The Management Minute with Dr. Donita Brown

Dr. Donita Brown
  • 4.7 (14)
  • Management
  • Updated Weekly

Short episodes for busy managers. Twice a week, under five minutes each, one idea you can use before your next meeting. Dr. Donita Brown spent two decades in Fortune 500 healthcare operations before becoming a management professor and leadership coach. She's seen what works from inside the org chart and from the front of the classroom, and she brings both to every episode. No fluff, no filler, no fifty-minute monologue. Just a real idea about leading people: how to give feedback that lands, when to delegate, why consistency beats motivation, and what to do about the parts of management nobody trained you for. Every episode ends with one question worth carrying into your week. If you lead a team, or you're about to, this is the fastest five minutes in your feed.

  1. 2h ago

    How to Be a Better Mentor: Ask Questions, Don’t Give Answers.

    Send us Fan Mail What makes someone a good mentor? It may have less to do with having the right answers and more to do with asking the right questions. In this episode of The Management Minute, Dr. Donita Brown shares a lesson she learned from years of mentoring students and professionals: the mentor shouldn’t do the hard work for the mentee. It can be tempting to share your own experience and tell someone exactly what you think they should do. But your career isn’t their career, and simply handing over an answer can take away an important part of the mentoring process. Instead, Dr. Brown encourages mentors and managers to slow down and ask thoughtful questions that help people work through decisions for themselves. This matters for managers, too. Asking better questions can help employees develop the confidence and critical thinking skills to work through problems before coming to you. And when it comes to your own growth, one mentor may not be enough. Dr. Brown also introduces the idea of building a Personal Board of Directors, a group of people who can offer different perspectives on your career, decisions, and development. This week’s reflection: When someone comes to you for an answer, will you give them the answer or ask them a thoughtful question instead? Personal Board of Directors Workbook: https://www.management-minute.com/store About The Management Minute: Practical leadership and management ideas you can actually use. The Management Minute with Dr. Donita Brown delivers short, actionable conversations on leadership, communication, resilience, workplace culture, and professional growth. Bring The Management Minute to Your Organization Dr. Donita Brown leads in-person and virtual workshops designed to help leaders and teams communicate better, build resilience, and strengthen the way they work together. Interested in bringing a workshop to your organization? Learn more or get in touch here: [https://www.management-minute.com/workshops] Connect with Dr. Donita Brown LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/donitabrown]  Management Minute: [https://www.management-minute.com/]

    How to Be a Better Mentor: Ask Questions, Don’t Give Answers.

  2. 4d ago

    Developing Independent Teams: When They Need You Less

    Send us Fan Mail What if one sign of good leadership is that your team needs you less? In this episode of The Management Minute, Dr. Donita Brown reflects on a lesson she has experienced both as a mother and as a leader: doing your job well sometimes means becoming less necessary. After recently dropping her daughter off at college, Dr. Brown found herself thinking about the strange tension that comes with watching someone become more independent. As a parent, the goal was never to remain the answer to everything. It was to teach, support, and eventually trust her daughters to handle more on their own. Leadership follows a similar pattern. When you first take responsibility for a team, people may come to you for decisions, approvals, answers, and direction. Being the person everyone needs can feel good. But effective leadership isn't about keeping people dependent on you. It's about developing people who can make decisions, take ownership, handle responsibilities you once carried, and even make a few safe mistakes along the way. Because the manager who stays in the middle of everything may feel important, but the manager who develops a team that can operate without constant involvement is building something that can last. Who on your team needs less of you than they did a year ago? And can you let that actually be the win? If your organization is working to develop stronger, more independent leaders and teams, Dr. Donita Brown leads in-person and virtual workshops on leadership, followership, and resilience. About The Management Minute: Practical leadership and management ideas you can actually use. The Management Minute with Dr. Donita Brown delivers short, actionable conversations on leadership, communication, resilience, workplace culture, and professional growth. Bring The Management Minute to Your Organization Dr. Donita Brown leads in-person and virtual workshops designed to help leaders and teams communicate better, build resilience, and strengthen the way they work together. Interested in bringing a workshop to your organization? Learn more or get in touch here: [https://www.management-minute.com/workshops] Connect with Dr. Donita Brown LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/donitabrown]  Management Minute: [https://www.management-minute.com/]

