CU Insight: Leaders, How Are You?

As published in CU Insight At this stage in your life, with everything occurring in the world and the vast implications to the global economy, your industry, and your business, few things get to be about you—how you are feeling or really doing, deep inside of yourself. As an experienced leader, your job requires you to give to everyone else: vision, strategy, answers, time, attention, information, approval, feedback, coaching, encouragement, validation, and confidence. It seems everyone around you either wants or needs something from you in order to perform and be successful. You focus on others all day at work. Then, if you are a spouse, parent, child to aging parents, and/or volunteer in your community, you continue this focus on others throughout the majority of your personal life. When is your life ever about you?  Steve Jobs used to walk with his coach, Bill Campbell, on Sundays, which he used as time for himself; time to reflect, talk freely, hear himself think, get perspective, and focus himself. If you don’t currently have someone like Bill in your life, please use this post as one way to quiet the demands, fears, and noise of the world to make time for [...]

By |2021-10-22T16:34:17-07:00October 22nd, 2021|

FORBES: The Thrill of Seeking Mastery

As published in Forbes. Photo credit: Lori Ann Hansen Photography As a senior leadership coach, I am a human behaviorist, an avid reader and a life-long student. I know that working on myself is a critical requirement for effectively helping others. I would like to tell you that this work has always come naturally and easily to me and that I have been a willing and eager student of myself, but that would be an outright lie. Only a decade ago, I recall telling my professors, who had strongly encouraged me to visit the on-staff counselor, that although I was certain that kind of professional help was needed by my classmates, I myself did not require it. I am sure they struggled to keep a straight face. The irony now is not lost on me. Here I was completing my master’s degree so I could advance leaders by having them look at themselves and how they interact, react and impact others, while I was unwilling to do the same. Worse, I actually believed I had no personal work to do. Now, that is the definition of arrogance. Today, I still struggle to master myself in terms of my inner thoughts and [...]

By |2018-02-06T00:00:36-08:00January 17th, 2018|

Real Leadership Now.

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”—Archimedes. Being a leader today is more daunting than ever before. The pace of technological innovation is immense, the volume of information, unprecedented, and we have more generations working side by side, struggling to understand each other, than at any other time in history. As if this were not enough, many are now tasked with leading a remote, global workforce, and must manage this corresponding cultural complexity. Leaders must be masterful visionaries, communicators, and coaches. They must excel at building relationships, driving performance, creating alignment, and fostering engagement. They must be impeccable ambassadors of the professional culture their organization needs to survive and thrive. There are so many things leaders can and should be doing that today’s talented men and women rarely have the attention to consider if where they are investing their blood, sweat, and tears is making much of a difference to what they really care about. Yes, they are earning a living. They are even climbing the ladder, receiving recognition, accolades, and the opportunity to add their strategic voices. But, in order to do this well and add [...]

By |2021-06-28T20:26:49-07:00July 18th, 2016|
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