Sometimes I look back on the earlier days of my business career and wonder how I managed to raise two children as a single parent and still maintain and advance my career; most of all, I wonder now how I maintained my sanity and how I managed to focus any attention at all on work. I think my children, now grown and successful in their own right, turned out pretty good, and … [Read more...]
The New Generation Leader
A recent report, Tearing Up the Rule Book: A New Generation of Leaders for 2010, from Aspire and Customer Interpreter measures Leadership Intelligence. This measurement assesses what is important today for leadership success. The results of the research are impressive. What has been traditionally classified as more "feminine" traits emerged as the preferable leadership … [Read more...]
Spring Fever
Are you feeling the buzz? At least here in the northeast, spring has sprung. After a long and painful winter, the warm weather is such a blessing, and the change happened so suddenly that we were caught off guard. The beginning of the week, we were still in winter doldrums and by mid week, it was easy to forget the stormy winter and look forward. The advent of spring has … [Read more...]
Give Others the Opportunity to Help You
I was in Rhode Island last Friday giving a workshop on Promoting Your Brand to Rhode Island Networking to Open Doors to Jobs. I arrived early and was, therefore, able to sit in on the facilitated networking exercise at one table. All of the people at the table were highly qualified and competent individuals who held director or executive level positions before being laid … [Read more...]
Honoring Women Presidents
It’s President’s Week this week. Besides school vacation, it is also a time to honor Abraham Lincoln and George Washington; two past presidents who were a major part of our history in the United States. The holiday this week prompted me to think as well about honoring all the women presidents who have started and are now running their own companies in the United States. … [Read more...]
Show Your Colleagues Some Love
Women have the reputation of being great nurturers. After all, we have always been the primary caregivers for our family and children. It's our history. It's in our DNA. Here's my question this week for professional women: Why doesn't that love and nurturing carry over more into the workplace? What happens to women in a work environment that holds them back from nurturing and … [Read more...]
How Do You Get Someone’s Attention?
I was in Orlando this past week with some colleagues training a medical device sales force on “purposeful communication”. “Purposeful Communication” is communication that has a goal or desired outcome and when applied to sales presentations, the objective is to create a sales presentation that is well organized around a desired outcome with your target audience. Selling to a … [Read more...]
Happiness in the Workplace
In this current recession, one would think that anyone who has a job at this point would be happy to be gainfully employed. Research tells us that this in not the case. In fact, in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, author Sue Shellenbarger speaks of a growing need and trend for “happiness coaching” in the workplace. Shellenbarger says, “Employee satisfaction has hit … [Read more...]
Are You in Career Quicksand?
Does this describe you? Desperately trying to keep your job or business from swallowing you up? Totally focused on completing all your daily tasks but never getting through your to do list? Working nights and weekends to catch up? Stressed? Exhausted? Do you find the more you struggle to keep on top of things, the more you sink into the abyss? I call this career … [Read more...]
You’ll Never Know Until You Ask
Is No really NO or is it an opportunity? Women are much more likely than men to take a “no” as a personal rejection and final answer. In fact, the fear of rejection will often keep us from asking for things we rightly deserve. Let’s look at the situation of a salary negotiation or performance review. Perhaps we were expecting a large raise and only received a small one. … [Read more...]