    Developing Independent Teams: When They Need You Less

  3. Sep 28

    How to Build Resilience: Why Recovery Matters

    Send us Fan Mail Resilience at work isn't about how much pressure you can take. It's about how you recover. For years, Dr. Donita Brown believed resilience meant pushing through, working harder, and making sure the people around her never saw that she was tired. Eventually, that approach contributed to burnout that affected her both personally and professionally. In this episode of The Management Minute, Dr. Brown challenges the idea that resilience and toughness are the same thing. Instead, she looks at resilience as a recovery skill and what that means for managers trying to build healthier, more sustainable teams. Just as athletes need recovery between periods of physical stress, employees and leaders need space to recover from demanding work. Yet many workplaces continually increase the load without intentionally creating room for recovery. For managers, that can mean allowing breathing room after a major project, noticing when someone has had an unusually difficult week, checking in with employees, and modeling healthy recovery yourself. Because recovery isn't something you earn when all the work is finished. Recovery has to be part of the work. This week's reflection: Where in your team's rhythm has recovery gone missing, and where can you put it back? If this topic hits close to home, Dr. Brown has created a short burnout assessment to help you take a closer look at where you are. Find it in the links below. Take the Burnout Assessment: [https://www.management-minute.com/burnout-gut-check] Learn more about The Management Minute: [management-minute.com] Connect with Dr. Donita Brown on LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/donitabrown] About The Management Minute: Practical leadership and management ideas you can actually use. The Management Minute with Dr. Donita Brown delivers short, actionable conversations on leadership, communication, resilience, workplace culture, and professional growth. Bring The Management Minute to Your Organization Dr. Donita Brown leads in-person and virtual workshops designed to help leaders and teams communicate better, build resilience, and strengthen the way they work together. Interested in bringing a workshop to your organization? Learn more or get in touch here: [https://www.management-minute.com/workshops] Connect with Dr. Donita Brown LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/donitabrown]  Management Minute: [https://www.management-minute.com/]

    How to Build Resilience: Why Recovery Matters

  4. Sep 24

    Giving Feedback at Work: Why Handwritten Notes Still Matter

    Send us Fan Mail What changes when you slow down and write feedback by hand? In this episode of The Management Minute, Dr. Donita Brown explores why handwritten feedback can still have a place in a workplace increasingly shaped by speed, technology, and AI. After asking a classroom of students to complete peer feedback with pen and paper, Dr. Brown began thinking about what happens when we intentionally slow down the process of giving feedback. Research on handwriting suggests that writing by hand engages the brain differently than typing, although researchers continue to debate what those differences mean for learning and memory. But after more than 20 years of giving feedback, Dr. Brown has noticed something much more practical: slowing down changes the way we choose our words. Whether it’s constructive feedback for an employee, a note to someone who is capable of more, or a handwritten thank you for a job well done, putting pen to paper creates a moment to think more deliberately about what you want to say. This week’s challenge is simple: the next time you have meaningful feedback to give, don’t type it. Write it. It could be a few sentences on a card or even one sentence on a Post-it note. Then consider: Whose feedback have you been outsourcing to speed? And who on your team would remember receiving a handwritten note from you? About The Management Minute: Practical leadership and management ideas you can actually use. The Management Minute with Dr. Donita Brown delivers short, actionable conversations on leadership, communication, resilience, workplace culture, and professional growth. Bring The Management Minute to Your Organization Dr. Donita Brown leads in-person and virtual workshops designed to help leaders and teams communicate better, build resilience, and strengthen the way they work together. Interested in bringing a workshop to your organization? Learn more or get in touch here: [https://www.management-minute.com/workshops] Connect with Dr. Donita Brown LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/donitabrown]  Management Minute: [https://www.management-minute.com/]

