New to Altitude or need a quick reference guide? Here’s a charcuterie board of the Top 5 Most Useful Articles, selected just for you.
Pick something relevant to your life right now, a topic you’ve been meaning to learn more about, or something you wish your manager knew and start there.
Not sure where to start? That’s valid. What about something that feels like gossip but isn’t, really…
I Was Nice, Now I'm Not
I fell into the warmth trap for years before I understood what it was costing me.
Most Useful Articles
This first one comes with a free PDF download of The Emotional Temperature Framework: a set of my favorite open-ended questions to start any 1:1 off on the right track (and determine whether continuing with your 1:1 agenda is really the right call, depending on someone’s emotional weather pattern).
The Hard Part Isn't the Technical Work Anymore
My first management role reinforced for me that everyone is navigating invisible challenges alongside their visible workload. Pandemic restrictions were still shaping how people showed up physically,…
Onward…
This next one lays out a clear path to getting promoted, at any level, period. If a promotion isn’t part of your development goals right now, it’s worth reading for general best practices on how to make sure the amazing work you (and your team(s)) are doing each day is seen / recognized in all the right ways.
3 Strategies for Effectively Managing "Up"
Years before I became a manager, I had to make a shift in how I thought about the visibility of my achievements and who was paying attention.
This one gives you 3 questions to screenshot and re-use in every single team conversation (whether it’s your team or someone else’s) where things are a little bit (or a lot a bit) stuck and you actually want to move things forward in an effective way.
How Asking 3 Non-Technical Questions Boosts A Team’s Success
Last week I walked into a manager’s office just to say hi and good morning.
This last one on the list is not just another First 90 Days article, it’s a compilation and distillation of everything I’ve learned in each of the (now, 4 and counting) management role transitions I’ve navigated. Importantly, I built it to feel authentic to me as someone whose default setting is building relationships first. Spoiler alert: I’m using this exact framework right now for a role transition - feel free to reach out and ask me how that’s going!
The Compassionate Leader's First 90 Days Checklist
I feel like most “First 90 Days” content is written for leaders who had time to plan for the transition.
Finally, below is a link to The Manager’s Conversation Toolkit. Inside the Toolkit you’ll find four ready-to-deploy 1-on-1 conversation templates for the situations that are hardest to walk into without a plan: career development, performance discussions, navigating change and ambiguity, and rebuilding trust. There’s also a bonus framework included: for what to actually say when someone on your team is struggling or in crisis (including what not to say, which is definitely the tougher list).
A note on subscriptions: Altitude is a paid newsletter with a free tier. The free issues like those you see above are real content, not teasers. But the paid tier goes further and whenever upgrading makes sense for you, it’s available.
If your company has a learning & development reimbursement program, it’s worth checking into to see if leadership development resources like this are eligible for reimbursement (and submitting your subscription receipt if so!)
I’m curious: which article(s) in this list did resonate with you? Is there another you’d recommend adding? A topic you’d recommend be added to the Altitude article “backlog”?
Please feel free to add a comment below! I read every one :)
Talk soon - a new Altitude article arrives each Tuesday, so I’ll see you then!