How Leaders Lose Trust Without Realizing It
Most leaders I work with care deeply about the people around them. They just get busy. And somewhere in the busyness, the people who matter most start to feel like they can wait. Think about the people who make your work possible. Not just your clients or customers, but the colleagues who cover for you, […]
You’ve Integrated a New Behavior When You Start Teaching It
How do you know when a new behavior has truly taken hold? When you’re doing it without thinking. And when you find yourself passing it on to someone else. I want to tell you about a client of mine. When we first started working together, she was burned out. She was spending long hours at […]
Feedback is a Gift: Some Assembly Required
Nobody warns you that receiving feedback is its own skill. We spend years learning how to ask for it, create space for it, and respond to it graciously. But the moment it actually arrives in volume, from all directions, and not always in agreement, we’re largely on our own. Right now, I’m living that reality […]
What You Stop Hearing When You Start Succeeding
At a certain level, the feedback doesn’t stop. It just stops reaching you. I recently worked with a leader who had risen steadily through the ranks of his organization. With each promotion, something unexpected happened. The feedback stopped. Not officially. Not all at once. But gradually, the honest, candid observations that had once helped him […]
Stop Calling Them Soft Skills: Why Human Capabilities Drive Zero-Distance Organizations
For more than a decade, I had the privilege of directing the Center for Collaborative Leadership. Our work was based on a simple yet powerful idea: when people feel trusted, included, and invited to lead from wherever they sit, the entire system performs at a higher level. Decades of research on shared leadership back this up. […]
Are You Living a Life Aligned with Your Values? Here’s How to Find Out
I often hear from leaders who feel frustrated, stuck, or stretched too thin — only to discover the real issue isn’t workload or circumstance, but a misalignment between how they’re living and what they truly value. Sometimes, they don’t even realize it. And many believe there’s nothing they can do. Take Cameron, for example. When […]
Why Follow-Up Matters: Lessons from Our 60-Day Check-In
This morning, I wrapped up a 60-day follow-up call with a recent cohort from one of the programs I facilitate, and what struck me most wasn’t just the progress participants have made; it was the clarity and insight they gained along the way. Four themes emerged from our conversation that I think are worth sharing: […]
Do You Know What’s Getting in Your Employee’s Way?
I was joking with a friend the other day that the world isn’t made for a five-foot-tall, curly-haired, left-handed woman. I had just come back from speaking at a conference where I had to ask the staff to bring a cocktail table to the stage — because if I stood behind the podium, no one […]
Why Your Strongest Emotions Reveal What You Truly Value
We often think of values as aspirational statements—words we choose to define who we want to be. But in practice, our deepest values often reveal themselves in subtler ways. One of the clearest signals? Our emotional reactions. Recently, I joined a small-group Q&A call on Zoom. The moderator began by setting a clear expectation: everyone […]
Transforming Challenges into Solutions
In a recent video, I discussed a powerful method known as the problem tree and solution tree, designed to analyze situations and chart a clear path forward. The video demonstrates the technique using an example from the workplace. Whether you’re tackling workplace challenges or personal goals, this framework provides a structured approach to navigate from problem […]