    Giving Feedback at Work: Why Handwritten Notes Still Matter

  5. Sep 21

    Do You Want Me to Be Blunt or Kind?, Season 8, Episode 5

    Send us Fan Mail What makes difficult feedback actually land? In this episode of The Management Minute, Dr. Donita Brown explores one of the most challenging parts of leadership: giving and receiving difficult feedback. Through a personal experience with a trusted advisor, she examines how timing, trust, permission, and communication can determine whether constructive feedback creates defensiveness or leads to meaningful change. While working on a new project, Dr. Brown received feedback she did not necessarily want to hear, but needed. Her advisor could have completed his work, sent the invoice, and moved on. Instead, he took the time to address a larger problem he saw and began the conversation with a simple question: “Do you want me to be blunt or kind?” The feedback stung, but the way it was delivered made all the difference. Effective leadership communication is not only about what you say. How and when you say it matters. When managers and leaders are busy, it is easy to rush difficult conversations or skip the small courtesies that help people become receptive to constructive criticism. Asking whether someone is ready for feedback can take only a few seconds, but it can completely change how the message is received. In this episode, Dr. Brown discusses how leaders can approach difficult conversations more intentionally, why trust matters when giving and receiving feedback, and how rushed workplace communication can prevent even valuable advice from landing effectively. She also reflects on what more than 20 years of giving, receiving, and teaching feedback has shown her about communicating hard truths. This week, consider two questions: Who has earned the right to give you honest feedback? And when was the last time you asked someone if they were ready before telling them something difficult? The Management Minute with Dr. Donita Brown delivers practical leadership and professional development insights in under five minutes, twice a week. Each episode gives managers, executives, team leaders, and professionals one actionable idea they can use before their next meeting. Dr. Donita Brown also leads virtual and in-person leadership workshops for organizations and teams focused on feedback, resilience, workplace communication, and leading through change. Book a call here: https://tinyurl.com/30minuteswithDonita About The Management Minute: Practical leadership and management ideas you can actually use. The Management Minute with Dr. Donita Brown delivers short, actionable conversations on leadership, communication, resilience, workplace culture, and professional growth. Bring The Management Minute to Your Organization Dr. Donita Brown leads in-person and virtual workshops designed to help leaders and teams communicate better, build resilience, and strengthen the way they work together. Interested in bringing a workshop to your organization? Learn more or get in touch here: [https://www.management-minute.com/workshops] Connect with Dr. Donita Brown LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/donitabrown]  Management Minute: [https://www.management-minute.com/]

    Do You Want Me to Be Blunt or Kind?, Season 8, Episode 5

  6. Sep 17

    The Boring Consistency (Or, Why I Stopped Trying to Be Disciplined), Season 8 Episode 4

    Send us Fan Mail Most mornings, before the house is even awake, Dr. Donita Brown is at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a notebook, writing out her list for the day. That's the whole process. A regular notebook and a pen she likes. Five mornings out of seven, and the other two, life happens. In this episode, she makes a case that's almost disappointing in how plain it is: the good habits are boring. There's no rush to them, nothing worth posting about. You do the thing, you do it again the next day, and somewhere in there it stops being a decision. She spent years getting this wrong, waiting to feel motivated. But motivation is a flaky friend who shows up when things are going well and disappears when they aren't. What worked instead was quieter. She stopped trying to be a disciplined person and became someone who writes the list. Once it's a habit, willpower doesn't get a vote. Here's why it matters for managers: your team can't see your motivation, but they can see your consistency. The one-on-one that happens every week whether you feel like it or not. The Friday note you send even when the week was rough. Those boring, repeated things tell people who you are, and they're what your team will trust. This week's reflection question has two halves: Who do you want to be as a leader? And what's the small, unglamorous thing that person does, over and over, until it's who you are? Under five minutes, one idea for your next meeting. Want to talk more? Donita coaches leaders who are carrying more than the org chart shows. Book 30 minutes: https://tinyurl.com/30minuteswithDonita If you are interested in coaching on writing your to do list, you can start today, click this link: https://app.coach.me/Donita/packages/23357?ref=1lry5 Here for you! Dr. Donita About The Management Minute: Practical leadership and management ideas you can actually use. The Management Minute with Dr. Donita Brown delivers short, actionable conversations on leadership, communication, resilience, workplace culture, and professional growth. Bring The Management Minute to Your Organization Dr. Donita Brown leads in-person and virtual workshops designed to help leaders and teams communicate better, build resilience, and strengthen the way they work together. Interested in bringing a workshop to your organization? Learn more or get in touch here: [https://www.management-minute.com/workshops] Connect with Dr. Donita Brown LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/donitabrown]  Management Minute: [https://www.management-minute.com/]

