Making Decisions

Susan M Barber Coaching & Consulting, LLC > Blog > Making Decisions

Are You Playing Big Enough?

When leaders are looking to raise their visibility, I will ask them what their goals are and what types of actions they have already tried. Depending on those answers, I may push them to think bigger. Are they doing enough to reach the goal that they have for themselves? If they aren’t pushing themselves and starting to see results, then they may become frustrated and give up on their visibility plan. That won’t help them reach the success that they…
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Don’t Let Your Perfection Take Over

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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Simple Ways to Create Stronger Boundaries for Yourself

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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3 Easy Ways to Improve Your Visibility Today

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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It’s Time to Slow Down to Speed Up

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?

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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Are You a Leader Who Asks or Tells?

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 Being Nice a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

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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Do This to Prepare for Your Next Role

I know you think your manager knows what you are doing, but you need to know the truth, they don’t. They are in as many meetings as you are and don’t have the visibility to all of the things that you are doing. They can’t possibly stay completely up to date with the latest status of your projects and your team unless you tell them.  You may want to ask them how they would like to stay updated. You can…
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Can the Choices You Make Impact Your Career?

Look at the choices that you make every day. Are you focused on doing the easy things that keep you in the background or the harder things that could put you into the spotlight? This isn’t always a conscious thought, but more than likely the easy things are what you already know and would be considered the safer choices.  The harder choices are what can help you be more visible and give you more career options. They are scarier to…
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