Are You Going to Follow the Chicago Cubs Lead?

​There are many motivational speeches given at college graduation ceremonies this time of year. I recently read Theo Epstein’s Yale Graduation Speech that he gave at the commencement ceremony. For those of you who don’t know him he is the President of Baseball Operations for the Chicago Cubs. (I know not everyone may be a Cubs fan, but please keep reading anyway!) I had some key take-aways when I read the speech that I would like to share. If you…
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Monday Morning Leadership Q&A – 5/29/17

Monday Morning Leadership

​Client Question: “Everyone in my management team believes we should go down a certain path for this project and I believe it will cause us major problems if we do. How should I approach this situation?” This is a moment to demonstrate your courage. When you think about the list of leadership traits that leaders possess, courage doesn’t always get mentioned along with the others. It is one of the traits that really makes such a difference though. Having the…
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Fantastic Leadership Resource Summary – 5/26/17

​Welcome to the Fantastic Leadership Resource Summary!    This week’s summary includes:  Being an inclusive leader, does your leadership add or subtract value, how can you be persuasive, building a cohesive team, defining leadership, asking for what you want, focus on what could go right, how can your leadership continue to impact others Articles/Ted Talks/Quotes “Portrait of an Inclusive Leader” http://ht.ly/GIFe30bYeML by @benjaminclusion The inclusive leader creates an environment where dissent isn’t viewed as negativity, or being difficult; but an…
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Is Today the Day That You Will Make a Difference for Someone?

I saw this great quote by Sheryl Sandberg: “Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.”  You can see the impacts that you have on people during the course of the day.  But have you ever thought about how much you continue to impact them even when you aren’t there?   Do they continue to leverage what you may have taught them?  Do they take what they learned…
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Can You Focus on What Could Go Right?

I was helping my neighbor with a printer issue that she was having the other day. She said to me “I don’t know why this technology stuff is so hard for me.” I told her that a lot of people have a fear of messing something up when they do new things with technology. What causes that fear? Is it just a mental block that they have? For many people it is just the unknown and it feels overwhelming. I…
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Are You Willing to Ask for What You Want?

With a daughter in college now, I have seen shifts in how things work from when I went to school.   Colleges have far more focus on “field experiences and internships” now.   My college roommate had an internship, but she was one of very few that had one.  Now there are many more opportunities to get those experiences and the students are “highly encouraged” to do them.  Part of it is to discern if they are going to be happy in…
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Monday Morning Leadership Q&A – 5/22/17

Monday Morning Leadership

  Client Question: How do you define leadership? This is a question that I get a lot from clients. The formal definition of leadership from Business Dictionary.com is: establishing a clear vision, sharing that vision with others so that they will follow willingly, providing the information, knowledge and methods to realize that vision, and coordinating and balancing the conflicting interests of all members and stakeholders. If you put “CEO leadership definition” into Google, you will get almost 24 million results…
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Fantastic Leadership Resource Summary – 5/19/17

Welcome to the Fantastic Leadership Resource Summary!   This week’s summary includes: Motivating your team, differences between feedback and criticism, steps to better decision making, ways to stop sabotaging yourself, building a strong team is a good investment, what truths would you share with your younger self, focus on the essential things in your life, how do you spend your time, and are you a humble leader   Articles/Ted Talks/Quotes:   5 Step Process to Making Sure Your Employees are…
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Do You See Yourself as a Humble Leader?

​When you are trying to share a lesson with your team, do you share how you learned that lesson yourself?  In the article “4 Lessons You Learn About Humility While Ambitiously Chasing Success by Silvia Turnova, she talks about sharing more of yourself when you are trying to reach your goals.  She lists four lessons to consider: Being Humble – always remember where you came from and that others helped you get to where you are.  What are you doing…
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Where Do You Want to Spend Your Time?

Every day you have a schedule that may include any of the following depending on your situation: meetings, conference calls, dr appointments, kid activities, dinner, grocery shopping, etc. This feels like a merry-go-round that you never get to stop riding. When do you have time to just sit and think about what you want to do? You probably don’t, because there are so many other people pulling at your available time. What do you want your life to look like?…
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