    The Boring Consistency (Or, Why I Stopped Trying to Be Disciplined), Season 8 Episode 4

  7. Sep 14

    What 47 Seconds of Attention Means for Your Next Meeting - Season 8, Episode 3

    Send us Fan Mail 47 seconds. That's how long the average person stays on one screen before switching to something else. The number comes from Gloria Mark at the University of California, Irvine, who has spent two decades measuring what people actually do at their computers. When she started, the average was about two and a half minutes. It's been falling ever since. In this episode, Dr. Donita Brown looks at what that means for anyone who runs a meeting. When you're presenting or giving feedback, you're competing with a brain trained to move every 47 seconds, and with the phone sitting face up on the table. But the research says something hopeful too: attention isn't broken. People hold focus for long stretches when the task absorbs them and the interruptions stop. Attention is a resource, and your environment either spends it or protects it. Two things you can do this week:  Put one question at the top of your agenda, so attention has somewhere to land.  Work in blocks, one task, notifications off, phone out of sight. This week's reflection question: in the last meeting you ran, what was the one thing you needed people to walk out with? And if you couldn't name it, could they? Under five minutes, one idea for your next meeting. Let's connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donitabrown/ About The Management Minute: Practical leadership and management ideas you can actually use. The Management Minute with Dr. Donita Brown delivers short, actionable conversations on leadership, communication, resilience, workplace culture, and professional growth. Bring The Management Minute to Your Organization Dr. Donita Brown leads in-person and virtual workshops designed to help leaders and teams communicate better, build resilience, and strengthen the way they work together. Interested in bringing a workshop to your organization? Learn more or get in touch here: [https://www.management-minute.com/workshops] Connect with Dr. Donita Brown LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/donitabrown]  Management Minute: [https://www.management-minute.com/]

    What 47 Seconds of Attention Means for Your Next Meeting - Season 8, Episode 3

  8. Sep 10

    No One Comes Until You Call Their Name - Season 8, Episode 2

    Send us Fan Mail On a country road near Johnson City, Tennessee, a donkey ignored Donita and her dad completely. The next morning, all it took was his name and a pocketful of apples, and he crossed the whole field to reach them. What changed wasn't the donkey. Somebody had told them what he cared about. In this episode, Dr. Donita Brown turns a summer walk into a question for managers: who on your team is standing on the far side of the field, and have you called them by name in the way that counts? And who already knows what they care about, if you'd ask? Two questions to carry into Monday. Under five minutes. Two short emails a week, Thursday tip and Sunday reflection: https://tinyurl.com/r4bwesfc Connect with Donita on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/DonitaBrown About The Management Minute: Practical leadership and management ideas you can actually use. The Management Minute with Dr. Donita Brown delivers short, actionable conversations on leadership, communication, resilience, workplace culture, and professional growth. Bring The Management Minute to Your Organization Dr. Donita Brown leads in-person and virtual workshops designed to help leaders and teams communicate better, build resilience, and strengthen the way they work together. Interested in bringing a workshop to your organization? Learn more or get in touch here: [https://www.management-minute.com/workshops] Connect with Dr. Donita Brown LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/donitabrown]  Management Minute: [https://www.management-minute.com/]

    No One Comes Until You Call Their Name - Season 8, Episode 2
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4.7
out of 5
14 Ratings

About

Short episodes for busy managers. Twice a week, under five minutes each, one idea you can use before your next meeting. Dr. Donita Brown spent two decades in Fortune 500 healthcare operations before becoming a management professor and leadership coach. She's seen what works from inside the org chart and from the front of the classroom, and she brings both to every episode. No fluff, no filler, no fifty-minute monologue. Just a real idea about leading people: how to give feedback that lands, when to delegate, why consistency beats motivation, and what to do about the parts of management nobody trained you for. Every episode ends with one question worth carrying into your week. If you lead a team, or you're about to, this is the fastest five minutes in your feed.

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