Many leaders can’t admit they have made a mistake or they adopt the “never apologize” approach. They stand by their decisions despite all the evidence, believing it to be a sign of character strength. …
What I fear has been lost with the focus on positive psychology and the strengths-based leadership movement is that if you neglect your weaknesses, they’ll eventually overshadow your strengths. Your w …
You had to make a controversial leadership decision that wasn’t embraced across the boards. You haven’t returned your friend’s text asking to make a plan because you’ve had so much work to do. You had …
Leadership is a hot topic right now. Everywhere on LinkedIn you’ll see posts that in some shape or form promote empathic leadership. We are collectively trying to create a new organizational style. We …
There will most likely come a time – if it hasn’t come already – when you will work with someone with whom it seems lives in a different reality than you. You might be their boss, they might be your b …
Narcissists don’t have the telltale signs of a crazy person. They’re not sitting at coffee shops writing manifestos on napkins in an illegible scrawl, shouting about aliens. They are often charming, …
Group membership provides people with a sense of belonging, a basic and universal human need to know who we are and how we fit into the world. Once you ally yourself with a group, you begin to enjoy w …
Engagement is not a luxury these days; it’s a necessity. Companies that have begun to believe in this concept have gained a competitive advantage. Weak, self-serving leadership consistently results in …
You hear a Star Wars ringtone repeat until the call finally goes to voicemail. Nearby, some coworkers are discussing the logistics of The Walking Dead while the latest Drake album plays through commun …
Non-resilient: Once I have the job I want I will focus on my family and friends. Resilient: The success of one area of my life depends on the success on all areas of my life. The success of each part …
You just thought of a great idea. You’re jazzed about it. You mull it over in your mind. The idea starts to grow and as it does you begin to see the scope of bringing it to fruition. You get more exci …
If you google “how to build rapport” you’ll find thousands of tips like: mirroring behavior make eye contact repeat the person’s name to them Not to dismiss their potential effectiveness, but these ar …
Your phone affects your productivity. Every time your phone distracts you your performance suffers, whether you respond or not. A study by Gloria Mark at the University of California-Irvine revealed t …
Do you ever find yourself explaining and defending your actions, justifying your behavior, rationalizing the negative consequences of your actions, making excuses, finger pointing, or saying to yourse …
We’ve all heard the expression “you have to give love to get love.” I fear this expression is losing its power as our expectation for fast delivery rises and rises. We don’t like to wait much anymore …
Rich and Ethan, two VPs at a large security firm, pride themselves on their leadership skills. They enjoy the admiration of their superiors, their peers, and their direct reports. Their performance ha …
“We don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are.” -Anais Nin In 2009, three Ohio State University researchers used the now defunct The Colbert Report, a satirical show on Comedy Central, to …
Leadership is a skill-set we often don’t pay enough respect to. Organizations often promote based on job performance without consideration for whether the candidate can actually influence, inspire, ma …
It’s hard to scroll through Twitter or LinkedIn these days and not encounter inspirational memes urging you to: → FOLLOW YOUR PASSION! → PURSUE YOUR GOALS! → NEVER QUIT! → DREAM BIG! And none of it is …
We are in the dawn of “servant leadership,” soft skills, self-awareness, and creating the kinds of leaders that create cohesive teams and positive work environments. I love that there is so much talk …
New ideas, innovation, and creativity are things we all want to have in our teams, organizations, and leaders. However, in reality, our brains are hardwired to prefer information that aligns with what …
If you came home one night excited to sit in your favorite chair and watch your favorite TV show only to find that your spouse switched your chair with a different – albeit better chair – and moved th …
When I started my first business practice I swore to never repeat the same mistakes I had seen my previous bosses make. I didn’t want anyone working for me to suffer from misogynistic favoritism, infl …
“Just because we won doesn’t mean we’re doing well.” Imagine how disheartening it would feel if after every company win – big or small – your leader told this to the team. Or conversely, you he …
