Author: Dalmo Cirne
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The Performative Leadership Problem No One Wants to Admit (Including You)
Many managers dodge the hardest part of leadership: decision-making and accountability for the consequences. They hide behind endless analysis, team excuses, or inspirational theater on social media. This is performative leadership in action, a form of Batesian mimicry. Fake leaders imitate traits of real ones but deliver only vague platitudes while their teams produce nothing…
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How Unprepared Managers Fall Into Magical Thinking and What You Can Do Instead
Your day was under control until a new upstream priority lands on your desk. You soften it to the team with “This is our challenge” and “they told us.” They nod politely and deliver nothing. Most unprepared managers repeat this exact pattern and watch output collapse. Rather than repeat these mistakes yourself, learn the high-leverage…
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How Apprenticeships and Processes Share Their DNA
At the heart of apprenticeships and processes lies a shared core DNA. You will be surprised to trace their ancestry and discover how much they have in common. The years-long journey of apprenticeship is celebrated, while stepwise processes are dismissed as bureaucracy. Yet both serve one unyielding purpose. Understanding them will change how your business…
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Why Even Smart Managers Quietly Sabotage Their Teams
At the peak of a discussion, the loudest voice in a room is often the one who should be listening the most. The smartest-person trap silence ideas, lower morale, and halt innovation faster than missed deadlines or budget cuts. Promoting your best, but unprepared engineer often demotes the entire team. It doesn’t have to be…
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Why Management Talent Is Harder to Find Than Engineering Talent
Companies are drowning in engineer resumes but starving for managers who can actually make those engineers deliver. The real bottleneck isn’t code or AI skills, it’s coordination. Headlines scream about tech talent shortages, yet the data tells a different story: great managers are as rare as a lighthouse keeper in the desert. Gallup says only…
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Deal Gone Wrong: Why Storming Out Is (Almost) Never the Winning Move
Storming out of an opportunity feels heroic in movies, but in real life it’s almost always a costly mistake driven by ego. A momentary emotional relief, but rarely worth it. Learn when to stay and reframe the ‘no.’
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Why Do Companies Coddle Their Employees? The Unintended Consequences
Have you seen executives talk to employees as if they were children? Good intentions aside, coddling damages far more than what they realize. Performance plummets, disengagement spreads, and the company and customers end up bearing the costs. But there’s a better way, and it’s not optional. Learn what great leaders do.
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Nostalgia: a trap for leaders looking backward
Nostalgia can be a trap, anchoring everyone to the past and signaling a lack of vision for the future. Clinging to the “good old days” is a failure to envision a future worth pursuing. Leaders take note: your job isn’t to relive the past but to work on a future worth building.
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The power of changing your mind, or not
Learn when to let go of an outdated idea or when sticking to your guts. From Einstein’s biggest mistake to Darwin’s theory of evolution. An idea may cost or define you.
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Blueprint of dysfunctional bosses
Working under a boss who seems untouchable, unaccountable, and unable to do their job will get you to consider switching teams or even companies. In “Blueprint of dysfunctional bosses,” I examine the traits that tank morale, discourage innovation, and push talent out the door. From favoritism to reorgs and endless pivots, see how these bosses…