Dear Madeleine, I am a marketing director for a medical devices company. I manage all our social media and speaking engagements, which involves a lot of details and spreadsheets with tasks and tracking results. Part of my job is to conduct interviews with experts and write them up for our website, and to write articles that make the latest research accessible and engaging to our audience of doctors and nurse practioners, as well as the patients who (hopefully) need what we make. My problem is that I block out time to write, and it always seems to get overridden by crises of the day, emergency ..read more

Dear Madeleine, I read your last blog Not Sure How to Address Burnout? with interest. I work in consulting with one of the big five consulting firms. We hire go-getters and work them hard. The competition is fierce and only the most driven get promoted. The rewards are, shall I say, significant—but I won’t lie, the workload is intense. We never pretend otherwise. We hire kids straight out of the best business schools because we know they’re the brightest and are used to brutally hard work. Yet, in the last few years, I have noticed a lot more complaining about workload. There seems to be an e ..read more

Dear Madeleine, I am a regional president for a global financial services company. About five years ago, I hired a whiz kid to inject some creativity and innovation into our use of technology and how we approach our regional customer acquisition. He is technically a genius in terms of IQ, and he excels at grasping key ideas and creating plans to execute them. When he started, he was also very good at creating relationships and influencing people to try new things with a minimum of drama. He quickly rose to be invited to join the leadership team. The projects he has spearheaded have significan ..read more

Dear Madeleine, I’m a tech founder and have developed a tool called “burnout tracker,” which is embedded into our 1:1 tool. Without going into too much detail, the tracker is able to predict when a support conversation between manager and employee is needed. Here’s my challenge: What is common sense to me seems to be a foreign language to many of the managers using our tool; for example, that during a support conversation, the leader listens to the direct report and provides help where they can. Yes, the phrase “support conversation” is a bit vague. But to me, that’s where the gold is. By sim ..read more

Dear Madeleine, I work in fashion manufacturing. I was promoted about six months ago. I manage the supply chain, timelines for delivery of goods, etc. I have a huge team and work all hours because I am in western Europe and my teams are in China, Mexico, and Vietnam. When I took the job, things were a bit of a mess, and I am very pleased to have turned things around. I instituted new software and updated processes. We have worked through the kinks and things are humming along nicely. My boss seems pleased with my work but told me the executive team is seeking more innovation in my area. I hav ..read more

Dear Madeleine, I am an HR generalist working at a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust). Our CEO started the company about eight years ago, and I have been his right hand since the beginning. He is a genius in many ways—high IQ, a deep intuitive understanding of the real estate markets, a complete whiz with spreadsheets and how money works. He has a dazzling intellect and charismatic personality. When I first started working with my CEO, I thought he had a flair for hiring. He spots talent and goes to a lot of trouble to pursue people and persuade them to come and work with us. He now has an e ..read more

Dear Madeleine, I am a senior manager and have managed people for decades. I am a student of leadership and work every day to be a better leader. Here is something I am having trouble putting into words, but I hope you have some inspiration for me. I make a big effort to help my people develop their skills so they can achieve their career goals. I put a lot of time in, most of it listening and offering guidance. Many of my team members have gone on to great things, both in my own company and elsewhere. But just as many, if not more, have not. It is frustrating to see so much potential wasted ..read more

Dear Madeleine, I manage a small team in a big company. Here is my problem. I start my day at 7 a.m. with a meeting, and then my entire day is back-to-back meetings. Almost every meeting generates work for me to do or to delegate to someone on my team—which requires another meeting. When am I supposed to get all my work done? After ten hours of meetings, I feel like that’s when my real workday starts. But by then, I’m fried. Thoughts? Meeting-ed Out __________________________________________________________________ Dear Meeting-ed Out, This is a perennial problem for almost everyone. Unfortun ..read more

Dear Madeleine, I just read one of your past columns entitled Latest Team Member Causing Chaos? I recognized the person as what I call HOF—“Hair On Fire”—and we have someone like that at our company. I have been working here for 35 years. I now work directly with HOF herself, and I’ve begun looking for a new job. Your post resonated with me so much. I was stressed out last year and now again. She even pushed me into the hospital once. I’m a scheduler, and HOF basically makes schedule changes for her benefit. Whatever suits her. Everything you mentioned is exactly how she behaves. I’m trying t ..read more

Dear Madeleine, I work for a large publishing company. I started here because my dream is to someday be a published author, so I thought I would at least be in the industry. I have been here for four years. I started in marketing and am now an editorial assistant, which sounds a lot loftier than it is. I get a lot of coffee, manage schedules, and, very occasionally, read submissions. Anytime I am asked to do anything remotely editorial, I end up doing it on my own time, because my boss—who is very erratic and disorganized—is constantly throwing tasks my way. I also get tasks from other editor ..read more