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Accidental Bosses, Business, Values 13 Mar 2013

How to Fire Someone with Compassion and Respect

Photo of a flower in a vase on an empty office desk

A note about this post: None of what follows is a legal opinion; I’m not a lawyer, and I haven’t run this past a lawyer to see whether I’ve held to the letter of the law in my recommendations. I recommend you consult legal advice before terminating any employee, whether for cause or otherwise. My [...]

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Accidental Bosses, Business, Self-awareness 6 Mar 2013

Moving Into Purpose: When Going With the Flow Stops Working

Photo of a river and waterfall, by Tom Gill

Yesterday, I spoke at Ubizo, a conference for small business owners workshopping business challenges with peers and mentors. This is the written version of the talk I gave, which is a little different than the version I actually gave. I was asked to speak about a challenge I overcame in my entrepreneur’s journey. It’s about [...]

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Accidental Bosses, Business 6 Feb 2013

When Delegating Seems Like More Work for You

Photo of wheatpaste street art depicting a hand pointing to the right

A lot of us accidental bosses – those of us who found ourselves leading a team because we’re good at doing the work ourselves – are terrible at delegating. One version of that resistance sounds like this: “I just feel like it’ll take more energy to delegate it than to do it myself.” There’s also [...]

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Accidental Bosses, Business 2 Nov 2012

The Accidental Boss: Making Peace with Power

A colleague of mine recently landed a new gig where she’s in charge of a team of ten. It’s the first time she’s held an officially managerial role, and she confessed to me, “I feel like I need to go to boss school.” “Boss School! I like the sound of that,” I thought. I wish [...]

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