Leaders Need a Push Too

Building a safe environment where peoople can think and express how they feel, is healthy.  A place where they feel valued, respected, and inspired, will help them take ownership and be accountable.  If you’re leading, are you building trust?

There are many leaders who affect their culture because they keep breaking trust without meaning to.  They are not aware enough to know how their behaviour affects the people they lead. Do you recognize your trustbuster?  What do you have to do about it?

Samuel Floss’s poem The Calf Path has such a message for us as leaders.  What will it take for us to learn to try something new when the old way isn’t working anymore.  We do get ourselves into ruts that are deep and well trodden by those before us.  But times are so different!  We […]

Leadership roles come in many styles.  Traditionally extroverted behaviour seemed to be needed to guide and motivate employees and encourage teamwork. Introverts may have been considered to be too quiet and unassertive to successfully handle the many challenges of leadership.  My experience with the strengths of an introvert have made me understand and value their many talents.

The message really is about understanding how we are seen as leaders.  We need to understand who we really are and who we need to become in order to lead effectively.  Getting clear on the gaps, setting a plan for change, then changing the behaviour, sounds very overwhelming.  However, with a great coach to support […]

Leaders are seen wearing a mask of “victim” when they lack confidence in their ability to lead, afraid to lose control and blame others when things go wrong.  Or they have a fear of making tough decisions and allow the team to take control.  Whatever the reason is, we are setting ourselves up for failure, […]

Learning how to recognize how our team feels about us, makes us realize how they have branded our behaviour.  Deciding to take control of how we are seen, begins with self awareness.  Changing our demeanour and understanding how we present ourselves when we are communicating good and bad news to our people, gets the results […]

Being brave enough to speak your truth takes confidence.  Self awareness and developing your strengths will give you the confidence you need to express your feelings.  It means being vulnerable, and when you can do that you realize it is a strength not a weakness.  Change happens!

Learning to be resilient in a toxic environment is necessary if you are going to lead.  Being self aware and capable of remaining positive enough to take the actions required to turn a toxic team around, takes skills.  It begins with understanding your own feelings and not buying into other ‘s negative tapes.

Dan Goleman quotes: ‘Gifted leadership occurs when heart and head – feeling and thought – meet. These are the two winds that allow a leader to soar’. That can only happen when we as leaders take the time to be mindful, reflective, and willing to sharpen our focus and attention to achieve self awareness.