According to this Wall Street Journal article, many bosses are not the best managers they think they are:

Bosses Overestimate Managing Skills, WSJ

Our lack of attention to this blog in recent weeks is a small testament to the improvement of the market place. We’ve been busy recruiting for several digital media companies and while the economy as a whole still has a long way to go, we’re starting to see job opportunities pop up and are starting to feel hopeful for the new year ahead.

In working with several cutting edge digital media companies, it’s hard not to pay attention to the interesting divide between the digitally connected Millennial generation and the Baby Boomers who manage, them while simulatenously learning a thing or two themselves. The  New York Times  recently had an interesting column by James R. Gaines, Editor in Chief of the online publication FLYP. Gaines is over 60 and a seasoned journalist and editor who headed major print publications including, People, Time and Life. FLYP is an online magazine of sorts that is exploring new forms of multimedia journalism. But the loads of experience and expertise Gaines has to offer to his staff of young writers, tech experts, and multimedia gurus, he finds, are often matched by the insight into emerging technologies and new media that his staff provide him with.   It’s an interesting balance for a long-time manager. And one that sometimes reminds him of how much he has to learn. It’s humbling and thrilling, he says. And he is mostly excited to help these younger players conquer this new frontier as he calls it. He likens his roll to that of a parent, helping and providing for but not being a friend.  Gaines seems ok with this unusual management roll he finds himself in and he reminds us at the end of the column that while he might be the novice when it comes to the technology, the core of his company, and of all digital journalism, is still to tell a story. And that’s where his expertise really comes into play.

“MEDIA will change as radically as technology allows, and right now the Internet is moving over the media landscape like a tsunami. But the job I learned to love when young was to tell stories, and the story has lost nothing in this transition. It is as elemental and as riveting as ever.

Everybody’s worried about the device. Could Microsoft’s Courier be the answer, or the iTablet? Good question, but not the most important one. It’s less the device than the devices — the crafts and the art of storytelling — that need updating most urgently for the digital world.”
Gaines’ story is reminiscent of a topic we touched on in the past: this divide between generations and how the future of media will be shaped by it. As we recruit for many digital companies on the brink of becoming leaders in the digital space, helping to form and create their teams and interviewing the candidates that will make these companies successful, it’s interesting to see the strengths and weaknesses parties from both ends of the spectrum bring to the table.

How do you think the tech boom has affected the leadership now expected from the baby boom?

And how will the younger set fair when business requires more of them than their computer savvy?

Read Gaines’ story on the New York Times.

We’ve posted a lot on leadership.  In case you missed it, today’s Wall Street Journal has a few items worth reading on the subject. The first is a book review on “Walk the Walk:  The #1 Rule for Real Leaders” by Alan Deutschman. It’s followed by a real gem. A quote from Lou Gerstner the former IBM CEO:

From Louis V. Gerstner’s IBM memoir, “Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?” (2004):

Soon after I’d joined the company, I asked one of my most senior executives to provide me with a detailed analysis of a major money-losing business at IBM. I did this not only because I wanted the insight from the analysis but also to test this highly rated executive. Three days later I asked him how the work was ­progressing. He said, “I’ll check with the team and get back to you.” At the end of the week, I got the same ­response: “I’ll check with the team leader and let you know” (later he did). When this little scene played out a third time, I finally said, “Why don’t you just give me the name of the person doing the work, and from now on I’ll speak directly to him or her.” What I discovered was that senior executives often presided. They ­organized work, then waited to review it when it was done. You were a worker early in your career, but once you climbed to the top, your role was to preside over a process. Well, my kind of executives dig into the ­details, work the problems day to day, and lead by ­example, not title.

This week’s New York Times Corner Office section featured Maigread Eichten, CEO of FRS, a maker of energy drinks. Eichten had a lot of insightful things to say about her leadership style and how she approaches management.

A swim coach as a teenager, Eichten told Times reporter Adam Bryant that she learned to deal with people and to cope with not making everyone happy all the time dealing with athletes and parents poolside.

“I was 17 and you’ve got these parents screaming at you every weekend — “How come Johnny didn’t get to swim?” and “He’s better than Sally.” — and you’re going back and forth on this every week: Do I want to win or do I want to swim all the kids, and the kids are looking at you and the parents are screaming at you.

That experience is very similar to many days how I feel here. I feel like I’m a judge, and I use that mental image a lot, which is that my job is not to make everybody happy. My job is to chart the right course and, at the end of the day, I leave this building and if I feel like I’ve done the right thing and people respect me, I’m happy. But on any day someone is probably unhappy with a decision that I made in the day, and that’s the best I can do.

