Jo McDermott

Career development

  • The Transition From Manager to Leader

    Leaders v. Managers I’m sure you’ve probably heard about the differences between managers and leaders.  Managers do things right and leaders do the right thing–right? I think that this is an interesting discussion, but it isn’t that easy.  Managers do… Continue reading

  • Break the Rules? Only After Careful Consideration.

    Rules Have Reasons Rules in organizations are there for a reason.  Someone at some time figured out that there needed to be guidelines in place to govern the situation.  These rules can be formal–procedures written in manuals that have multiple… Continue reading

  • Get a Mentor. Use a Mentor.

    Get a Mentor I know you’ve heard it.  If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ve heard it from me.  You need a mentor to help your career.  Easier said than done, right? Typical questions about mentors and mentoring are: What… Continue reading

  • Stephen Covey and his Gifts to Business People

    All business people owe a lot to Stephen Covey, who died this week at the age of 79.  Covey wrote his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, in 1989.  There were no earth shatteringly new concepts in it—to… Continue reading

  • Onboard Yourself

    Onboarding Onboarding is the process that organizations use to get their employees up to speed enough to do their jobs.  Another term for it is “organizational socialization.”  Organizations have informal and formal methods for the knowledge transfer or processes, tools,… Continue reading

  • Trust me, damn it!

    Demanding Trust Doesn’t Work I once had a boss demand that I trust her again.  We can talk later about how I made the mistake of letting her know that I didn’t trust her (not a good career move, and… Continue reading

  • Promoted to Manage Your Peers? Awkward.

    They’ll Hate Me! If you spend enough time climbing the corporate ladder, or if you work in a small organization, eventually you’ll be promoted to manage your peers.  This is one of the toughest developmental experiences there is.  It’s hard… Continue reading

  • Become a Great Leader

    Do You Want to Become a Great Leader? How you think about leadership has a profound affect on your success in becoming a good leader.  We all have our individual idea of what a good leader is.  Then we assume… Continue reading

  • Flip the Switch

    A Story I’m going to tell you a story so that you can learn an important lesson without having to go through what I went through to learn it.  How’s that for a deal?  Then you’ll be able to do… Continue reading

  • Diversity Makes Work Work.

    Work Has Gotten More Diverse.  No Duh! Have you noticed how diverse our work lives have gotten lately?  Not so much at the top of organizations–we still have a long way to go there–but in terms of getting actual work… Continue reading