When you are new at leadership, it can be challenging to navigate leading teams today. As a freshly promoted leader, you ask yourself, "How close is too close?" It’s Friday afternoon. The countdown has started. There’s less than an hour until closing time. A few of your colleagues have mentioned going out after work. Wearing masks and socially distanced — of course — and you … [Read more...]
5 Things I Learned from Being a Female CEO
Running a company isn’t easy, and being constantly underestimated as a female in the workplace is frustrating at times. Leading my company and ensuring that my voice is heard loud and clear in the workplace is difficult yet rewarding at the same time, and in my time as CEO, I have learned so many skills that have aided me not only professionally but socially as well. 1. Carry … [Read more...]
How to Manage Courageous Conversations at Work – Top 10 Tips
Feedback from my first article, How to Become a Better Leader for your Team, directed me to one topic briefly mentioned in the piece – how do we effectively deliver difficult feedback and manage ‘courageous conversations’. Whether you're running your own business or you're responsible for a team in a bigger corporation, at some point, you inevitably have to manage these … [Read more...]
How to Become a Better Leader for Your Team
It's no secret that one of the most difficult parts of being a manager, at any level, is the ability to effectively lead your team(s). Ironically, it's also an area that companies often neglect, with research from Grovo suggesting as many as 98% of leaders feel they would benefit from more training in this area. Whether you've been managing people for a long time or you're … [Read more...]
Is Your Business Summer Ready?
We all know that summer can bring an abundance of things - fun, great weather, bad weather (hurricanes), family functions, and vacation. However, for business owners, summer can mean scheduling woes, pushed deadlines and/or projects, and juggling family and focus. After working as an entrepreneur over the past several years, these are tips I use to get my business and myself … [Read more...]
4 Reasons Why You Should Be Thinking About Employee Engagement
Gallup’s surveys indicate that high levels of employee engagement can help organizations lower their attrition from 25-65% - that’s how valuable engagement truly is! Although engagement was originally associated with another corporate buzzword – productivity – we now know that it goes much deeper than that. Highly productive employees can report a lack of engagement and … [Read more...]
Small Business Tips to Survive and Thrive Through COVID-19
The start of 2020, the threats of COVID-19, and the impending economic recession are reminding this female, serial entrepreneur of a similarly challenging season. Back in 2006, I took the biggest risk of my life: I quit my well-paying corporate gig to start my own fabulous lingerie store in Hawaii. You know some ladies just don’t feel put together without pretty panties, and I … [Read more...]
8 Qualities Leaders Need to Get Their Teams Through Tough Times
It’s easy to be a leader when things are going well. In fact, it can be downright awesome. But what about when times are tough? With the current state of the world, the global threat of Coronavirus and the uncertainty of the economy, it's important that those who lead, lead in a way that will keep people on track and help them stay as positive and productive as is … [Read more...]
Media Bias: A Leadership Barrier For Women
In this day and age, we absorb media constantly, and the messages it gives us skew our worldview and perceptions of important topics. As I've gotten older and more observant of media messages, I've noticed distinct trends in how the media talks about leaders. I believe the media we consume has a direct impact on how we're viewing our leaders and their leadership styles … [Read more...]
5 Steps to Take Before a Difficult Conversation
Difficult conversations — those interactions that keep us up at night— are a common challenge for many managers. Most of us would love to learn how to approach tough interactions without getting stressed out, losing sleep, or endlessly rehearsing what-ifs. Fortunately, this is achievable for almost anyone; getting there just takes a little effort and practice. And it starts … [Read more...]