Recovering Leader

Make The Rest of Your Career a Love Story

Consider this, “The best work is constructive play” (source: Kay Cumings) Here are suggestions to help that idea find its way into your career choices. Let it wipe out any autopilot or sad, old ideas about work being work, a necessary evil. Find and fall in love with the work you enjoy most, don't settle for less, and challenge any self-limiting ideas that may be holding you back. Read more →

11 Coaching Tips to Seriously Upgrade Your Email Impact

Building executive presence (EP) is a hot topic. A dash of swagger when face to face are crucial; but how do you demonstrate EP on email? EP-busting email habits are rampant, according to my experience as an executive coach. With a few simple practices, and breaking a few habits, you can use email as an instrument of greater influence. Read more →

DIY Career Design Pro Tools

Face it; your career is not in the hands of anyone else but you. Even though some jobs come with potential for promotions, this is the design your own career era. Why? Loyalty between employers and employees is way looser than in days of yore, due to workforce management (e.g., using headcount for cost control), frequent organizational change, shorter employee... Read more →

Infographic: Here's How to Target Work that Works for You

I posted this several years ago and use it often for clients who get into career transition. I just added a sixth circle -- the one on "Fit with character / personality" as the more I use this with my clients, the more I find it valuable to call out the need for a good fit with personality/character and values. Read more →

Physical Leadership 101: You're Larger Than Life

If you are an executive or emerging leader, you are indeed larger than life because your physicality is watched and read in a highly magnified manner by others. Here’s background and a “larger than life” exercise to help build consciousness and selectivity about your physicality. Read more →

It Takes Sponsorship to Make a Leader

It takes a village to make a leader -- many helping hands. A mentor gives you advice, while a sponsor will pound the table on your behalf, expending their political capital to help you get to your next step. Read more →

“Good and Ready” is the Secret to Major Professional Growth

As a coach, I am referred to those who are ready / willing to change, and those who are not. Here's a little trade secret: if you have to push hard, to try and force someone into making a change, it won't work, or it won't last, unless they are otherwise ready and willing (in which case, forcing is overkill anyway.) Read more →

Future Leader Strengths Needed Now: Sustainability, Virtualization & Crisis Continuity

Sustainability, virtualization, and crisis continuity are things people talk about often, but, with some notable exceptions, tend to remain rote, reactive or status quo among most organizations. Worse, they are under-served topics in leader education and development worldwide. Yet as the saying goes, they will not be ignored, and will demand greater share of mind and wallet for leaders in the years immediately ahead. Read more →

Starter, Builder, Fixer, or Runner? How to Find Your Happy Problems

What type of situation best fits your leadership? Not only is it critical for a leader or executive to know themselves, but it’s also important to understand your team, and anyone you may hire. Read more →

Perfectly Positioned: 5 Habits of Great Rainmakers

Great business developers, also known as "Rainmakers" have identifiable habits in common. What are they? Let's take a look ... Read more →

Leading from the Rut: 7 Ways to Snap Out of Complacency

It’s not easy to admit you’ve become complacent, but it gets the best of us, so you’re in good company -- the good news: there are steps you can take. Read more →

How to Develop Your “Future You” Mantra

Having a “future you” mantra is an innovative and individualized way to make sure you attain the goals most important to you, and to lead in the most effective way. Read more →

Get Your Gravitas On: 6 Secrets of Executive Presence

For most people promoted to senior positions, having a strong, influential voice at the big table is not standard equipment -- it takes work. Here you will find some practical steps you can take. Read more →

2013 Turbo Start: Design Your Job, Choose Your Boss

When searching for a new job or making a career change, we can tend to be "selling" when we really should be, in equal measure, "buying." Here's how to do that. Read more →

The Many Rewards of Spotlighting Your Team

It’s all too common for an executive to be the spokesperson for their people in high-visibility / high stakes situations. Yet it’s often good leadership to do the exact opposite. By focusing the visibility spotlight on your people, you enhance their contributions and learning, and upgrade your own ability to participate, gaining useful perspective on their solutions, ideas, and results. Read more →