I catch myself thinking in polarized terms all the time. “He/she always does this” or “this project is great and that project is terrible” or one that I don’t really have a problem with: all cats are …
Think about your worst boss. What was it that made that person so insufferable? How well did you perform under that person’s leadership? Now think about your best boss. How did that boss behave? How w …
Hustle. We all want it. We see others that have it, or living within it. We read that we need it, we should want it, we have to get it, we shouldn’t stop until we have it, we should have it already. I …
We’ve all heard the expression “a child-like wonder.” Children look at the world with pure curiosity. Their behavior is often geared toward what happens if I do this…? As we grow up we learn thes …
“Ugh, I didn’t get anything done today!” I often have this feeling at the end of a workday. Even though I know I was busy and working hard from sun up to sun down, that satisfying feeling of reaching …
Only 8% of New Years resolutions stick. Confession: For years, I was a frustrated member of the 92%. And you probably know exactly how it feels on New Years Day to set a resolution to break your bad h …
There’s a tendency for leaders to power through tough times in the name of getting work done. We may experience the symptoms of physical and emotional exhaustion, but ignore the signs because w …
The Modern Workforce This is the first time in history that five generations are working together. As a result of healthier living and the financial hurdles to retirement, we find t …
When you think about your ability to focus, what comes to mind? Maybe you check your email 500x times a day. Or maybe you check Facebook over and over again. Maybe you overschedule yourself or …
Most of us are just fine with positive feedback, although even praise can sometimes leave us feeling uneasy. Closing the deal, earning the respect of someone you admire, or getting the perfect …
A couple of years ago I coached a client who worked at a high-end fashion company. He knew he made a mistake taking the job on his first day. The onboarding process consisted solely of being shown whe …
Sometimes I like to go to the movies by myself because I only laugh if I truly find something funny and I might like a story that – were I with others – I might not otherwise like due to my subconscio …
For an entrepreneur, it can be hard to accept you may not be the first at something. I am still shooting myself in the foot for having not started Froyo To Go when I thought of it years before it beca …
You have a presentation coming up, you’ve prepped, you know the information inside and out, but as prepared as you are, how do you know if you are conveying an air of confidence? This is almost more i …
This blog might be stupid, but would you mind reading it anyway? I may not know what I’m talking about, but if you could give me the benefit of the doubt I might have something you want to hear, but I …
I hate managing people. Probably most people do. In my ideal world everyone knows what they have to do, they do it on time, without being reminded, and we all co-exist as a happy, independent – but al …
Over the years I’ve found myself at the end of many a workday beckoning to the heavens, “Where did the day go???” I eventually came to the realization that I needed to streamline my life and structure …
Every year millions of people are diagnosed with Terrible Personality Disorder but nobody wants to talk about it. Even the DSM-5 has not yet classified it as a legitimate personality disorder d …
A few years ago, I fell into a bit of a mental slump. My leadership development company, Equilibria Leadership Consulting, had just completed a two-year long project with our biggest client to date an …
A couple of weeks ago I went on a California vacation. I was excited to take a well-needed break from work and drive down the Pacific Coast Highway for a little wine tasting in Sonoma. As I alw …
When my husband was a child, he couldn’t understand why his older brother would voluntarily go to Hebrew School. Worried he would face the same fate, he asked his mother if he would have to go at some …
Few children grow up thinking, “Someday I’m going to be a manager.” Truth be told, few adults probably do too. Management is an elusive field. It’s hard to find the right candidate because, asi …
A long, long time ago, in a world unknown, there were two browsers that ruled internet surfing: Netscape and Internet Explorer; and search engines such as Alta Vista and Excite. They were the kings of …
A long, long time ago, in a world unknown, there were two browsers that ruled internet surfing: Netscape and Internet Explorer; and search engines such as Alta Vista and Excite. They were the kings of …