It’s the same thing with the swim team. Mr. Smith is probably mad that I didn’t swim his daughter, and sometimes I have to look at little Jane and say, “You know what, you’re not going to swim the 100 fly today, sorry.” It’s a team sport.”

The idea of her staff as a team and herself as a coach is one that Eichten brings up again when helping her employees to stay on target or work through a problem. As their coach, she intuitively knows when a team member needs guidance.

“Eichen: I walk around a lot and if I see in people’s eyes that they need help, or if I get a sense that something’s up, I drop things because sometimes people just need help.

Q. And you’ll sense that just by the look in their eyes?

A. Absolutely, or I can hear it in their voice. I can hear it in their voice, and I think that’s really important that you have sense for your people. I call it my Spidey-sense. My 13-year-old daughter does not like this, by the way. It’s the same Spidey-sense I have with my kids. If something’s off, something’s off, and if I get a sense something’s off, I drop everything and I will not let go until I know what it is because it’s a sign there’s a problem.

Q. So how do you broach it?

A. Well, my people know me well enough. They know I’ll come in, I’ll close the door, and I’ll just say, “O.K., spill it.” There’s no warm-up for me. They know I will not leave. I want to help. I always say to them: “Look, guys we’re in this together. We’re a team.”

Even if you don’t possess a “spidey sense” like Eichten, it seems the key to her success is open communication and accepting that while you can’t please everyone all the time, you can help them and remind them that they’re a aprt of a bigger team and that while they might not be getting what they want, what’s important is that the team succeeds.

As for her advice for job seekers, “Be superqualified” and don’t be afraid to be annoyingly informed about the job and the company.

“I interview a ton of people and I get really frustrated with interviews, to be honest, because I find that people come in a lot of times and they don’t even know that much about the company, which I find just really odd.

I went to business school, and I decided I wanted a PepsiCo internship. They were only taking one intern, so my shot at getting this Pepsi internship was slim to none, because I had no experience.

But I decided I wanted this internship and what I did was — I think about this all the time when I interview people, sort of, why don’t they do this to me? — I researched all the people coming to campus to interview. I knew everything about them. I knew everything about Pepsi-Cola and the PepsiCo company. I knew everybody in the U.C.L.A. recruiting office and I wrote the story of myself as a brand and I came up with a whole talk about why Pepsi should hire me, and the assets I could bring.

I had called up the two or three people who had been Pepsi interns from other campuses, and I found out every single thing that they had done as interns. So I had done all that work before I took this interview. I was one of the four people they took back to New York for an interview, and I got this internship. I was probably also incredibly annoying, but I certainly was superqualified.”

And what I would say to my kids is, to get the job you need two things. You need the functional skills, but then you also have to be superprepared, and you have to have incredible passion. You have to make that person want to hire you. They have to have a reason to hire you. There’s no excuse why you can’t have that.

I’m just really surprised by some of the people I interview. A few people, when I say “FRS,” they say, “I haven’t tried the product.” If they say that, the interview is over.”

Read the full article here.

Last week we featured an anonymous guest post from a media executive who argued that men deserve to be paid more than women. Here’s an excerpt:

“Women however, seem to break down in tears over everything from annual budgets to having to reboot their computers.  Why is that?  Does it make us feel sorry for them?  I know it benefits them when they get pulled over by a police officer and they face a ticket and points on their license but believe me, when it comes time for them to be placed in an important situation, how can I trust a woman to be able to handle it appropriately?  Fact is, I can’t.”

Well, as you might imagine, the women who run this blog beg to differ. And supporting our cause yesterday was our girl, racehorse Rachel Alexandra, a beautiful filly who beat out the all-male competition to win the Haskell Invitational. Take a look at her impressive win below. It pays to keep the ladies in the race sometimes, huh?

This post follows the same sort of theme as yesterday’s tips for women in the workforce, but this advice can really be used by both genders. Today we have a female executive, the CEO of Kenneth Cole to be exact, and the story of her rise to the top from the New York Times. Her message to everyone in the workforce is to ask for what you want, be assertive, and persistent. Read the article below to see how she made this philosophy work for herself until decision makers were calling her up and saying that what they wanted…was her!

By Jill Granoff as told to Amy Zipkin

Photo by David Turner for the NYT

I GREW up in an Orthodox Jewish household in Queens and on Long Island and went to a yeshiva. When it came time to go to college I chose Duke. I planned to major in psychology and to get a Ph.D. in industrial psychology; I think it was a faculty member who suggested that an M.B.A. would make me more marketable.

