I met with a client the other day who wanted to meet with a VP in her organization. However, in the next breath, she said, “but I can’t meet with him and have a conversation, I wouldn’t know what to say.” This is a common response from clients who are meeting with someone at a higher level than they are or it is the first time that they are having a conversation together. It is understandable to feel that way…
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I was sitting in a book editing retreat to learn the best ways to edit my book a few years ago. It was a small group event held in a beautiful resort in upstate New York to teach all the future authors in the room how to edit our books. During one of the first days of the event, each of us was supposed to take a turn reading a small selection of one of our chapters to the rest…
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I was presenting to a women’s employee resource group the other day about the impact that communication can have on an organization. Things will run smoothly when people have the right information and they can trust that what they have been given is accurate. The challenge is that not all leaders are the same. Some operate with information close to their vest and don’t want to share what they know. Others are very transparent with information to allow their teams…
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I saw this article from Lolly Daskal, author, and executive coach, called How Can an Executive Coach Make You a Great Leader? It reminded me that there are so many benefits for a leader who has a coach. I wanted to share some of my experience of having a coach and ideas for you to consider should you decide you might want to hire a coach. The Beginning of My Coaching Experience I remember when I hired my first coach in 2012….
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Can you overcome limiting beliefs? The short answer is yes…and it takes time to shift them. These beliefs are ingrained in our brains and may have been there since we were children. Here are some of the types of limiting beliefs that can exist for you: self-limiting beliefs, societal beliefs, and cultural beliefs. These long held beliefs are true for you in your brain and they impact how you see the world, make decisions, and see yourself. What is a…
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Are you paying attention to your personal brand? Some people may refer to a personal brand as your image. If you aren’t familiar with the term, here is a great definition from Laura Morgan Roberts in an article titled, Creating a Positive Professional Image. She was quoted to say, “Your professional image is the set of qualities and characteristics that represent perceptions of your competence and character as judged by key constituents (i.e. clients, colleagues, superiors, subordinates).” You will see that at times, the…
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Are you someone who sees change as a good thing? I think it depends on the experiences that you have had with change. If the change experiences that you had were good and brought you new opportunities, you would probably view them in a positive way. However, if the situations that you went through with change did not go well, then you might feel a lot of resistance and wish it wasn’t happening. What do you do when that resistance…
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Are you labeling yourself without realizing it? On a recent podcast, I talked about being an introvert and how I embraced that label. Although it seemed like a good thing at the time, I may have leaned on that label a bit too much. Assessments I first learned about being an introvert when I took the Meyers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment. My experience with this assessment was quite a few years ago, and at that time, I had no…
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Are you familiar with the term impostor syndrome and what it means? Do you know how to recognize it in yourself or in others? The term impostor syndrome was first identified in 1978 by Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes, whose research determined that this challenge impacts overachieving women who try to fit in and be perfect. The high achieving women attributed their success to mistakes, luck, or because someone hadn’t yet figured out that they didn’t belong where…
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When someone first told me that I should “slow down to speed up,” I couldn’t even process what that would mean for me. There was too much to do and no time to get it all done! If I slowed down, then I would fall behind even further. What I came to realize though, is that slowing down is what is needed to prepare for what is ahead. Taking the time to reflect, be strategic, plan, create new ideas or…
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