Alloy Solutions Leadership Blog

Leading When You're Not Sure What to Say, by Ryan Hansen

I am at a loss for words this week.

The last several days have been filled with hurtful words, painful scenes on unfolding in city streets and TV screens, and challenging - but heartfelt and important - conversations with friends and family. I find myself struggling to find the words to support and lead through days like these.

If you are leading people right now, you have probably found yourself in a similar place. Every day brings a new challenge, so how can we know what our people need from us? When they look to us for leadership, will we be prepared to answer? Great leaders are forged in crisis, and we are certainly in the middle of a leadership crisis right now.

The simple truth is this: in a crisis of humanity, the solution is human values. We need to connect with each other as people, more than as coworkers. Many of us have spent careers learning and perfecting every intricacy of the modern workplace...

Communicating Like a Leader, by Jamie Hansen

This is the first piece in a series from Jamie Hansen, focused on how a new leader must develop his or her communication skills in order to maximize their impact. You can get the rest of the series in your inbox by subscribing to our newsletter.

Many of us have seen this play out time and time again: A supervisory position opens up in the organization, and an internal team member gets promoted into the leadership position. They are a great strategic choice because they’ve been a high-performer in their individual role, they know the company and the culture, and it seems the natural next step in their career. The stars have aligned and it’s all systems GO, right? Well . . . maybe, or maybe not. Whether this individual has 30 years or 3 years with the company, they are essentially moving from a position of working through processes, managing operating systems, or overseeing machines, to leading people and teams....