Let’s be honest, being perfect isn’t worth your time. The extra time that you could take to make something perfect is most likely not going to make much of a difference. If this is you, then you spend time doing the extra work to make others happy, avoid criticism, and because you are trying to meet someone’s unrealistic expectations. What if I gave you a permission slip on the project you are working on and said just do what is…
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Can we all just stop breaking our boundaries already? I taught a class last week on impostor syndrome with an amazing group of leaders. I asked them which impostor syndrome type they struggled with the most and the majority of them chose to keep their boundaries personally and professionally. Boundaries create guidelines and rules for you and others to understand, follow and respect. You can define physical, relationship, conversational, and time boundaries for yourself. Strong boundaries help you to avoid…
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Are you ready to take some action today? It’s time to get off the sidelines and get into the visibility game. There is a huge misconception that creating visibility for yourself is a lot of work. That is 100% untrue. Here are some simple ideas to try so you can see that it only takes intention and consistency to show a new side of you to others. Create a visibility partnership – find someone who you can partner up with to give…
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I am just not smart enough. I remember thinking that as I sat in the back of the room of a big meeting and looked around at everyone contributing to the conversation. I felt completely inadequate. How do all these people know the answers and what to do to get things done? I can picture sitting in that room as if it was just yesterday. Unfortunately, I carried all those feelings with me for a really long time and even…
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What are you avoiding? It is a powerful question to ask yourself. When I ask this question of my clients, they will usually start with the items on their to-do list. I keep asking them what else they are avoiding until they get to the items that they don’t want to bring up, but know they need to discuss. These are the things that they don’t know how to do, deliverables that are higher exposure, conversations that they don’t want…
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What would you do if someone stated in front of a room of people that you and/or your team didn’t do what was expected on something? Would you say something to defend yourself and your team or keep quiet? This is a situation that you may not have to face often, but when it happens, it is a bit of a defining moment. Most of the time it comes down to the level of confidence that a leader feels in…
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Which leader are you? The one who tells their team the answers or the one that asks their team for options and recommendations? I definitely thought that I had to have all the answers in the beginning of my leadership journey. I thought I had to know what to tell my team when they had questions and if I didn’t know, then I felt like an impostor. That thinking was so wrong. You have a team for a reason! They…
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Is there such a thing as being too nice? When you read that question, was your initial response a yes or a no? My parents taught me to treat others with kindness and encouraged my sister and me to avoid conflict with our friends. As adults in the workplace, it isn’t always possible to avoid conflict. There may be issues between departments, team members who don’t get along or managing the work of outside vendors that can lead to conflict….
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One of the biggest changes that I have made since I left my corporate career is being comfortable taking imperfect action. It is so empowering to try things and experiment vs. having to get it all right. Now I implement imperfect actions each day without the worry of what anyone else thinks. It is incredibly freeing to do things without any fear. Looking back in my past, the word imperfect wasn’t a part of my vocabulary. I wore the crown…
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I remember working for someone who wanted to know updates on what I was doing each day. It made it difficult to get anything done with all her requests and I wondered if she had lost trust in me. She was a bit of a micromanager, but I also understood that she was under a lot of pressure from our management. We were working on a high exposure program that had high expectations and impact for the organization. My manager…
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