Leaders must inspire team members to achieve their personal and professional best. Pep talks and motivational speeches can only go so far, and if you lack one trait in particular, they may not help you at all. A team of researchers from the graduate business school INSEAD has uncovered a...
Emotional Intelligence at Work
Want to Attract Talent? Be Talent!
Someone recently asked me for my secret to making a good hire and attracting talented employees. I had to admit that I’ve never considered myself particularly skilled at hiring, even though I’ve made some stellar hires - if I do say so myself - so I had to dig deep for some executive coaching...
Why Is Leading Innovation So Hard?
Innovation so often happens in the unplanned places. This is something of a conundrum for many leaders whose manufacturing B-School heritage tells them that everything should be planned out, documented and accounted for. Innovation – like its sister creativity – cannot be planned, budgeted, shoved into a “retreat” or predicted. It happens in the shower and in the in-between spaces of life and work.
Leading innovation is difficult because you have to risk looking like a fool. But when the great leader looks beneath the surface of the failures innovative playtime produces, they often discover that in those failures are seeds of success. Sometimes it’s a specific idea that results, sometimes it’s just reenergized employees, which can pay back in employee creativity, retention and improved customer service.
Innovation is a personal skill too. Here are three things you can do to create space for innovation in your life.
The Leadership Effect
What if everyone woke up one day and decided to lead from inside their power? We all can. All you have to do is set your intention. And do it.
Watch this great video more for inspiration on your journey.
In Power Women – Crossing Our Divides
The subject of women’s relationship to power is fascinating to me and in discussions with others I find the subject rich and deep for women and men alike. I see powerful women in some very distinct categories viewing power, leadership and success very differently, but but I believe that when we share our understanding of power across these divides, then we will tap into the collective power of WOMAN in our society.
Lessons from a Power Breakfast – What’s at STAKE?
To everyone but us, we were a power breakfast. Meeting early at the Mayflower Hotel in downtown Washington DC, we were strategists behind an international organization representing 160 of the biggest companies and Non Governmental Organization (NGO) nonprofits in the world. The Director, on a trip...
Is There A Roadmap for Women’s Leadership and Career Success
As a human resources corporate executive, consultant and coach for many years I have had a front row seat to the challenges that women (including myself) faced in the development and growth of their careers and leadership. Most of us have firsthand experience of the ingrained persistent...
Solopreneurship – 3 Oxymoronic Ways to Climb The Corporate Ladder
What does it mean to be IN power when you’re working for yourself? The answer to that question, I believe, is meaningful for all of us – even those with bosses who climb the corporate ladder, live in cubes or on airplanes, slogging away on either side of the glass ceiling (which is there for some...
The Power of Who in Personality Assessments
Here’s a quick social experiment I’d like you to try at your next cocktail party or networking event. Instead of asking the ubiquitous “So, what do you do?” question of the first person you meet, ask this instead: “So, who are you?” The first question can get you a lot of content. The second one...
Everything DiSC®: A Simple Yet Effective Personality Assessment for Leadership Development
Many years ago, as a newly promoted supervisor, I had my first experience with a personality assessment. It was the “Personal Profile System”—also known as the “DiSC®” profile. My eyes were opened to a new way of working with people. One of my biggest learning insights was that my strengths of...