Legendary Leaders: For Female Business Leaders

I was reading a Harvard Business Review article the other day, and as you know, I refer to them off and on in these episodes.  I love HBR because it helps me see different perspectives and look at concepts I hadn't considered before.  The other day I read an article by Philip White about why your memory matters in leadership. I enjoy reading articles on memory.  You see, when I was...

We have talked in the past about the not-so-great routines we started getting into as part of working remotely.  I honestly thought those routines would change.  But it seems what we intended to change, is still hanging around.  Are bad habits holding you back? You know what I am talking about.  Now that you don't have an hour commute and you're not dropping kids off at school,...

I was listening to Business Made Simple by Donald Miller the other day and he was talking about what customers want.  He said that customers want empathy and authority.  If you can give them both of those things, you will connect with your customer and generate a sale. Empathy is being able to say, "I understand your pain."  For me, that is easy to do in Legend.  Helping female...

I don't know about you, but I enjoy solving problems.  I consider it one of my gifts; to be able to see through the problems, issues, and data and find the root cause of an issue.  Because of that, I have people constantly asking me how I solve problems.  My answer is simple, to solve a problem start at the end. You see, you have to know where you want to be, what "good looks like"...

If we are in business we are in one of two camps, either wanting to be promoted or we are looking for talent to promote.  Sometimes, like in my past corporate life, I was in both!  But what are some characteristics of someone ready and worthy of promotion?  While there are several characteristics, this episode focuses on the 2 key traits of a promotable leader. The first trait is so...

In this episode, I'm challenging you to boss up.  Boss up and silence your villain.  We all have our own villains inside of us that whisper in our ears and make us feel so unworthy like we will never achieve our goals.  It's time to shut her down.   When we start to let our villain whisper about one decision we are struggling with or one situation we can't solve, she then start...

No matter what the changes have been to the business world, you still need short-term resolutions.   Lately, I have heard a lot of people talking about their long-term plans for business improvement.  I love it. Fixing businesses is what I teach and enjoy talking about so let me hear it.  I'm all ears.  But what I have been hearing lately just seems a bit odd to me so I wanted...

I don't know about you, but I know people and have done business with people that like to have calls just to have calls. Do you know what I am talking about?  A call to talk about having a call? Or what I define as: phone calls for calls-sake.  How do you take yourself out of these time-wasters? The first action is to define what deserves a phone call.  As the leader, you have the p...

Do you know your business?  Did you know you need to know your business in order to live your best life?  It's true.  In order to live the Legendary Life you deserve, you have to know the ins and outs of your business. I have seen business leaders go from knowing every single aspect of their business to being out of touch in a matter of months.  For some, it's a cycle.  Th...

We all get frustrated in our business from time to time. I mean, we are human after all and business isn't always easy.  Today I'm going to share a personal frustration I have felt off and on throughout my career that you may be facing right now as well.  And I'm going to empower you to fix it.  Today I'm empowering you to stop wasting time on someone else's work or their drama. &nb...

As leaders, we walk the tightrope of leadership.  If we fall on one side of the rope, we take away decisions our direct reports should be made.  If we fall on the other side, we allow our team to make potentially risky decisions that negatively impact the business.  The way you stay on the rope is by demanding ownership of a decision.  When you have a direct report who is tryin...

What are you waiting for, take time off anyway!  I finally had to get to this place in my mind this week, more specifically, today.   I opened my email box and I had an email from HBR (Harvard Business Review) and the first article was about how to ask for time off during this time with remote work, etc.  It was perfect timing because in our house lately, we have both been saying "I...

Have you ever been to the doctor's office, and the first time you go in they actually can't help you with anything? It's like the obligatory "office visit" before they can do a scan or an ultrasound or whatever you actually need.  Are you doing that to your clients too?  We have to move away from being like that in today's business world; we have to add value in the first client interact...

If you are like me, you wake up each morning and you do your morning routine.  Part of that is reading your vision statement.  After all, that's what all of the great leaders tell us to do, right?  Reading the vision statement is a way to quiet the inner villain and keep us focused.  It works.   It's what I call keeping my eyes on the prize.  It's me focusing on...

No doubt you are working through a plan for allowing your team to return to the office.   The challenge you are facing is to create return-to-office policies that support everyone.   You are probably in one of two camps right now.  Either your business is a business that is customer-facing.  You have an office where you provide services directly to the customer and therefo...

This is the fourth and final episode in a series dedicated to employee retention.  Today we are focusing on the idea of ownership.  If you can empower your employees to feel and act like owners, they will stay with you. Before I jump into ownership, I wanted to throw out a little something from yesterday.  Yesterday we talked about appreciation.  One of the pieces I forgot to m...

In this third episode in a series of four focusing on the key pillars of employee retention, we are talking about appreciation.   How do you make your employees feel appreciated such that there is no reason for them to have a wandering eye towards a competitor? Throughout this entire series, we have been talking about loyalty and how it is at the center of employee retention.  If yo...

In this second episode in a series of four discussing how to successfully retain your top talented employees, we are focusing on empowerment.  Empowering your employees to actually do their job is one of the keys to creating loyalty within your team. Have you ever been in a position where you were hired for a job, paid to do a job, but then no one actually allowed you to do it?   Ma...

In this 4 part series on employee retention, this first episode should not come as a surprise.  We are focusing on building and maintaining trust. But first, some people may naturally be thinking, why do I care about retention?  People will work for me or my company if they want to, there is nothing I can do to change that one way or the other.  (I know you aren't thinking that, but...

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and she was talking about "accidental leadership."  Let me tell you, I was totally confused. What in the world is accidental leadership?  To me, leadership isn't accidental. Through the discussion, I learned that she was referring to someone who was placed into a role where they were managing people or a team, a position they hadn't...

Today is June 6th so you know what that means, it's time to assess your May performance.  More specifically, let's talk about assessing monthly results, customer feedback, and stealing seamlessly.  I want you to do a full deep-dive assessment for the month of May because May is the first month we have been trying to recover from COVID and the business closures, social distancing measures...

We all have weaknesses.  As women, we can tell you our weaknesses faster than we can tell you our strengths.  But I recently watched a leader on multiple calls with clients continue to downplay herself over and over and over again.   It was painful.  Don't downplay your ability or authority. While it's true, we all have weaknesses, no one wants to hear about them all of the tim...

Did you know that leaders set the tone in a business or on a team?  I know, it sounds like common sense right?  But you would be surprised at how many people know this and yet still don't set the tone.   I have seen many leaders in my career make this detrimental mistake.  They say they own the tone, but then they miss something in their business or set the wrong focus point, a...

There are lots of questions coming in around the episode I did recently regarding underperformance.  One such question I received was: can I not just let the person who isn't performing leave at their own pace?  Can I just let them set the tone for that?  My answer to that is a strong no.  You set the pace when removing underperformers.   If you allow the person to set the...

In a recent episode we addressed underperformance, but what about addressing top performers?  It was a great question that was posed to me recently and I am happy to share some thoughts on it. You see, the way that large companies, or companies that are striving to be large, tackle this is frustrating to me.  It's actually one of my pet peeves.  What am I talking about? I'm talking...