Sometimes when my husband isn’t home at the expected time I assume he’s dead on the side of the highway being eaten by wolves. So far, this hasn’t happened (but that doesn’t mean it won’t). Hi, my nam …
I had a situation recently in my business where employees were sending around group emails discussing the outcome of the election. Unbeknownst to them, there were a couple of employees in the mix that …
We all talk to ourselves when we’re alone. When we’re walking down the street, when we’re sitting in front of the computer, when we’re waiting for our car to come out of the car wash. And when we talk …
Bueller? … Bueller? … Bueller?” Remember Ben Stein as the über-dull economics teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? He was the quintessence of uninspiring. His students slept with their eyes ope …
It’s now 2017 and we all know what that means: an influx of New Year’s Resolutions. They often look a lot like the previous year’s resolutions. “I’ll stop smoking.” “I’ll stop obsessing.” …
If you’re like me you power through your workday without distraction. You don’t take no for an answer. You tackle one project after the next. You feel refreshed at every turn. You ignore Facebook and …
In March of 2011 António Horta-Osório became the CEO of Britain’s Lloyd’s Banking Group. By the fall of the same year he was suffering from such acute insomnia that he remained awake for five straight …
One of the hardest lessons in life is accepting that to be good at something we need to practice it. Why we believe we should be good at something immediately is a mystery. Somewhere along t …
They walk among us. They look like normal people. That’s what makes dealing with a narcissist so difficult. You are typically caught in their web before you realize who and what ensnared you. If you d …
This is the time of year when gratitude takes center stage. Gratitude is an oft-overlooked aspect of leadership, but it is so important for cultivating the proper spirit and mental attitude to lead. W …
We talk about leadership almost ad nauseum in blog posts, workshops, seminars, keynotes, webinars, anyone who will listen to us! We do this because leadership is often lacking in the very people who a …
While you would never hand over your car keys to a drunk driver to take you home, we can all point to times when we’ve handed over the keys to our self-worth to people, places and things. Maybe a comp …
If you haven’t heard, Bob Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature. While I do love a lot of Dylan songs, I can’t say I’m his biggest fan. But as a leadership development coach I h …
You hear a Star Wars ringtone repeat until the call finally goes to voicemail. Nearby, some coworkers are discussing the logistics of The Walking Dead while the latest Drake album pla …
If you lost your job and had a family to support you would probably start looking for a new job. Even if you didn’t land the job of your dreams you would take something in the interest of bring …
Dear Employee, Went through your spreadsheet and I think this is a great start. ___ Dear Boss, Thank you for those kind, succinct words. I was up late the last couple of nights working on it, hoping t …
Dear Boss, The reason I gave our client the wrong info is because I was trying to wrap up all of these other assignments that you wanted by the end of the week, all of which were very tedious and drai …
In graduate school, I chose to pursue three concurrent degrees: a doctorate in clinical psychology, an MBA, and a master in criminal justice. I wanted to do forensic work (I fantasized about wo …
Ever been in a meeting and your leg won’t stop bouncing up and down? Or you nod affirmatively at everything someone is saying in the hopes the conversation will end soon? I have. I’m sure at least one …
I am an avid crossfitter and I am a leadership development coach. As of two weeks ago these were two separate aspects of my personality that did not cross over, until… …I arrived at my crossfit gym on …
Imagine a bear is chasing you. Imagine how frightened you’d be. Your brain would be in overdrive, trying to think of how to stay alive. It would be a harrowing experience, one you would never want to …
My colleague and I had no choice but to rent a car one night when a canceled flight left us stranded, five hours away from our destination. Two hours into the drive, we encountered what felt like a mo …
Dear Employee, I just got off the phone with Kate at bigcompany.com and she asked for our specs for the upcoming event – can you email them to me ASAP so I can get them to her? I just tried calling yo …
Dear Employee(s), Letting everyone know that I’ve made Bob the point person for all issues coming to and from me so that I can focus my time more effectively. If you need something from me please firs …
