The Unburdened Leader

When you experience something that elicits an emotional response at work, you respond according to the extent of the emotional burdens you carry. Our burdens come from our past traumas combined with the real-time heart-wrenching news–on repeat–we are moving through right now in our country.  And our places of work can also be ground zero for some really painful experiences or where we relive diffi...

When we spend most of our time trying to prove our worth, our proving shifts to looking for safety and validation from external sources and delegates our worth to others. When we engage in this kind of proving, we end up in what I call the “not enough” loop. The not enough loop is rooted in the belief that if you can change or fix yourself based on these external metrics–the standard of enough–you...

It feels like we are in a collective hangover right now as we unlearn toxic ways of viewing difficult emotions, life experiences, and just being human. And the commitment to understand those unpleasant feelings or aspects of ourselves isn’t any less daunting. It’s hard work to discover why we can’t set and maintain boundaries or deepen the courage to speak up when the stakes are high. But our capa...

When being right is more important to you than being in relationship, difference and questioning become something to fear. And fear shuts down connection and curiosity. Unattended grief and rage are fertile ground for fear to have a party with our capacity to stay curious and welcome the discomfort of doubt and questions.  And trust cannot exist without the ability to share and question the norms...

If you don't take time to grieve, your body will make the time for you.  Grief is an emotion that does not respond to intellectual strategies or hacks. It has a job to do and it will take you out if you do not listen to it.  And there are not many spaces that encourage you to take the time to tend to the fullness of your grief.  Work deadlines are still looming. Bills still need to be paid. Family...

Our bodies are often the wisest parts of who we are, but we regularly over-ride the messages they send us when they tell us when we’re at capacity.  We push through, over-work, see physical and emotional pain as something to overcome instead of important data to take into account about our needs and how we are living.  And even if we do take in these messages clearly and see the need for needed sh...

When you are not clear on what truly matters most to you, how you decide to use your precious time can leave you feeling overwhelmed and lost.  And even your sense of time and what you can get done gets skewed by the tyranny of the urgent. Or comparison to how others are doing life and work.  Striving and grinding is still the norm in so many spaces. The message is still suck it up, chin up, get i...

The desire to be seen, loved, and belong drives so many of our decisions.  Especially when it comes to connecting in community. Community plays a powerful role in our wellbeing and culture. But what happens when the communities we are in make us sicker?  Part of the antidote to toxic communities is finding spaces that support bumping up against our fear of being misunderstood, our fear of not bein...

You carry life's burdens with you every day. Some days, they might feel heavy enough to break you. But they also have the power to inspire you. Your burdens are those difficult life experiences you’ve had. Our past pains can be the source of many of our recurring struggles. And they can also motivate us to do good in the world. Coming to terms with our burdens–how they inspire us and how they cont...

We can get so caught up in how we are seen that we miss opportunities to course correct and expand our views on the world around us.  And admitting you made a mistake or that you changed your mind can feel like jumping into shark infested waters.  The process of expanding our views and self-correction involves connecting meaningfully with other’s experiences and needs so we can see the world outsi...

When you choose to step into conversations about racism you risk giving up your comfort and the illusion of control on how you are seen. In essence, when you choose to speak up against injustice you are inviting discomfort. And inviting discomfort is an affront to all the ways you protect yourself from harm.  Yet when you befriend your discomfort instead of letting it shut you down, you can naviga...

If you do not know who you are, the world will tell you who you are.  And If you lead from a place of who you think you should be instead of who you truly are, it will take a toll on you and those around you.  There is immense effort put into editing instead of owning your multiplicities, leaving you exhausted and confused.  You also give up your power and give up what is most sacred in you when y...

We all carry the burden of feeling not enough. All of us. Once we lose connection to our worthiness and sense of enough, the striving for approval and belonging kicks in, and we long to find the reassurance that we are enough as we are, often in all the wrong places. The experience of feeling different or othered is seared in our memories and held in our bodies and a protective cluster of beliefs...

Right now, so many of us are connected through the shared emotional reactions to tragic events we have witnessed and continue to experience. Like all traumas, vicarious and collective trauma cause a breach in connection or a betrayal of trust in Self and/or others. And with disconnection comes the risk of a break in a healthy community. We continue to witness fanatical devotion to a product, a per...

Collective traumas and the weight of collective grief is real and rampant. There have been so many moments in just the last two years that we have all watched together that activate vicarious trauma and collective grief. The horrific milestones of COVID and COVID-related deaths, hate speech, successful attacks on our democracy, relationship ending debates about masks and vaccines, attacks on prote...

Rushing into the future can mean missing important data. Data, in this case, doesn’t mean points on a graph but really looking in the face of your experiences of the year. The good, the bad, the really hard, and the really exciting ones. This process helps us see patterns over the course of the year so we can see our growth and evaluate what we want to leave behind and what we want to bring with u...

If you are a leader who embodies activism, you are moved by personal convictions that see beyond yourself and the bottom line. You boldly desire to make intentional change that will impact another person, your family, where you work, our planet. When activism is seen as a negative word, it supports the status quo. Making activism negative plays upon your fears being misunderstood or being seen as...

What motivates your dreams is just as important as the dream itself. Maybe even more important. These dreams for your future inform your daily decisions and where you focus your time, energy, and resources, and they impact how you lead yourself and others. They fuel the drive that motivates you to get up each day as you do the important–and sometimes tedious–practices that build the future you wan...

What drives you can make you or break you. We often look to our values, commitments, and operations as a map to how we do life and work. But there are things that get in the way of honoring our commitments to ourselves and those we serve - no matter what we have professed as our values and mission. The messages that tell us we are not enough. We have to do more or get more. We have to over-deliver...

Leading with questions instead of leading with answers is a powerful practice. Sure, in times of crisis, steady, knowing leadership is calming and often necessary. But the pressure to have all the answers all the time limits creativity and possibility. Having the capacity to ask questions instead of offering all the answers is what brings out the best in you and those around you. When you move fro...

If you want to lead yourself well, you have to know yourself well. The tricky thing is, it can be surprisingly hard to really know yourself. We live in a world where we are told by others–on repeat–who we should be and who we are. We have gotten so good at being who we think we are supposed to be that we end up believing there is something intrinsically wrong with who we uniquely are. Especially w...

When you are not honest with yourself, you end up living a disconnected life. You may feel connected to your life when you get the dopamine hits of likes and follows or public affirmations from colleagues. Though, let’s be honest, these external validations are never satisfying for long. If you live a life where your worthiness and safety are woven into the opinions of others, it makes sense why s...

We are seeing conflict move so quickly to chaos these days. Anger, entitlement and self-preservation can kick into overdrive when you feel devalued. We forget about relationships and fight to be right, no matter the cost. Civility is pushed aside more and more as we navigate our differences. The wounds of relational trauma, betrayal, neglect, poverty, racism are playing out in so many spaces of pu...

We all grew up being told who was the creative one, who was the smart one, and who was the sporty one. There was no space for anyone to hold a multiplicity of skills and interests.   Of course, none of us hold just one identity, skill or interest.   So an identity crisis–or multiple identity crises–are inevitable.   But an identity crisis can be a powerful turning point in your life and work.   On...

Leadership and discomfort are inextricably connected.   So much personal and professional development teaches us to figure out the problem and quickly move on.   But true resilience and growth require more than just the decision to “let it go.”   Leading well requires tolerating the discomfort of being seen, not just at your filtered best, but really being seen in your strengths and also when you...