4 Factors To Be an Effective Buyer of Your Next Job

Whether you’re considering an internal move, or enticed by a position elsewhere, once you know you’ve got the right skills and experience, remember that even as you’re “selling” yourself, you’re also buying. As a buyer, here are four things to consider that can make or break your ability to do your best work, and be fulfilled: 1. Buying the Values... Read more →

Truth About Leader Development: People Can Change

The subjectivity of change bias and the three ingredients for sustainable change. In my line of work, I’m often asked whether people can TRULY change. The short answer is: yes. The longer answer is: yes and it takes three ingredients. Before we look at these key ingredients, it’s important you watch out for your own bias. Essentially, sad but true,... Read more →

Self-test: Doing and Being at Your Best at Work

Are you doing your best work and happy at work, most days? Here’s a tool I use with some executive clients to self-assess what may be standing in the way of being at their best and happiest at work, and what to do about it. Take a look at the graphic below and place yourself in the square that reflects... Read more →

9 Steps to a Happier, More Effective Work Life

One of the top lessons I’ve learned in my career of 26 years and counting: the best work I’ve ever done and the best jobs I’ve ever had were situations where I designed the job I wanted to do, then chose my boss. Worst were “getting promoted” into, or “chosen” for a job I wasn’t seeking, and/or working for a... Read more →

Addressing Dressing

Perhaps this is an awkward topic for some, but the way you dress and groom shouldn't be a factor in how you're evaluated or perceived as a leader. By that I DON'T mean let your fun or freak flag fly--I mean, don't dress yourself as a distraction. Things are more complicated today--when and how to be formal, casual, in between,... Read more →

When an Executive Needs More Swagger

Seasoned professionals described as analytical, cautious, or humble may plateau before delivering on their full potential as leaders. It’s avoidable, if the problem is not one of smarts or capability, but of missing a bit of swagger. Keeping too much to yourself, being too cautious or deferential, or talking about too many nuts and bolts when a blueprint will suffice... Read more →

Monday LeaderTip: Reaching Your True North

We all have the capacity to make the time we spend doing our work—or living, for that matter—more meaningful. Yet we limit ourselves by not really thinking about it, submerged as we are in the familiar routines of our daily lives. When we do think about it, we scapegoat our constraints or limitations for not changing the status quo. Consider... Read more →

Chemistry + Inflection Point = Great Coaching Outcomes

All engagements can be powerful, but significant, positive changes require coach and client to be well-matched (great chemistry), and client to be at an important inflection point in their development. Champion athletes receive frequent coaching. Similarly, the best executives and aspiring leaders -- the ones who you want to retain -- are curious and hungry for new ways to upgrade... Read more →

The Why and How of Your Next Promotion

Suggestions and considerations to help you move up At its best, a promotion to a more senior level of responsibility can challenge, energize, and reward you, and enable you to accomplish something of greater meaning in your professional life. Moving up isn’t for everyone—it may not be important to you, and/or you may be happy with the level of responsibilities... Read more →

What is Self-aware Leadership, and Why Should You Care?

It leads to sustainable effectiveness . . . Today's tumultuous conditions require leaders to master speed, turbulence, and complexity, upgrading from traditional leadership competencies to new and more flexible strategies for leading organizations. Building greater self-awareness must be a high priority. Self-awareness is not a common theme in leadership literature, and the practices that lead to it aren’t easy to... Read more →

Think Like an Owner, Not an Employee

People who think and act like owners are happier, healthier, and more effective at work. Layoffs, dinosaur management styles, "do more with less," and constant role/responsibility reshuffles are the new "normal." And, these things certainly haven't made it easy for folks to have a sense of ownership and engagement in their companies. In fact, I had a junior executive tell... Read more →

New Role? 10 Things You Need to Know About Your New Boss

So, you've gotten that great leadership job, or promotion, or move into a new role you've been seeking. Congratulations! You’ve heard various things about your new leader—or maybe not, and/or maybe you have a theory or two about them. But what do you REALLY need to know? Starting off day one asking your new boss a barrage of questions may... Read more →