Susan M Barber Coaching & Consulting, LLC

Are You Leveraging Your Workforce in the Best Way?

Mary had been at the company for over 20 years. She progressed through different areas of the company and into holding more senior-level responsibilities over her career there. She was a super-connector and everyone respected her. Tom, who was Mary’s manager, thought she would be a great person to mentor Josh who was just getting started in the company. He was a few years out of college, but already had multiple internships and one other role before joining the company. He was…
Read more

What Communication Approach Do You Use In The Workplace?

One of the main challenges for multiple generations in one workplace is the way that they want to give and receive communication. Each generation wants it their way and can sometimes struggle to bend towards the other generation’s method. Here is an example: Bob is a Gen X person who is leading a huge project and he works with Matt who is a Gen Y (or Millennial) and Sarah who is a Gen Z. Bob is really impressed with the…
Read more

What Do You Need to Lead 5 Generations in the Workplace?

Communication seems like it is easy to do when you are at work. You are leading a meeting to talk about projects and then everyone goes on their way. You don’t check to see that everyone is aligned and on the same page with what was discussed. There is just an assumption that everyone understood the same thing that you did. I can’t tell you how many meetings I attended that I thought the same thing. How could people who…
Read more

Are You Willing to Admit Your Mistakes?

It isn’t easy to admit when you make a mistake or fail at something. For some reason we don’t want to be told we are wrong, so we don’t talk about it. Why is that? People have been making mistakes for hundreds of years, but for some reason it seems easier not to admit it. We don’t want to look bad to someone else or be shamed for not getting it right the first time. Some of the greatest inventions exist…
Read more

How Vulnerable Are You Willing To Be?

Every year I choose a word as my theme for the year. This year my word is vulnerability. I thought I was good at being vulnerable when I was working in corporate, but now I realize that I wasn’t taking it to the level that I could have. Some of you know that I am writing a book right now. Well it has been in the works for over a year now (writing a good book is way harder than it…
Read more

Can You See Vulnerability as a Positive?

The definition of vulnerability is the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally. That pretty well sums up where we are globally right now. The fear of the unknown impacts with Coronavirus is changing the world right now. What we have seen or heard from others is playing on our vulnerabilities to an extent that none of us would have expected a few months ago. Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor said,…
Read more

Do You Believe That Vulnerability is a Good Thing?

I used to think that you couldn’t be vulnerable without being seen as weak. I thought that letting my guard down would allow others to judge and criticize me which would cause my credibility to be diminished. It would mean that I would have to let people know that I didn’t have all the answers and I needed help. That was definitely true, I just didn’t want to admit it to anyone or to myself. I decided to start being more…
Read more

It’s Time to be Strong, Focus on Visibility, and Choose Yourself!

I recently participated in an online class that was focused on people getting more visibility in their lives. What was amazing to me was how many women joined this group very quickly. I wasn’t the only one seeking out options to be visible in a more meaningful way. Why is being visible such a challenge for women in general and more specifically for women in leadership? This issue of self-promotion or being visible impacts women and their ability to get…
Read more

Why Do You Have to Hold People Accountable?

I have clients who ask me all the time, “Why don’t people just do what they are supposed to do?” It is a simple question that, unfortunately, doesn’t have a simple answer. Not everyone thinks the same way you do about getting work done and there could be other issues that need to be uncovered. Here are a few examples of what could be happening. The easiest way to think about it is that every person comes to work each…
Read more

Are You Tired of Being Frustrated?

Are expectations causing confusion when you want to create a culture focused on accountability? Think about the expectations that you may have of one of your team members. You may be making assumptions about the things that you are asking the person to do for you. They are making their own assumptions from the conversation and you are both heading down the path of frustration. Brene Brown talks about this concept in her book Dare to Lead. She calls it…
Read more