Leaving to Live – Sometimes You Must
Six weeks ago, a young man arrived in the USA and became our newest client. For confidentiality, he’ll be called, “ Mark”. He’s a bilingual civil engineer with a story similar to many forced to leave everything they have. Leaving was required for him to live. It’s a choice that feels similar to the story…
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Can Leading with Compassion Get Results?
Over 90 days spanning November 2021- February 2022, I watched a 34-year-old rising manager lead his team in an exhausting round-the-clock march to complete a poorly conceived project by February 13, 2022. Why the push? The company had invested 2021 money in a vendor that advised them to push a product out or lose the money.…
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Will You Change Your Relationship with Fear?
Conversations about war, politics, religion, and sex are avoided at work and in a myriad of households remain off the dinner table. We’re taught it’s not polite. No one wants to rock the boat lest we witness an explosion before dessert. With a hesitant smile and in good company, most of us move away from…
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How Bad IS your Boss?
Throughout our careers, we’ll work with many bosses. Some good; some great; and some really bad bosses. By bad, I’m not talking about bosses with unethical or immoral bosses – please report these. Most bosses are regular folks whose skills, experience, and accountability don’t meet what’s needed for our success. In Managing Up by Mary Abbajay, the reality in which…
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Have You Earned the Right to Give Feedback?
Some of the most impactful information leaders get in their career is from the candid feedback of colleagues and clients that expect a lot and respect them enough to offer an outside perspective. We can all become the corporate legends we don’t want to be if people don’t care enough to tell us the truth…
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A New Approach to Feedback: Think Like a Coach
What is it about feedback that can feel so bad? Just the word makes us cringe. Unfortunately, many of our experiences with getting feedback haven’t been pleasant or productive; so we avoid giving it and detest getting it. Helping develop others is a fundamental skill of leadership – yet we practice it annually or monthly…
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Interview: What is Coaching Anyway?
People spend millions of dollars every year on career coaching to help them realize their fullest potential. But what exactly is coaching, and how does it differ from consulting, therapy, mentoring, or training? And is it time and financial investment the right move for you and your career? Learn how coaching works and how it can help transform you and your organization in the changing workplace…
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Leadership Challenge: To Engage or Exhaust?
Too little too late for an exhausted workforce that had kept things afloat during a prolonged downturn and why this – and why now? This often happens during the stress of a business transformation. Leaders shift their attention from human systems that are charged with emotion, to non-human assets where savings and efficiencies can be…
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Empathy is a Skill of Leadership
Empathy. What is it – and why is it a crucial skill of leaders? “Empathy is the capacity to sense, and to respond with appropriate emotion and action to another’s emotion and thinking. It involves the ability to imagine what another person is experiencing from within the context of their mental, emotional, and physical. “…
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Have You Reached the Point of Burnout? Move from Tipping Point to Turning Point
As an executive coach, I get to work with tremendous people. These leaders work in everything from multinational companies to private equity groups, and not-for-profit organizations. And in times B.C. (before covid) to present – I’m seeing the impact of burnout showing up at levels I’ve not seen before. I’ve seen leader fatigue in the past resulting from long travel,…
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The Power of a Private Life
“There are many dimensions of political life – love, contempt, war – all of which are real but none of which have the power of the love that is possible in private.” There is much that can be said but doesn’t need to be about the recent events surrounding our country’s leadership. Many of us…
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Facing the Embers of Uncertainty
On the night of 8 September, 2020 flames engulfed Europe’s largest refugee camp on the island of Lesvos, Greece leaving 13,000 people homeless. With no physical space to absorb the communities, thousands trickled into the gaping hills nearby while one concrete capillary opening ushered others onto streets of the surrounding village. Few had warning; all…
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