Lessons for leadership. The holidays are a stressful time for all of us, when we struggle with work-life balance (or not) and work to serve our business and our families with equal gusto, too often at the expense of ourselves. This month when things are so crazy, I’m reminded that the holidays are...
Sheryl Sandberg contributed many valuable insights to professional women in her book, Lean In. The one that hit me most squarely was her analogy of a career as a jungle gym instead of a ladder. Truer words have never been written, and I think this is a major contribution to the discussion of...
I won’t pretend that I see every trend or can put my finger on THE solution to how to achieve gender parity in leadership, however, I do notice a few things I believe can help women gain important perspectives. One thing that’s popped up in my practice lately are conversations about a...
In a previous post about job interview tips, I outlined the findings of several research studies about advancing your career – especially for professional women in leadership who want to land a C-suite executive job. The research basically pointed up the following: If targeting a C-suite job,...
Key Takeaways: Reframing Change Management: Change management models often fail to account for the internal change needed within individuals for successful implementation. Creating the Right Conditions: Successful change management requires preparing, including, and empowering people to...
How you say things matters Hurt is hurt, no matter how small the words that carry the offense. Choose to speak powerfully, as though everything you say matters. Because it does. This is how we roll back the negative impact of microagression in our society. You can’t often tell what impact your...
One of the cool things about modern discussions of leadership is that we now recognize that “leadership” is available to everyone, at every level of every kind of organization – or no organization at all. Anyone can lead and can even start a movement, simply by influencing the person next to them...
There are many kinds of leadership and power and I choose to focus on personal power for myself and with my clients – I call it InPower. InPower is that special ability leaders can develop to free themselves from the culture around them so they can choose where and how they place their energy in service to the world and themselves. Our dominant culture doesn’t train us to see InPower and many can’t appreciate it until you do.
In executive coaching (both women and men) I’ve often observed that two parallel stories about women and men in the workplace often coexist. First, “women and men communicate differently” is a truth that few bother to deny. Second, “men and women are treated equally in the workplace.” To me, it’s...
I've got a client (we'll call her Jenny) who's got some real people problems. She believes her boss is threatened by her and most of her direct reports want her job. Based on what she's told me, she has reason to believe that these people would all love to see her fail. But Jenny had another...
