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ARE YOU THE LEADER YOU NEED?

For the past 18 months, the Covid19 pandemic has revealed many things about ourselves and our organizations. As someone who’s been an executive, a management consultant, and a leadership coach, I know that there are all kinds of effective leaders out there.  Some styles are more effective in certain situations than others. Great leaders share some important traits, like resilience, courage, openness to opposing ideas and staying grounded by listening to their workforce’s point of view, and a good dose of humility. Great leaders must be self-aware because without understanding your own strengths and prejudices, and your leadership style, you literally don’t know what you’re missing.

The same organization will need different kinds of leaders at different points in its life cycle. A startup company or in these times of crisis a Risk Taker is needed.  A leader whose tolerance for risk is high; someone daring,...

From A Distance

I’ve had an earworm in my head again this week. This time its’s the song From A Distance first recorded by the late Nanci Griffith and was a major hit for Bette Midler.

Lately, it feels as if the turmoil and chaos around the world are overwhelming. The Covid Delta variant is spiking, earthquakes in Haiti, wildfires, floods, hurricanes, and Afghanistan. I find myself becoming discouraged and stressed. Then the song pops in my head…From a Distance...

From a distance the world looks blue and green,
and the snow-capped mountains white.
From a distance the ocean meets the stream,
and the eagle takes to flight.

Watching the news often results in an increase in my stress level. But then, I pause, take a breath, step back and I’m reminded the sun still came up this morning! Gravity is still working! I am still breathing, and my heart is beating without me doing anything!

We are on a planet that has been around for 4 ½...

We All Just Want to be Liked…

My summer Collaborative Group Coaching program has just finished with an amazing group of women leaders. The group was brave enough to open their hearts to the challenges I presented. As a result, they discovered more brilliance about themselves and each other.

The group grappled with this question: “what is one limiting thought that you have thought or focused on about yourself for way too long?”.

Topics came up like: “I’m not good enough”, “I’m afraid I won’t be liked”, “I too often compare myself to others” or the ever-present imposter syndrome, “someone is going to discover I’m not supposed to be in this job”.

Most of us want to be accepted and liked. Somehow, we go from toddlers filled with joy and speaking our minds without regard to anyone’s opinions. To adulthood jumping through hoops to be what we think others want us to...

Olympic Leadership Lessons

The XXXII Summer Olympics are upon us…and like everything else in the past 16 months, these Games are unlike any other. I love the Olympics when the world‘s greatest athletes come together to compete for the highest honor in armature sports.

I had the good fortune to attend the 1976 Summer Olympic Games in Montreal Canada and the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Two decades apart and many lessons learned from both.

In 1976 I had never been more than 600 miles from my hometown in Florida. There I was in Montreal, where the primary language was French!  People from around the globe were gathered wearing their national colors, speaking their native languages. I remember meeting people from Mongolia, Singapore, Russia, and Turkey. What an experience! The universal language was a smile. My eyes were opened that the world is a big place with so many different points of view, yet the common denominator can be a smile and...

Random Encounters

Have you ever had a memory of someone pop into your head and wonder “where did that come from, I haven’t thought of her in decades”? That was my experience this morning and it was Bunny Johns who emerged.

One spring about 40 years ago on a solo trip to the Nantahala Outdoor Center in western North Carolina I met Bunny Johns. Walking alone on the railroad track alongside the spectacular Nantahala River, I recall how she appeared to me: confident, kind, curious, athletic, and at peace. She said, “Hello, I don’t see many people out this way where I like to walk, it’s beautiful isn’t it?”.  

I was on a quest to discover myself, and it felt like serendipity to connect with a woman like her. She invited me to go paddling with her sometime and I agreed hoping she knew what she was doing because I sure didn’t.

Turns out Bunny Johns was an elite paddler of the open canoe and had earned...

It’s Summer!

Summer is generally time to take off and have some fun. While this summer is a far cry better than summer 2020, Steve and I are still staying close to home. I’m just not ready to get on a plane and travel freely yet.

My incredible 97-year-old mother in law has been staying at home these past 15 months as well. She told me recently of the joy it brings her to sit in her recliner, look out her window and see the magnolias tree with buds beginning to bloom. She has looked out that same window for 60+ years onto her wooded back yard and still even now, she is finding unexpected beauty.

Each day she shares the number of buds that have blossomed into flowers and the delight in her voice is palpable. She inspired me to be more intentional about appreciating the beauty in small focused spaces around me. It’s easy to look at a view you’ve seen a million times and not really “see” it.

It’s also easy to look at...

SHARED VULNERABILITY

Why do certain groups add up to be greater than the sum of their parts while others add up to be less?I have worked with organizations around the country of different sizes and shapes. I marvel at the success of some groups and the challenges of others.

Team culture is one of the most powerful forces on the planet and one of the most difficult things to put together and maintain. A Harvard study of more than 200 companies over 11 years revealed that a strong team culture increased the net income of those companies by 750%!

I LOVE Teams which is in part why I love hospice. We were the first to require interdisciplinary teams where everyone’s voice is valued. 

Think about the most well-functioning teams in your organization and see if they have these components:

• Safety
• Belonging
• Shared vulnerability
• Shared purpose

A shared exchange of openness and vulnerability is the most basic building block of cooperation and...

Bloom Where You are Planted

I have been pondering this phrase all week. “Bloom where you are planted” suggests we look around and see how to shine our light no matter where we find ourselves. It’s not always easy. Sometimes we are in situations or relationships or jobs where we do not want to be. And yet, here we are, and what do we do next?

The easy road is to duck and run, quit the job, end the relationship, or step down from the responsibility. And yet, we take ourselves wherever we go. If we don’t resolve our troubles or face our fears, we will continue to experience the same situations again and again, just with different names and faces.

Bloom where you are planted. There is always something to discover in all situations.

When my brother Michael was terminally ill, I didn’t want to be the one to lead him through his fears. I didn’t want to be responsible for all the things he needed, like finding him a doctor and...

Walking Through Honey

4.17.21

OK, I'll admit it, I sometimes feel befuddled, not every day and not all the time. But as a woman who thrived on motion, constantly feeding off the energy in an airport concourse filled with rushing people as I traveled to see clients, my world is very different now. My current reality is sitting in the same chair in front of the same computer screen for hours on end, then thinking, "what day is it?" or "what am I doing here?".

Productivity has taken on new meaning. I have a fully edited new book just waiting to go to a publisher. I have new online courses that I have been working on that are lolly-gagging around in my files. I created a new group coaching course, and I haven't let anyone know about it yet. WHO AM I?! I don't recognize this formerly driven woman!

Some days it feels like I'm walking through honey and not in a good way. Years ago, in my days as a hospice Executive Director, at a leadership retreat, we did an exercise of...

Sacrifice, Resurrection, and Liberation

People all over the globe are celebrating the Holy holidays of Easter and Passover this week.  Celebrations of Sacrifice, Resurrection, and Liberation from oppression.

Today in the spring of 2021 we have had a year of opportunities to experience sacrifice, haven’t we?  Practically everyone on the planet, regardless of their religious/political/economic, or cultural beliefs has sacrificed in some way. 

A sacrifice is a loss or something you give up, usually for the sake of a better cause. Most of us have sacrificed our normal ways of life by staying home and social distancing this year. We have felt the loneliness and isolation of this sacrifice done for the greater good.

There continues to be uncertainty about the future, and frustration about what’s next. But if we step back and look to our ancestors, those who have gone before us, human beings have always made sacrifices for a better...