Leadership User Experience: 5 Tips For Managing Your Impact
This post first appeared on Forbes.com. Are you user friendly? What is it like for people to work with you? All leaders have a user experience (UX). For a product—say an app—the UX includes the interface, ease of use, features, etc. of the product. Some products are “user friendly”—intuitive, responsive, satisfying; others, not so much. For a leader or manager, UX is the experience of working with them, how easy or difficult it is to interact with them, and what is their impact. Do they leave people feeling motivated? Trusted? Frustrated? Confused? Empowered? Included? Is their experience...
Read MoreIs Perfectionism Holding You Back? Try Imperfectionism Instead
This post first appeared on Forbes. Perfectionism is on the rise. Much has been written about the perils of holding yourself and others to unrealistic and unreasonable standards. Perfectionism has been linked to depression and anxiety in individuals and can be destructive to relationships. And though some argue that striving for perfection can be positive, if you live or work with a perfectionist you know that, more often than not, it leads to frustration and feelings of inadequacy. Moreover, in organizations, perfectionism simply doesn’t scale: it’s wildly inefficient and not conducive to...
Read MoreEasiest Stress-Buster Ever: This One Tip Will Help You Calm Down And Focus
This post first appeared on Forbes. A major component of many of my coaching engagements is stress management. Whether my client’s primary coaching goal is about executive presence, prioritization, inspiring a team, or navigating complexity, chances are, they are facing big challenges and experiencing stress. In my experience, they will be unable to tackle these issues if they don’t get a handle on their stress. Some of my clients find relief in mindfulness and meditation, but even more struggle with establishing a regular practice. My most recent post on...
Read MoreLeadership and Being Uncool
This post first appeared on Forbes. “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.” This is one of my all-time favorite movie lines, spoken by Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Creem magazine’s editor Lester Bangs giving advice to the fictional William Miller, a teen music critic whose story is based on filmmaker Cameron Crowe’s own youth in the 1970’s writing about rock ‘n roll for Rolling Stone magazine in Almost Famous (2000). I have always loved the story of this naïve teenage journalist’s adventure and his...
Read MoreChronic Stress? Three Steps To Complete The Stress Response Cycle And Increase Health And Wellness
This post first appeared on Forbes. Life is full of stress. Traffic, deadlines, interviews, conflict, financial pressure, the news, politics…the list goes on. Many of us are so accustomed to stress that it feels like a constant state. This is because we can get into a never-ending stress cycle that feeds on itself. In their recent book, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, authors and sisters Ameila and Emily Nagoski suggest that we can break the vicious cycle of stress by completing the “stress response cycle” that is triggered by a stressful event. Like all...
Read MoreMoving Beyond Likability: 5 Principles For Women Leaders That Men Can Learn From Too
This post first appeared on Forbes. Everywhere you look, women are rocking it. This year saw a dramatic rise in the number of women CEOs in the Fortune 500, from 24 (4.8%) in 2018 to 33 (6.6%) in 2019—still low but improving. Young women have some very impressive entrepreneurial role models, as documented in Diana Kapp’s recent book, Girls Who Run The World: 31 CEOs Who Mean Business. There are a record number of women in Congress, and we saw four women candidates participate in the latest Democratic presidential debate. We also witnessed some tremendously competent and powerful female...
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