full Article »

Podcast: Download (Duration: 5:15 — 4.8MB)

Ever goofed? Sure you have, but what did you do after?

Does making a mistake make you difficult? Well, heck I hope not. I make them all the time. What can make you appear difficult is messing up and then covering up, so let’s look at how you can be a leader, make a mistake, recover, and make progress… not to mention save a little face.

With Make Difficult People Disappear coming out soon, it seems we’re awfully focused on this issue of difficult people lately, however, the more I think about it, it’s a rampant problem. There are some who seem to “see difficult people” instead of “dead people” from the movies, all over the place. This might even be the case in your office and if so, some of it may be derived from how you recover from your blunders. Here are a few ways to do it with grace and saving face. Read Full Article »

Have you ever gotten frustrated with someone about a phone bill, credit card statement, or other inquiry for which you had to call customer service? Ever been that person that you know YOU’D call difficult if the roles were reversed? Well, if you were lucky the rep you spoke with acted polite and patient…because here’s the list of the top ten things they would have LIKED to have said to you… Read Full Article »

Join me, April 24th!

Do the difficult people you lead or work with get worse or better when you deal with them in some way? It sure seems like they should improve, but there’s this old adage that stands out in my mind that makes me think the answer to that question might be different than we both want to believe. Read Full Article »

Podcast: Download (Duration: 5:30 — 5.0MB)

The truth? Leaders are often part of the difficulty when they fail to effectively deal with difficult people. If you take a look at the offerings of most public seminar companies or corporate training firms, it’s a near guarantee that Dealing with Difficult People will be listed in their catalog because leaders often outsource this solution when they don’t know how to resolve the problem internally. Now there’s nothing wrong with Read Full Article »