The CEO Sage (Formerly Leadership is Feminine)

In sports, the person who shows up, puts in the hard work, and listens to the coach gets the spot. Just being on the team isn't enough. You don't perform, you're benched. Slack off enough, you're gone. We not only accept this in athletics, we expect it. Why? Because it's both logical and effective. So why don't we treat our businesses the same way? I submit that we ought to. After all, this is why...

Sometimes you just need defined steps to tap into necessary certainty. That's why I put together a masterclass in which I give you 10 steps to lead with confidence. These steps are specifically designed by women, for women. In this episode, I share this never-before-released masterclass. In it, I walk you through 10 things to consider and address to propel you into a new level of assurance that yo...

Victim thinking needs to be detoxed from our lives. There are so many negatives that invade when we permit victim thinking, as well as victim thinkers. But we don't have to allow either one. We may still have things that happen, and we may not be able to completely eliminate all victim thinkers from our sphere of influence, but we can mitigate the potential damage. The key is choosing to embrace o...

Tailored help for your business and the unique circumstances you face is invaluable. While many issues are universal, your position alters your challenges. For example, someone running a 6-figure business, has different challenges than someone running a 7 or 8-figure business or someone who is senior leadership in an organization. To discuss all this, I brought on Michelle Arant, EdD for this epis...

Executive leadership  is  a visionary role. You're inspired to lead at a higher level, increase and improve team productivity and efficiency to meet and exceed goals, and to grow yourself in your ability and skills in leading. Therefore, it's important for you to see–and treat–yourself as a visionary, an entrepreneurial leader, regardless of who owns the company for which you work. As I've worked...

Team member mental health is an important, sensitive and timely topic. But it can be difficult to navigate as a leader because it is also a very heavy and extremely personal topic. In general, mental health issues intensified due to COVID and all the things that came along with that. From it, one positive did emerge, which is that there is now much less stigma associated with needing mental health...

Whether you liked, disliked or are indifferent toward The Barbie Movie, I thought after viewing it that there were some positive lessons in the movie and some points I felt more doubt about. Overall, the movie's premise is that, in Barbie Land, the women have accomplished countless advancements for womankind. They believe that because they've done so much there, it's that way everywhere. But Barbi...

In most cultures, there has been a prevalent teaching–whether direct or indirect–that women should always be nice. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should be mean or rude, but I am saying that, as female leaders, we need to stop being so nice. Immediately. Why am I advocating for such a seemingly controversial shift in how women lead? Because we need to be expecting, and directly express...

There has been a death of the art of mentorship. We moved from the emphasis of knowing how to do things into the emphasis of education and holding a degree. The issue with this is few people know how to be anything other than managed. And even fewer people have been mentored and know how to mentor. We're facing a massive deficit in people who know how to develop themselves and others. Because this...

Hiring is a delicate process and I don't really think there is just one right way to do it. What worked for one person may not work for you. After all, people are all different. But there are some common mistakes I've seen clients make–and I've made a few myself–that I'd like to help you avoid. So I feel it's worth a conversation on how to at least avoid the top five hiring mistakes entrepreneurs...

Self-honesty and the ability to express that honestly is a game changer in life. Yet we avoid telling some truths, both to ourselves and others. Why is that? Is it because we downplay how critical it is? Is it because we aren't sure how to express ourselves without seeming rude or cruel? Is it because we are–at the heart of it–afraid? In this episode, I touch on why we don't have honest conversati...

It's finally live! After a very long time of contemplation, evaluation and hard work,  LEAD FOR WOMEN  is ready. As I've moved through this extremely intense season of change and confusion, I have embraced that success in life is not about having the perfect "how to". It's about embracing feminine leadership, making it your own. When we look at the world, they want you to just buy tactics. But I w...