JILL GRANOFF

Chief executive, Kenneth Cole

AGE 47

ENJOYS Skiing with family and attending rock concerts.

FAVORITE QUOTATION “The future depends on what we do in the present.” – Gandhi

On my application to Columbia Business School, I wrote, “My goal is to become a management consultant.” I would be a psychologist to businesses instead of to individuals. I got full tuition and a stipend.

I had just turned 21 and was one of the youngest in my class. Most companies that came to campus to recruit for internships between the first and second year of business school weren’t interested in me because I had no work experience after my graduation from Duke.

My father was a photographer and was taking photos at A. T. Kearney, a management consulting company. He suggested that I apply. At my interview I was asked, “Why should we hire you?” I said, “It’s not what I’ve done but what I can do.”

I was hired that summer and joined the company full time after graduation. It had a very industrial client base in male-dominated industries. After one presentation to a board, I recall the client in charge saying, “I guess you have to run home now and make dinner.” The funny thing is, I don’t cook.

When several of the partners left to start their own consulting firm, I went along. I was asked to take the Estée Lauder Companies as a client because I used and understood the product.

After two years of consulting, I asked Fred Langhammer, who was then chief operating officer of the Estée Lauder Companies and would later be C.E.O., if he would hire me. I believe it’s important to ask for what you want. And I recall he said: “We don’t have M.B.A.’s. Where would I put you?”

I didn’t take no for an answer, and I was named his executive assistant.

I worked for Fred for three years and then felt it was time to work in a division. I met with Robin Burns, who was president of the Estée Lauder brand for the United States and Canada and an icon in the industry. She offered me a choice of marketing and sales positions. I asked if she’d create another opportunity, and she did. I became vice president of business and development for the Estée Lauder brand.

I worked with her for five years; she pushed me beyond what I thought my capabilities were. Once, when I was negotiating a beauty license, which I had never done before, she said, “You’re smart; you’ll figure it out.” She was great at sending notes of appreciation. I still have them. I learned the importance of cultivating loyalty.

Robin became C.E.O. and president of Victoria’s Secret Beauty in 1998, and I soon joined her there as executive vice president/chief administrative officer. When she retired, I was promoted to president and chief operating officer.

In August 2006, I joined Liz Claiborne Inc. as group president of retail and e-commerce, and within a year was promoted to executive vice president of direct brands, which included the Lucky Brand Jeans and Juicy Couture labels.

I was at Kennedy Airport in early 2008, getting ready to fly to Los Angeles, when my cellphone rang. The voice on the other end said, “Hi, this is Kenneth Cole.” I said, the Kenneth Cole? He asked if I wanted to get a cup of coffee when I returned from my trip.

If a headhunter had called me, I don’t know if I would have taken the call. The fact that Kenneth himself called spoke volumes about the company he had built. I met with him about 10 times in the next three months and joined as C.E.O. in May of last year.

My husband and two sons agree that it was a great decision. After all, this is a company that makes products they can wear.

By Beverly Weinstein

Lucky you, if you work for Time Inc., where top executives are teaching courses not only on those topics but 39 others as part of an innovative program called Time Inc. University’s Learn From A Leader.

Martha Nelson, editor of People and CEO Ann Moore teach the courses mentioned above. Other executives involved in the program include Paul Caine, president of the Style & Entertainment Group and newly minted professor of “The Five Minute Sales Call,” Grant Schneider, Chief Marketing Officer for the Lifestyle Group. promises insights on “Brand Speak: Fluency Guaranteed,” and Jess Cagle, managing editor for Entertainment Weekly advises student staffers on “How to Land the Big Interview.”

Betsy Frank, Chief Research and Insights Officer, when she’s not teaching “All Print Is Not Created Equal” with her co-professor and vice president of corporate sales Peter Bauer explained how the program got started.

“Ann Moore, had a series of breakfasts with the top executives earlier this year. I think that’s where the idea was hatched. Then she sent out a memo to her senior staff asking if we were going to teach a class or, if our fellow executives were going to teach a class, what it would be,” said Frank. Time Inc. University was born.

The initiative provides an opportunity to motivate people and, at the same time, offer them skills and insights that give a more complete picture of how the business operates, added Frank. She went on to outline goals of Learn for A Leader:

· Provide information that will help employees with their careers

· Give employees tools to help them do their job more effectively and to understand how what they do fits into the overall business

· Broaden employees’ areas of knowledge

· Give employees access to senior management

So far, Time Inc. U., which was launched this May in New York, has been a big hit with staff at all levels. The classes fill within 10 minutes of being announced via email, said Frank. If you’re lucky enough to get into a class, your supervisor is notified and has to approve. Time Inc. is continuously adding to the curriculum as well as repeating classes that are already established.