We have loved numbered lists since the beginning of time. If the Ten Commandments had been written today it would show up in your Facebook feed as “The 10 Things Every Good Person Does.” While the Ten …
From: boss@ourcompany01.com Date: Mon, Mar 26, 2016 at 2:19 PM Subject: Argh – not getting a response! To: jodi@ourcompany01.com Hey Jodi, Do you have your COG #s ready to send? See below… …
Dear Boss, With regard to my filling in for so and so while they’re on vacation, this adds some unforeseen work to my plate that I didn’t initially plan on when taking the job. I’m happy to fill in fo …
Dear Boss, We, the employees of your company, hope you will reconsider the tracking spyware you’ve installed on every computer to ensure that you can see every email we write and every website we visi …
Dear Boss, It’s just ridiculous, the amount of traffic I’m sitting through to get here by 9am. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this. I have been stuck in traffic every day this week for over two h …
Dear Employee, I’m just checking in to see if you finished that project I asked you to finish by this Friday. It’s now Monday afternoon and I still haven’t heard anything from you but didn’t want to b …
[Saturday, 12pm…] Dear Employee, I just wanted to send you this list of stuff that needs to happen this coming week. Please enjoy your weekend and don’t even think of starting this until Monday. …
“I’m bigger and I’m faster. I will always beat you.” This is what Joan Crawford tells her daughter, Christina, in the 1981 movie ‘Mommie Dearest’ after shamefully beating her in a swimming race. When …
Dear Boss, We’re all excited for the upcoming mixer with our potential new clients. We know this is a sensitive topic but we request the option of wearing our own clothing rather than the company logo …
Dear Employee, Not a biggie but you’ve been coming in late with some frequency and don’t worry, it’s not a huge deal but I felt the need to say something just because, you know, sometimes as the boss …
Employee engagement is probably one of the most critical yet elusive factors in the workplace. It’s hard to describe, but we certainly all know it when we feel it or see it. People go from totally pum …
We all have those days when our words and actions don’t come out the way we intended. Or we take our stress out on others. We intend to give a compliment or a simple criticism and it instead sounds mo …
Dear Boss, Just want you to know that I now understand what you wanted when you asked me for that information before. Though you took the time to explain it to me I had a feeling this other way (that …
All of us have experienced inconsistent management, where we had those days when our words or actions don’t translate the way we intended or we take our stress out on others. Maybe something happened …
I once had a boss I really disliked. After leaving the organization, I learned that he got demoted after a major mistake. As a shiver of delight worked its way up my spine I consciously fought the urg …
Dear Employee, As you know we had some unexpected setbacks this year and did not meet our numbers. As a result, we need to tighten our belts. One area this will impact is our ability to hand out bonus …
Dear Employee, We’re going to have to cut back on expenses as much as possible. Business has been tough this year, as well as last year, so it’s in all of our best interest to manage our expenses as m …
So, you find yourself in the position of managing a team and some people on that team are old enough to be your mom or dad or older brother/sister. Are you getting resistance? Are people listening to …
Dear Employee, The CEO talked to the CFO who met with the COO, CMO & CTO. We all looked at the P&L. I’m concerned you’re not spending enough on Q1 national CPMs and GRPs to meet our ROI goals. …
After a few reps at the gym your muscles naturally start to fatigue. It’s a sign that you’re working and your muscles are responding. In the same way that your muscles eventually give out during a wor …
Deer Boss, I cant seem to getyour documnt toopne up can you please resned so i can dowhat you aksed —– Dear Employee, How did you know I was raised in the forest by deer? You really show great conc …
We all know the effects and ways of how stress causes ignorance. “I’m so stressed, I can’t take it anymore!” “Why am I so stressed?!” “This stress is killing me!” Any of these exclamations sound famil …
Dear Boss, Hey, I hope you’re having fun on vacation and this email reaches you on the sandy beaches of “Riviera wherever you are that I couldn’t afford.” Don’t worry about responding to this, just wa …
Dear Employee, I am so excited to let you in on something BIG that no one else knows: for the past two months I have been working day and night on a project that will change the fate of this company. …
