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I have an insatiable curiosity about what’s going on in the world of coaching, business, and leadership, so I stay up to date on all the latest thinking. Read my blog and follow me on twitter and you can, too.
The “Bring Your Whole Self to Work” Lie
I’ve been sitting with something Susan David shared in her newsletter late last year. It just won’t leave me alone. She distinguished between cultures of “human doing” versus “human being,” noting that when we evaluate people solely on output, we abandon a human-first approach. Her punch line got me: “The best workplaces don’t just measure what you do, they recognize who you are.”
Excellence is a Trap
I just re-read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, and I’m cornering anyone who’ll listen. I’ve come back to it and loved it as much as the first time. This book explains something I see with my clients all the time: brilliant leaders who are weirdly allergic to their own success.
Why Your Team Member Drives You Crazy
In my last blog, I wrote about how becoming aware of anxiety (making it “object” instead of being “subject” to it) can change your leadership game. We talked about the invisible lenses we wear that shape everything we see without us even noticing. This time, I want to talk about why understanding ‘forms of mind’ might save your sanity when dealing with your team.
The Invisible Forces Running Your Leadership
You know that feeling when you’re leading through a high-stakes moment, like a big presentation, a difficult conversation, a critical decision, and there’s this whole internal drama happening that nobody else can see? Your chest is tight, your inner critic is running commentary, and you’re working twice as hard to look calm on the outside as you are to actually do the work itself?
Slow Down
How many Christmases do we actually get? It’s a number I think about sometimes, though I can never quite bring myself to calculate it exactly. If you’re lucky, maybe 70 or 80. But the ones that really matter – the ones with your kids still believing in magic, or your parents still healthy enough to host dinner, or your family (blood or chosen) all gathered in one place – those number far fewer than we’d like to admit.
The Authenticity Trap
I’ve been wrestling with a slightly uncomfortable idea lately. After coaching leaders to “show up authentically” and “bring your whole self to work” (words I’ve probably uttered many times), I recently encountered research that challenges this well-worn mantra in ways I couldn’t ignore. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic’s work on authenticity has forced me to reconsider what I thought I knew about effective leadership.
