Most Recent Posts
Women Getting to the Top: Change Culture vs Change Behavior
Key Takeaways: Cultural shift requires both top-down and bottom-up momentum: True change happens when organizations address bias at the systemic level and when ambitious women step up as visible examples of leadership. One mid-level manager can’t do it alone, but many...
The #1 Rule for Effective Leadership (at Home and at Work)
Key Takeaways: Effective leadership begins with self-regulation: Catch yourself in the act before your inner jerk takes the wheel. Effective leadership isn’t about always being right—it’s about leading with emotional intelligence, humility, and grace under pressure....
3 Ways Powerful Leaders Can Practice the Art of Saying No
Make your YES mean more by saying NO more often. Saying “No” is hard because we don’t just say the word, we burden it with other – unsaid – baggage on both the sayer’s and receiver’s part. But it doesn’t have to be that way and powerful leaders know how to use the Art of No in ways that leave the listener feeling useful, appreciated and inspired. Learn to practice the Art of No. Your team will thank you for it.
5 Leadership Lessons From The Worst Bosses I’ve Ever Had
Key Takeaways: Learn from the Bad to Lead Better: Some of the most powerful leadership lessons come from watching what not to do. Pay attention to how poor leadership feels—then commit to doing the opposite with intention and integrity. Respect Your People: Employees...
Dear Dana Workplace Advice: What do you mean I’m not a good listener?
Key Takeaways: Different Boss, Different Lens: Soft skills like listening are tough to measure, and what one boss sees as strength, another might view as a growth area. That doesn’t mean anyone was lying—it just means expectations and perceptions vary. Promotions...
How to Avoid Death-by-Meeting: What’s Our Intention?
The bigger the organization you work in, the greater the likelihood that you’ll meet your demise in death-by-meeting. What a horrible way to go! And the worst part? All that pain and suffering – and it’s usually a crap shoot as to whether you’ll get through all the items on the agenda.
No. Actually, the worst part is when you end up running those meetings yourself!
Agendas are often useful for thinking through what you want to cover. But – having an agenda does not mean having a meeting worth everyone’s time to attend. How to avoid death-by-meeting when you’re in charge? Agenda or not, take the time to think through your intended outcome for the meeting.
Popular Posts
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Leadership
The Psychology of Goal-Setting Success
I am a student of goal-setting success. Early in my career I began to notice that I was more likely to meet some of my goals than others. Being curious, I began to experiment and reflect on which goals led to fairly effortless success and which ones might predictably...
Can you get to the top without playing office politics?
Office politics is as much a part of work as drawing a salary. And yet, I don’t know anyone who wants more of it. In fact, many clients come to me because they feel stymied in their career advancement goals because they perceive “office politics” to be getting in...
Career Coaching Tip: The Limits of Empathy
Early in my career, empathy was my ace-in-the-hole management technique. I was all business when it came to helping my team on technical, process and performance issues, but if they had an emotional reaction or issue, I reverted to empathy because it was the easy...
Mentoring
Why You Should Cultivate a Leadership Mentoring Style
Someone once gave me the greatest compliment. She said, “Since you’re my mentor I think you can help me with this.” Until that moment I had no idea I was her mentor! From that day forward, I started paying more attention to my interactions with her, being more clear...
Career Strategy: Mentors good. Sponsors better!
We get a lot of questions about how to find a sponsor to advocate for you behind the scenes. This post by Kathryn (and the book she reviews) will give you a lot of insight into this important career strategy. - InPower Editors At a recent 85 Broads Power Circle event,...
Do Women Need a Mentor to Succeed?
Every young professional hears it: “Get a mentor!” Many companies invest in mentoring programs, especially for women aspiring to advance. But do mentor programs pay off –– for the mentors and the mentees? My clients and I have had positive experiences, but, who knows?...
Interviews
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Career Advice
How To Psyche Yourself Up For Difficult Conversations
By: Mary Schaefer What do you do when you’re really ticked off A client asked me for coaching to help deal with having difficult conversations a colleague. The colleague made false accusations, talked about him behind his back and micromanaged. Overall he made him...
Assertive or Aggressive? There IS a Difference (in Leadership Communications)
"The minute I express my opinion clearly, I get labeled as aggressive." This may be the most recurrent refrain I hear from the women leaders I coach when discussing leadership communication styles. They report that if they hold back or are soft-spoken, they get run...
Sponsor vs. Mentor – 3 Tips for Attracting a Sponsor
Is “Executive Sponsor” is the New “Mentor” for Women Leaders? The missing piece in women's advancement strategies into leadership? Mentorship helps us be effective, but it’s not as helpful at helping us get a job as sponsorship is. Dana takes a look at what is means...
Women in Leadership
Do You Confuse Emotions with Emotional Intelligence (EQ?)
Key Takeaways: Emotional intelligence isn’t about suppressing feelings—it’s about understanding them. EQ isn’t the absence of emotion; it’s the skill of recognizing emotions (yours and others’) and responding to them in a way that’s constructive, not reactive. Strong...
4 Reasons The Western Woman Can Save The World
The Dali Lama said “The Western Woman will come to the rescue of the world.” Never mind that Hilary Clinton didn’t get elected president of the United States. The trend she is a part of is well underway, and I’m not talking about feminism.
Just because no one I know got raptured last weekend doesn’t mean the apocalypse isn’t upon us; it just means we get to change the world before everything goes to hell. The world is in a pretty nasty state, based on the daily headlines, and it’s easy to feel powerless to save it. Yet I know so many people determined to do just that, many of them women. What I’d like to see is more people – men and women – stepping into their world-saving powers, more consciously, more assertively and more effectively.
Note to Men: Don’t stop reading now (if you got this far – kudos to you!) The stuff we ladies are naturally good at – and that the world needs – you are pretty good at too. Mostly you just need to ALLOW yourself to be good at it!
What If The Glass Ceiling Isn’t What We Think It Is?
Key Takeaways: The traditional view of the glass ceiling as a boys’ club barrier still holds truth, but it’s not the whole story—gender bias exists, yet it’s no longer just about women being excluded. Simply getting more women to the top won’t automatically change...
Diversity & Inclusion
Unintended Consequences Matter: Learning to See Bystanderism and Microaggression as Contributors to Employee Turnover in the Workplace
Efforts to increase diversity in our workplaces has been dismally slow over the last few decades, despite business initiatives, research and even expansions of the very definition of diversity. Like many, I find this frustrating. I find it especially frustrating that...
The Game Is Rigged: Strategies for Overcoming Unconscious Bias
When it comes to unconscious bias, the bad news is that the game is rigged–against women, people of color, introverts and others that don’t fit a certain “success” stereotype that is often male, white and extroverted. But the good news is, it’s not really a game so...
Leadership Perspective: Are Traditional Measures of Workforce Diversity Outdated?
Despite being the #1 recruiting trend for 2018 for businesses, and despite decades of trying to improve workforce diversity demographics in the workplace, the commercial sector has made little progress. I believe this supports the theory that homogeneous workplaces...
