Most leadership books and gurus will tell you that leaders are learners and full of curiosity. Sometimes, this penchant can get you into trouble and – as many entrepreneurs learn the hard way – lead you traipsing off after some little bright shiny thing, letting your business languish. This kind...
How do you measure leadership? It’s an odd question, isn’t it? Leadership is inherently challenging to even describe because it’s a quality of being human. Psychologists and Change Management Consultants find ways to measure everything and I’m sure they have some metrics for this. However, my...
I'm proud to share that I just had a major Op Ed piece posted to The Glass Hammer - a preeminent professional woman's blog. Here's a short summary and I encourage you to read the full article on The Glass Hammer for the executive coaching advice at the end. ~Dana Abstract: There’s no snappy...
Most of us have a clear image of a leader. Strong. Smart. Confident. “In Charge of insert-something-important-usually-having-to-do-with-power-or-money-here”. I don’t buy that image of leader. To me, a leader is ANYONE who takes a stand and influences other people to cause the world to be better....
Meg* and I were lunch-brainstorming how to help one of her direct reports who is struggling to “fit” into her recent Director-level promotion. Meg noted that this woman – we’ll call her Kathy* – found it hard to see the forest for the trees. Meg thought Kathy had tons of potential but was...
Buddhists and psychologists alike tell us that non-attachment to outcomes is the key to success. There is tremendous value in thinking this way - and it's a key component of my executive coaching work on speaking truth and building your internal power. Non-attachment from the culture around you is...
If we’ve read one “fail fast” article lately, we’ve read a million. Failure is an option! You can’t succeed until you fail! The Lean Startup goes so far as to encourage experimentation on your customer base, with the goal of failure, so you can turn it around into success quickly. There’s merit to...
Meg and I were lunching, as we often do, and I was being a good ear - only putting my executive coaching hat on occasionally for an old friend. The young company she’d joined a few years ago – that had allowed her to break the glass ceiling into the inner executive ranks – had just been acquired....
Even when I left Corporate America, I didn't leave. For at least a few years I think I was still caught in the corporate culture trance as I contracted in semi-permanent positions. It was lucrative and fun, but I didn't really experience the freedom of the outside until later. Freedom can be...
Sometimes we run into people in positions of power who just seem incapable of getting their ego out of the way. Regardless of how “successful” they appear on the outside – and how many rewards they receive for it – it’s a drudge to work for them and the company suffers the inefficiency of a demotivated workforce. Most organizations – especially large ones – that I’ve worked for tend to treat these ego-leaders as a cost of doing business.
What they don’t seem to realize is that by tolerating a toxic boss they are failing to realize productivity and innovation while sending the message to the entire employee base that, “we know this person abuses their position but we care more about them and their results than we care about you and all the productivity we could get out of you if we and the ego-boss respected you.”
Although I don’t think it happens often enough, it does happen that the egomaniac sees the errors of their ways and switches perspective to become the servant leader.
Gaining Power In Your Career: A Guide to Getting Promoted at Every Level
October 2024 Leadership Development Carnival
Breaking the Mold: Thriving as Women in the Workplace Built for Men
Unlocking Potential: How the Right Coach for Executives Can Transform Your Leadership Skil…
The Psychology of Goal-Setting Success
