Throwback Friday

Today will be a throwback Friday, because with young people that is a popular thing to do.  Since this blog is not very old we will simply be throwing it back a month, but that is when the blog was born.  

If you are new to the blog please take a moment to read my About Me post, which you can find here.  You will learn a little about my background and why I am so passionate about helping young people like myself become more than managers.  More about my reason for this site can be found on the Purpose page, which is linked here. 

Power was a key topic early on and is something that I will revisit shortly, so it seems appropriate to dredge up these posts from the early days of my site.  The first post titled the Power of Encouragement is a good read about an experience I had with my boss who overall has mastered the power of encouragement, and can be found here.  Take a minute and read this short post, because of all the leadership advice I can give, this piece may be the easiest to implement and pay the biggest return on your investment. 

The second post on power and one that I promised to revisit and expand on is the “Power” of Hard Work and can be found here.  Again, this post is a simple to read post with a personal story and powerful message.  This centers on the five powers that are present in a workplace especially from a manager’s standpoint.  In the very near future, I will be putting up a lengthy post about expanding upon this background, thus making this post prerequisite reading for some of my next posts.  

John Maxwell Blog Analysis

The John Maxwell Company's blog is different from most blogs in the leadership field in the fact that his blog content is integrated into his company's website.  This and his weekly updates, with easy to implement leadership tips makes his blog tops in this niche.

One of the things to examine is how relevant the content is to my niche area of young leaders, and Mr. Maxwell encourages people of all ages to practice leadership now, no matter the age.  A great article he posted about leadership styles, which contains a great sports analogy, is something I recently examined.  My post can be found here and includes a link to Mr. Maxwell's original article.  His experience and knowledge gained over 40 plus years gives him a wealth of information to pull from.

In terms of monetization, the integration with his website makes this easy.  His shop is a simple click away where his books can be easily purchased.  No outside content is advertised or linked to as his own shop is a near one-stop shop for leadership materials.

The blog has many loyal followers who comment regularly on Mr. Maxwell’s content.  The blog posts that get the most comments are his posts on leadership and how to improve on this skill.  Most people are looking to increase their ability in this field and they are willing to share their opinion in this space. 

By being a part of his site, the blog enjoys a high volume of traffic, and sits near the top of search results or just below the fold.  The mix of site and blog coupled with the name recognition leads to high traffic and positions his blog well in terms of search engine optimization.  

About Me

Hi everyone, my name is Kevin Foley and I will be writing this page under the screen name Coach/Manager.  I am a senior, graduating in the spring of 2016, at a state university majoring in business administration.  Preparing for a job in the business world has taught me how important being more than a manager is to the success of an organization.  Growing up my teachers and classmates always called me a leader, but what exactly does that mean.  I was not usually first in line for things, why were they calling me a leader, but as I grew older, it made more sense what they were talking about.  Being a leader is partly innate, but also takes practice and learning just like any other skill, talent, or ability.  Harnessing the leadership potential and learning from my experiences have led me to be a manager of a team of employees at a young age.  I spent time learning leadership techniques and ideas to differentiate myself from other job seekers.  This, along with the curriculum for my degree, encompasses my educational background.

          Leadership is just part of the title of my page, another part is coaching.  My father is a high school coach and has been for over 20 years so I grew up around the profession.  I started coaching when I was a junior in high school working with 5^th and 6^th graders as a basketball coach.  Over the last six years, I have coached athletes from 5^th to 12^th grade in football, basketball, and baseball, coaching at least one season of each sport for the last 3 years.  The more I studied leadership and the more I involved myself with coaching the more evident it became that the two were very closely related.  In most environments, a good coach is a good leader and a good leader is a good coach.  My quest became to get better at both as it seemed the two would be synergistic and not just summative. 

          I became a manager at a grocery store recently mostly based on hard work, which is how most people get promoted.  I wanted to be more than just a manager though; I wanted to be a coach and a leader for my team.  This dynamic is an interesting one, as half of my coworkers are older than me while the other half is obviously younger.  Managing people across different age groups can be hard enough, but I wanted to be their leader. 

          This is my background in education and experience, a little more to this discussion can be found on the About Page.  If you wish to get in touch with me you can visit the Contact Page