Leadership Essentials
From Life to Lessons – Living & Leading with Emotional Intelligence Conversation and Connection: Own Your Story
"When you work with someone long enough and form a relationship, they become curious: they want to learn more about you. This is not meant to be an invasion of [...]
From Life to Lessons – Living & Leading with Emotional Intelligence Chapter 3: Hello Vulnerable, Meet Reward
"The inexperience of youth gives us the freedom to ask the hard questions even when the answers are harder to hear. Over time, our concerns about what people will think overshadows [...]
Striking the Optimal Balance for Leadership, Maintain a Body and Soul Connection
Meditate and exercise. When pressure mounts, leaders often focus their priority on achievement and neglect their well-being. Meditation and exercise boost stress tolerance and optimism, both of which help you to [...]
Striking the Optimal Balance for Leadership, Maintain a Accurate View of What’s Possible
Prioritize responsibilities. Prioritize tasks according to importance, and tackle obligations in order of impact on organizational goals. Address the most significant issues objectively and implement fact-based solutions. Change your mindset. When [...]
Striking the Optimal Balance for Leadership, Know Your Limits
Set boundaries and leave work at the office. When work continually intrudes on your personal life, quality of life suffers at the expense of your happiness. Activate your assertiveness skills to [...]
Competence is More Than Performance, Increase Your Airtime
Increased collaboration creates buzz throughout the organization about you. Over time, people will be talking about you in a good way when you are not around. With whom should you [...]
Competence is More Than Performance, Practice Vulnerability
A lot of people do not realize that many organizations consider resilience a core competency of leadership. You cannot demonstrate resilience without experiencing failure. The courage to fail grows out [...]
Competence is More Than Performance, Make Visibility a Priority
When it comes to your career, it is about "who knows you." Take advantage of opportunities to cultivate relationships with peers, colleagues and senior leaders. You can learn a lot [...]
Competence is More Than Performance, Demonstrate Authenticity
The more exposure people have to different aspects of your personality, the more they will understand you. In the absence of information, people will create their own stories. It is [...]
Chapter 1: An Accusation of Incompetence, Transparency
The day my leader informed me that her boss thought I was incompetent felt like a gut punch. My heart leaped from my chest to my throat and anguish flooded [...]
In The C-Suite Business Leadership Trumps Functional Leadership
The executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles conducted interviews to explore the trends of C-level success. One consistent finding across C-level roles surfaced. Once people reach the C-suite, technical and [...]
C-Suite Success Requires Self-Management
A final component in the McKinsey report on successful C-level transitions dealt with self-management. Just over half of the executives in the study reported they spent too little time preparing [...]
The Role Culture Plays In Successful C-Level Transitions
One aspect of the McKinsey study that explored successful transitions into the C-suite looked at culture. It is an aspect of the transition process that can pose a challenge. Many executives [...]
Successful C-Level Leaders Leverage Their Teams
C-level executives in the McKinsey study on the successful transition to the C-suite acknowledge they did not have all the answers when they began their new positions. Most executives in [...]
Successful C-Level Leaders Share Their Vision On Business Priorities
Executives in the McKinsey study on what factors contribute to the successful transition into the C-suite, ranked business-related activities as the most impactful. The majority of executives said it was [...]
Leading Diverse Talent – What it Takes
Demonstrate Vulnerability Leaders who successfully lead and develop diverse talent are students of vulnerability. They let their guard down, put aside pretenses and share their stories to establish common ground. [...]
Leading Diverse Talent – What it Takes
Sponsor “the Risk” The conversation regarding the advancement of diverse talent is often thought of in terms of risk. Leaders that successfully lead and develop diverse talent willingly sponsor "the [...]
Leading Diverse Talent – What it Takes
Challenge stereotypical thinking Leaders who successfully lead diverse talent have the courage to challenge the biased thinking of others. Negative comments and jokes targeting specific groups are squelched; and micro-aggressions are called [...]
Leading Diverse Talent – What Works
Participation in experiences that broaden perspective The efforts of leaders that demonstrate success leading diverse talent are often supported by their organizations through professional and leadership development experiences that raise [...]
Leading Diverse Talent – What Works
Expanded exposure and visibility – It takes a village Leaders who successfully lead diverse talent understand that they do not have all the answers and they provide access to their [...]
Leading Diverse Talent – What Works
Consistent feedback and coaching with clearly stated intentions for success The ability to deal with ambiguity is an organizational competency that too often leads to derailment. Leaders that demonstrate success [...]
Don’t Demonize the Messenger
A study conducted by Francesca Gino, a professor at Harvard Business School, revealed that people tend to move away from those who provide feedback that is more negative than their [...]
The Make or Break of Feedback
How you respond to negative feedback can be the difference between success and derailment. The key is to not confuse feedback about your behavior with feedback about who you are. No [...]
Open the Door to Feedback
“She said she wanted honest feedback. When I give her feedback, she gets defensive and shuts down the conversation.” These were the words of a frustrated leader whose senior leader opened [...]