- Scaling Up – How Our Hidden Immune System Makes It Hard to Change Old Habits“What got you here, won’t get you there.” Many a new leader or manager has heard this truism coined by Marshall Goldsmith and have understood it to mean that they will need to up their game and change their approach if they want to succeed as leaders. They are advised to “be more strategic and less ...
- Feedback – 8 Tips to Get People to Tell You What You Need to HearMany leaders report that when they ask for feedback, they get very little in response. It’s not because they’re perfect. More than likely, people are afraid that they won’t react well to the truth. What to do about that? You need to make it a safe and positive experience for the other person. Here’s how: Be ...
Is ‘Imposter Syndrome’ Just Another Way Of Blaming Women?
This post first appeared on Forbes.com “Can coaching help me with my imposter syndrome?” asks Sue-Lin, a new client who was recently promoted to director of customer success in a growing tech company. She is not alone among my women clients in making this self-diagnosis. Over the years I have worked with many highly skilled and talented women of different ages, backgrounds and experiences. Despite great qualifications, many cite imposter syndrome as one of their toughest inner struggles. However, a recent article in the Harvard Business...
read moreHow To ‘Be More Strategic’ – Questions To Ask From The Balcony
This post first appeared on Forbes.com “Be more strategic.” This advice comes along in the careers of most professionals seeking a management or leadership role. They reach a point at which it is not enough to be productive or to be an expert. In order to progress in their careers and contribute at a higher level they must be–and be seen as–strategic. But what is it to be strategic? Advice about being strategic is often a little vague, accompanied by the exhortations to...
read moreGiving Feedback: 5 Elements of a More Inclusive Approach
This post first appeared on Forbes.com A client recently asked me to provide workshops to all employees on how to give and receive feedback. There is nothing unusual about that—I do it frequently. What was newer was the growing imperative to cultivate inclusive leadership in all aspects of organizational life, including traditional bread-and-butter management skills. Bringing an awareness of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) issues to the skill of giving and receiving feedback is critical to creating an inclusive workplace. And yet,...
read moreThe Four Cs of Decision Making
In a world of abundant data and complex organizational dynamics, many companies and organizations struggle with a proliferation of meetings in which inefficient processes lead to uneven quality in decisions. This is discouraging and annoying for participants and costly for organizations. A 2019 study by McKinsey & Company reported that fewer than half of respondents said that decisions were timely and 61% complained that at least half of the time spent making them was not well spent. That adds up to a waste of over 500,000 hours of...
read moreHow To Quit Your Job (Without Quitting Your Job)
“Maybe I should just quit my job.” I heard this from not one, but two executive coaching clients last week. Both are high achievers. Both love some aspects of their jobs but find others almost unbearable. And both have families to support, so quitting is not something they would do lightly. Joelle, a partner at a global consulting firm, loves working with clients and enjoys the substance of her work but finds the 24/7 responsiveness incompatible with being the parent and spouse that she wants to be. Meanwhile Boris, a senior strategist...
read moreLeadership 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?...
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...
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...
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...
read moreHow to Overcome Your Fear of Looking Stupid at Work
This post first appeared on Forbes. How much is fear a driver for your behavior? Fear and anxiety are pervasive themes in many of my coaching engagements. Whether a client is working on communication, prioritization, delegation or other leadership challenges, fear is often at the root of what makes change hard. There’s fear of failure, fear of missing out (FOMO), fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of change. And here in Silicon Valley, where knowledge is king and imposter syndrome is rampant, there is a huge amount of fear of...
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