Memorial Day: Give Thanks and Have Empathy

It’s Memorial Day, 2016.  Today many will visit gravesites and attend services to honor our service men and women who served and gave it all, as well as those still with us and even serving today.  I hope our veterans and service men and women feel honored today.  I hope they feel appreciated by the…

Shark or Turtle? What is your conflict style?

Can a turtle safely co-exist with a shark? What about a fox with a teddy bear? I say “Absolutely!” If they are aware of their own go-to conflict style, have a decent understanding of those around them, and realize they have options.  When it comes to conflict style, we all have dominate traits, but we…

Tips for being successful, when working with a disengaged boss

Your leader’s primary role is to be the strong base for your success support system, right?  I mean, the very definition of a leader is to engage and inspire, while achieving organizational goals through the efforts of the team.  So,what happens to you and your teammates when you have a disengaged boss? In my experience,…

Speak-up or Keep Quiet? Emotional Intelligence Can Be Your Guide

Have you ever experienced that nagging feeling, when you know something is wrong, but you don’t know what or why?  I usually feel it in my chest first, then in my stomach. Some call it intuition.  It might be easy to figure out, when something specific happened and you know it isn’t resolved – at…

Two Executives And A Workplace Mediator Walk Into A Bar

OK, so it wasn’t really a bar. It was a nice meeting room, but it felt a lot like a bar-room-brawl.  There was finger pointing, turf battling, name calling, accusation throwing, “I dare you to cross this line” taunting, yelling, and even tears. It was two executives and a workplace mediator, spending a day together…

One Leadership Challenge: Is it skill or will?

Leadership challenge? Nah, It’s great to be a leader – easy in fact! Presiding over your kingdom, all your peeps utilizing their strengths effectively; everyone getting along and collaborating for the best possible outcomes; goals being met ahead of schedule; creative ideas flowing; and all the key stakeholders as happy as they can be. Yep,…

Creating Synergy at Work

Having trouble creating synergy at your workplace? I hate to break this to you, but it might just be YOU. Many of us don’t take the time to consider how we communicate when conflict arises. Unfortunately, most of us have been trained to speak a language that encourages us to alienate ourselves, through our communication…

Leveraging Resistance

Resistance has the power to derail the best of plans, but acknowledging it with empathy and compassion might just engage the leverage you need to achieve your goals. Like most things in life, resistance has a spectrum. On one end, it shows up as avoidance or maybe a little passive aggressive.  One the opposite end,…

It’s A Great Day to Celebrate!

Great leaders understand organizational success requires commitment to core values and goals; authentic and timely communication; collaboration to identify the best possible action plans, timelines, and solutions; and, they know how and when to celebrate! Indeed, great leaders celebrate! They celebrate the big wins of course, but more importantly, they seek opportunities to celebrate the…

Do Yourself a Favor: Collaborate!

Commit, Communicate, COLLABORATE, and Celebrate. Did you know Henry Ford spent a great deal of time bouncing ideas off his friends Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone? Man, what would it be like to collaborate with heavy-hitters like that?  Well, Mr. Ford changed our world through the power of collaboration. He said “If there is any…

Success Requires Communication

Twenty years ago as a new manager in the insurance industry, I remember being told by a corporate leadership trainer “the key to being a successful manager is Communicate! Communicate! Communicate!” I also remember looking skeptically into the eyes of that trainer and thinking “Really? You are getting paid to tell me I need to…