Curious Minds at Work

Managing up is crucial for your success. It’s about knowing your career goals and aligning them with your manager’s needs and priorities. Yet it’s a skill we’re rarely taught and one we rarely see done well.  

For Melody Wilding, this gap in how to manage her career became clear when it caused her to lose her job. It’s what made her want to write her latest book, Managing Up: How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge.

In this conversation we talk about how to get aligned with your manager on what’s most important to them in ways that also help you, how to engage in effective networking, and how to promote yourself in the workplace.

Related Links

Why Managing Up is the Most Critical Career Skill in 2025

4 Signs You’re too Emotionally Invested in Your Work (and How to Fix It)

Skip-Level Meeting Success: How to Connect with Your Boss’s Boss

The Team

Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here.

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On the surface, trust seems simple. You either trust someone or you don’t. That’s why I was so intrigued by Charles Feltman’s book, The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work.

Charles is a leadership coach and trust expert. And where others view trust as binary, he sees it in four dimensions.

He describes what each dimension looks like and explains how to assess the gaps. Then he talks about how we can address those gaps in ourselves – and with others, including our managers.

I’m able to see trust in a completely different way and think you will, too.

Related Links

Interview with Michael Wenderoth

The Team

Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here.

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We’re all virtual communicators. Even if we don’t work remotely, we’re texting, using social media, and making phone calls. But the question is, are we good at it? Do we know the best practices that can set us apart?

Andrew Brodsky can teach us. He’s a management professor and virtual communication expert. In this episode, we discuss his book, Ping: The Secrets of Successful Virtual Communication. We talk about ways to build trust, increase likability, and manage digital conflicts. He shares insights we can immediately put into action.

Related Links

Your Company is Watching You. And Probably Doing It All Wrong.

The Rules for Making a Good Impression on Zoom and Emails

No, Remote Employees Aren’t Becoming Less Engaged

The Team

Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here.

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If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show.

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Most advice on power is about why we need it or how we can get it. And it's typically focused on things outside us, like titles or promotions.

While these external markers are important, they can leave us empty inside. 

Advice that focuses solely on external power leaves out how to build and maintain the crucial internal power we need.  That’s why Chris Lipp decided to mine the research on personal power and, ultimately, to write a book on it. In this interview we talk about his latest book, The Science of Personal Power: How to Build Confidence, Create Success, and Obtain Freedom. 

Chris’s book gives us an opportunity to build the inner foundation for success, so we can match it with external achievements. If you're looking for a book with concrete ways to center and inspire you in your work - and in your life - you'll find it here.

Related Links

Interview with Mary Anderson on Success without Stress

The Team

Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here.

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Adam Galinsky is a social psychologist and the Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School. He believes leaders are made, not born, and he’s spent decades proving it.

In this interview, we talk about his findings and how they apply to today’s leaders. We also discuss his latest book, Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others. In it, he shares three characteristics people repeatedly bring up when describing truly great leaders: they act as visionaries, exemplars, and mentors.

Adam’s written an insightful guide for current and aspiring leaders looking to take their craft to the next level.

Related Links

How to be an Inspirational Force in an Infuriating World

One Small and Powerful Thing You Can Do to be a More Inspiring Leader

Interview with leadership expert Frances Frei

The Team

Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here.

Support the Podcast

If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show.

Subscribe

Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.