When it comes to releasing and detoxing, money can be a huge issue. Some people have a great relationship with their finances, others a horrible one, and I would say the majority of us fall somewhere in the middle. For myself, I discovered I had unknowingly harbored a lot of toxicity about finances. When I would think about my connotations regarding money, my thoughts and feelings appeared pretty...

Editing and evaluating your life is super powerful. It reinforces a firm foundation when you take time out to evaluate where you've been and then decide if that is where you truly want to be and the pursuit you wish to continue. After all, what good is it to continue to build on top of something that isn't what you really want and/or isn't serving you well? To this end, years ago I began doing the...

Why do we feel shame and guilt when we succeed? Where does that come from and why does it hang on, despite the fact that women are punching through old norms? First, it's important to note that success is defined by a variety of factors. What one person views as success, another may view as not as important. It might be a particular amount in your bank account, the number of your clients, the size...

We all have a subconscious or invisible internal compass. Like a physical compass, it naturally shows us where we currently are in space and time, and gives us clarity in the direction we should go next. But unlike a physical compass, it can be much more difficult to read. Pondering this concept, I wanted to talk about how we all operate with our invisible compass but aren't always aware of it. Kn...

What about rest? True rest? What would that look like? Most of us are not very good at facilitating and executing true rest. We are, on the other hand, very good at having so much to do that we block our ability to rest. You know what I mean… having too many of those things that suck our time and leave us exhausted and overwhelmed. So I'm calling this a summer of rest. The summer we detoxed from s...

We may not–yet–be able to address all the reasons there are not more women at the top of organizations, but we can address areas in which we have more control. We do have authority and agency over certain aspects of this current reality. So while we work toward systemic change, let's also work on the daily decisions we make and with whom we choose to surround ourselves. As we examine this together...

You need a crew, strong woman, a team. As women, we are conditioned to be the caregivers, the ones helping everyone else. Unfortunately, this can lead to extremes, such as being unable to allow ourselves to get connected to a team and becoming demanding or having a team but struggling to really allow them to help us and unintentionally compromising. Regardless of where you are on this spectrum, it...

YOU are the prize and you do not chase. But, if this is true–and it is–why do we not live in this reality? Why do we find ourselves chasing, rather than living as the prize?  As a woman who believes deeply in the value of women (not to say I don't value men), I desire for you to see yourself as you truly are. Someone of worth. Someone with a beautiful gift to give. Someone worth being supported, l...

There is a decision that has the power to separate you from where you are to where you want to be. But if you don't even know what it is, if you're stuck in the spin of crisis, how can you make that decision? As I've worked with my clients, I've found that in dealing with a crisis, there is typically just one decision that is preventing all other decisions from happening. Literally it is one decis...

As we go along in our journey, especially as visionaries, we grow, we change, our thinking evolves. It can be liberating and scary and wonderful and nerve-racking, all at the same time. But it is inevitable. We don't stay the same, and I would say this is good, as we shouldn't stay the same in many regards. In this episode, I talk about the visionary's journey. About my journey. I share my thought...

Visionaries are more than simply dreamers. Visionaries focus not only on what might be but how to make it into reality. They hold a deep belief that what they dream can–and will–happen. To me, this is a sense like smelling or hearing. But what happens if this asset you've always relied upon suddenly isn't there? Every visionary has times when she cannot see. And it's disorienting. It's stifling. I...

There is a myth that authority and leadership looks and sounds a certain way. Traditionally, this has been the expected look and voice pattern of a white, well-educated male. And, as a society, we've insidiously allowed that strangely ingrained falsehood to remain and grow deep roots. But it's completely false. Leadership does not have a specific look nor sound. Rather, it has characteristics. Fir...

As visionaries, it is vital we create and embrace the flexibility to be able to pivot within our businesses and our focuses. Even if and when things are going extremely well, there is always development we continue to need as women, both individually and as an overall group, plus as CEOs. Unfortunately, the fear of making changes–especially big ones–is where many leaders end up stuck. The Kris Pla...