Recovering Leader

Every Day is Bring Your Kindness to Work Day

A friendly leadership approach works wonders when you want to enable those around you to free up their most powerful talents and skills in service of a shared vision or goal.  Read more →

One Formula to Lead and Live Better: 75+/25-

When you strike the right balance between a positive and negative outlook you lead more skillfully and live a better life, and help others do the same. It’s not magic: By resetting to 75+/25- each day, you enable engagement, creativity, good health, and reduce stress. Read more →

Helping the Reassurance Junkie

Someone who needs a disproportionate amount of reassurance can be a burden rather than a blessing -- when you take the lead on alleviating this burden, it's best for you, the needy employee, and your organization. Read more →

Why a Leader's Emotional Impact Matters ... A Lot

“Why do I need to worry about my people’s feelings? Why don’t they automatically just FEEL like doing their best? They’re lucky they have a job! Am I there to coddle them?” These are bottom line beliefs and questions among my executive clients who tend to be more task / directive / deadline-driven. Some are thinking these things mainly when... Read more →

How to Upgrade Your Leadership through EQ

Does what we feel drive how we think, problem-solve, and lead others? I used to think not. I’ve recently discovered it’s time to rethink, or, more aptly, re-feel that. Going through the Emotional Intelligence (EQ) in Action certification course last week, I gained a new appreciation for how feelings drive everything we think and do. Like it or not, neuroscience... Read more →

Best of 1950’s: Hit Your Targets or You’re Out

I ask leaders: how can you be of service to your people and your bottom line at the same time, rather than serving one at the expense of the other? It gets the leadership juices flowing. In contrast, “Hit your targets or you’re out,” which I’ve seen more frequently recently, sacrifices those you lead for results. If this weed-out-the-weaklings way... Read more →

LeaderTip: High-Performing Leadership Teams

It’s not uncommon for an organization’s senior executives to call themselves the "Leadership Team." Yet frequently divisional self-interests drive their actions more so than teamwork—a lower-performing model for people at all levels of the enterprise. In contrast, members of high performing leadership teams watch out for each other, share resources and knowledge, trust each other, are brutally honest, embrace healthy... Read more →

The 1-2-3 of Using Self-awareness to Resolve Conflict

Whether you're dealing with someone difficult, resolving a conflict, or simply broadening your perspective, here are practical approaches and practices to help you be at your best. Make sure you read down to the simple exercises, and try them! It boils down to this: the more you make yourself look through another person's eyes, even if you can't stand them,... Read more →

EQ Leadership Watch: Stand in the River of Your Feelings

So often I get asked by clients (and friends/family for that matter) about those darker moments, when pain, sadness, fear, or anger well up -- what to do with it? Certainly we're not acculturated to feel our feelings, particularly in the professional setting, notwithstanding the work of Goleman on Emotional Intelligence. So what to do with the pain? Denial, avoidance,... Read more →