by Steve Adubato, PhD

Sometimes, even with the best intentions, your communication efforts can backfire, causing a public relations nightmare. Consider the case of the New York City Police Department and its effort this week to engage in what it thought was a constructive use of social media via Twitter. Sounded simple and innocent enough, right? The NYPD communications team put out the following message: "Do you have a photo w/a member of the NYPD? Tweet us & tag it #myNYPD."

by Steve Adubato, PhD

I was recently talking with a colleague who manages a large number of direct reports and has several supervisors between him and those team members. Even though the supervisors are technically managers of these approximately 80 staff members, my colleague — we will call Jim — finds himself consumed by communicating and managing information, assignments and tasks with all of these people on a regular basis.

by Steve Adubato, PhD

Being a great communicator often requires being present, focused and in the moment. It requires that you avoid multitasking or thinking that you can be efficient by texting, tweeting or talking to two people at the same time.

by Steve Adubato, PhD

Last week, I described celebrity chef Paula Deen’s challenge of reclaiming her brand given some of her embarrassing and shocking statements about slavery and race.

By Steve Adubato, PhD

One major challenge many leaders face is handling rejection or how to react when given an answer they were not expecting. For great leaders, it's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. This couldn’t be truer than when, as a leader, you are dealing with a “no” in a business or professional situation, particularly when hours, days and even weeks or months have been spent trying to land a particular client or account. Clearly, no one wants to hear “no.” Yet, the exceptional leader is able to take rejection and turn it into something positive. Consider the following leadership tools for seeing “no” as an opportunity to grow and come back stronger than ever:

by Steve Adubato, PhD

When it comes to customer service, there is a very simple rule: It’s all about them; it’s not about us!

I wrote this a couple of months back regarding the embarrassing roll-out of the healthcare.gov website and how difficult it was for consumers to access it. But certain lessons some folks still don’t get.

by Steve Adubato, PhD

Legendary "60 Minutes" reporter Mike Wallace was known to ask the toughest and most challenging questions of leaders in every walk of professional life, including asking numerous presidents what some would say were embarrassing questions about their failures in office.