Some of the classes have been “on the road” in a series designed for the Time Inc.’s Birmingham office. Plans are afoot to take Time Inc. University to Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco and LA beginning this fall. According to Frank, there’s even some discussion about opening them up to ad agencies later in the year.

In these rough economic times when raises are scarce and work hours are long, the gift of knowledge is something that the recipient can keep and use throughout a lifetime. I applaud Time Inc. for its generosity in sharing the wealth.

Read the article on Media Post.

This weekend’s Corner Office in the New York Times, featured Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America.  Here are a few insightful excerpts from the interview with this inspirational chief executive on the failures and struggles that ultimately led her to success and finding purpose in life.

On managing & hiring:

Q. Tell me about the first time you started hiring and managing people.

A. I was dismal at it. Some people seem to sort of have a gut for hiring. I literally had a gut that was exactly the opposite. So whenever I thought someone would be great, it was sort of the opposite.

You meet people and they seem nice and charismatic and they seem to have presence. And at that time, I was looking for people who could, in fact, build a movement on campuses. So maybe I was going on that, versus diving into people’s past experiences and figuring out how they actually operated. But I have since become obsessed with building the right team.

Q. So how do you hire people now for staff positions?

A. I start with someone’s experience, just to try to understand how they’ve operated in past environments and challenges, to see if they have demonstrated what we would think of as the core values for Teach for America.

Are these people who operate with a relentless pursuit of results, and with a sense of possibility and disciplined thought and respect and humility and integrity? I’ll just dive into people’s pasts and try to look for evidence of that. And then if it seems like someone would be a fit here, based on that, then we’ll actually try to simulate the job.

On starting out

We had a very rocky start in the first decade, and it was not clear at many points that we were going to actually make it financially. For three years, every single payroll was a huge question. But ultimately that near-death experience led us to see the power of really clear, measurable goals. We realized the only way out of this mess was to raise money in the communities where we’re placing teachers.

Fund-raising is so measurable, and it’s easy to manage that system. And then once we worked ourselves out of our financial crunch, we stepped back and said, “How do we bring the same kind of rigor to the rest of the organization?”

On Failure

I think that the near-death experiences of our first decade were completely formative. Every single day, I feel like I think differently and probably we operate differently as an organization because of that.

Q. How?

A. I’d say a few things. There are certain lessons — you could read them in any textbook. But because we learned them the hard way, they’re just so deeply ingrained. One of them is the importance of focus, the importance of saying no.

There was so much good momentum and we were asking all sorts of good questions and launching new, good ideas. But ultimately, they took away resources and energy from the fundamental core of what we do, which we came back to believing was the most powerful thing. The obsession with truly staying focused on our core mission, I think, came from that.

And also, I’m obsessed with the idea that what goes up comes down, and the need to be very, very careful. And not to get too caught up in all of the good stuff and just to constantly be thinking about whether we are getting out in front of ourselves.

Interview by Adam Bryant and photo from David Goldman. Read the full interview here.

“In business, you should treat your employees like they can vote. It doesn’t mean you’re going to get everybody to vote for you. But you kind of try to kiss the babies and shake the hands and tell ’em you appreciate ’em and would like them to support you. You can do it like a dictator, but I’m not sure very many of them in the long run are successful.”

Daniel P. Amos, Chief Executive, Aflac

As per usual, the Corner Office in the NY Times offers sage advice from a long time manager. Amos, of the insurance leader, Aflac, put in his two cents on what makes a good manager. Amos, who said he’s been managing people since he was in his 20s, offers advice on both how to handle your troops and how not handle them. He also touches on the subject of failure, which we’ve brought up on the blog quite a lot lately. Here are a few excerpts:

Q. Any mistakes you made early on?

A. I worked with another guy, and he was not a people person. He would say things that were taken the wrong way. I was very good at listening and watching, and I was able to pick up that sometimes candor does not pay off. You have to massage the issues in certain ways. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tempered things even more so. And I think that’s the way to do it.

Some people you have to knock over the head with a two-by-four. But as a general rule, it’s much easier to try to subtly tell people what they need to do.

Q. What else did you learn to do as a young manager?

A. One thing I did that was probably different: I never had a sales meeting that I didn’t either have a customer letter read or a customer there.

In sales you get caught up in trying to tell people how they can make more money and how they can make their quota. I always felt it was important for the fundamentals of our business that you understand why people ultimately buy. Because there’s nothing higher than a salesman’s high, and there’s nothing lower than a salesperson’s low. So, you try to level it out because you don’t want to get too high, because when they fall, they really fall. So, I would always keep those claimants in front of them so they could see they were providing a service to people.

Q. What was the most important leadership lesson you learned?

A. Well, that’s a hard question. I majored in risk management and insurance, and there were three principles: don’t risk a lot for a little, don’t risk more than you can afford to lose, and consider the odds. And in everything I’ve done in business, I’ve always used those principles as the guiding light.

I would also say, make sure you motivate people because they ultimately are getting the job done for you.

On Failure…

A. I go back to the three principles of risk management. I tend to be aggressive in marketing but cautious everywhere else. The duck is a good example of being aggressive. To make fun of your name is something that’s kind of scary, but I thought it might work. It was a hard decision, but I finally decided, “no guts, no glory,” and we needed to try it. I was ready to pull it immediately if it didn’t work.

Q. Tell me about your management style.

A. I’ve always spent a lot of time choosing the right person for a job. But I think most people will tell you that I tend to be the inquisitor who will ask a million questions. When I get on something, I do not get off till it’s done, and I will call you and ask you and stay on you until it thunders.

My theory is that when you start telling people what to do, they no longer are responsible; you are. I’ll give them my opinion and say: “Look, this is my opinion, but if you choose that and you fail, you’re not blaming it on me. It is your fault.” I think it makes them stronger. I have no qualms with people making mistakes. But if you lose confidence in them, then you can’t keep them.

Q. Any feedback on your leadership or management style that has led you to make adjustments?

A. I make some people nervous, because I’m very inquisitive and sometimes do rapid-fire questions — if that’s true, then how about this, and how about that, and how about this? It makes them real nervous. So if it’s somebody new who’s coming in, they always warn them.

But I tend to be a little softer now than I used to be and say, “Why don’t you go get me an answer on these, and let’s set up another meeting?” It’s O.K. for you to tell me you don’t know the answer and get back to me. But if you really want to get me, try to fake an answer. That’s the biggest mistake.

Dear Bev: “OMG I can’t wear flip-flops 2 work?” How do I keep my Gen Y employees buttoned up?

By Beverly Weinstein

It’s not the beach, it’s not a club, and it’s certainly not a car wash. It’s an office. These are the words that more than one senior-level executive used in recounting the challenge of keeping Gen Y employees in appropriate attire during the summer months.

Times have certainly changed since Sigourney Weaver gave “Working Girl” Melanie Griffith a little talk about her office appearance. We’re talking bigger problems than “rethinking the jewelry.”

As East Coast temperatures steadily climb, senior managers say it’s their texting, tweeting and flip-flop-wearing employees — many of whom are starting their first corporate jobs — who unbutton a few too many buttons and raise those hemlines. So how do those in leadership positions deal with the issue of how much is too much?

“The Conversation”

Broaching the subject with young guys is easier; most of the men I asked steered clear when it came to talking to young women on the issue of “inappropriate” female attire. The one exception I found called his wife for advice before he delivered the news to an under-clad employee at his company’s annual off-site.

The most common default to handle this somewhat sensitive subject is to turn to a younger, but still more senior, female in the department. Conversations are straightforward and generally include what’s expected in terms of office attire and the potential negative impression of an office fashion faux pas.

HR departments have also been enlisted to either have “the talk” or offer advice on an appropriate approach.

Keep Them Cool

There were some unique techniques to avoiding the issue of overexposure. “We keep the AC cranked all summer. Trust me, everyone around here is wrapped in layers of clothing,” one senior female executive told me with a wry laugh. “And yes, every summer, the guys come to me and plead to have the temperatures turned down a few notches. Never happens!” Problem eliminated, although not the greenest solution.

More Guidelines For New Grads

An informal call to some Gen Y employees revealed that they are being better informed on how to navigate dress codes by college career centers. (Rutgers, for example, provides dress-for-success advice to its graduates). Some corporations also offer advice on employee Web sites.

A Different Kind of “Working Girl”

Generally, once an employee is off the clock, what they decide to wear is strictly up to them. Are there exceptions? Not usually, but I did find one particularly amusing instance where that wasn’t the case. It seems a young female account executive worked nights as a pole dancer. When clients became customers and someone delivered a video to her boss, out-of-the-office attire was no longer out of bounds. “I had to give her an ultimatum; you’re either a pole dancer or an account executive.” She chose her night job. “It was probably a bad long-term decision. I think AE’s have a longer career span,” he concluded with a shrug.

Watch more Working Girl videos on AOL Video

Read the Media Post version here.