Unlocking Leadership Through Authentic Communication

If you’re communicating, you’re giving and receiving feedback. You can’t avoid it. It doesn’t matter if you’re emailing, talking on the phone, or standing in front of someone, messages are being sent and received constantly. But how do you avoid giving crappy feedback and what’s the formula for good feedback? Listen in as I share tips on how to give feedback so we’re not out there crushing souls....

I recently had a conversation with a leader who was spiraling. They were worried about what the future held for them based on a situation that didn’t have a clear answer. I’m going to share with you what I told this leader and what I often say just in different words, to people I care about so they know I’m on their side. You don’t want to miss this. These big words carry big responsibilities and...

I share with you one of the meanest (unintentionally of course) things a leader can do to their team members. It’s all about feedback or lack there of. In this episode I give you examples of what happens when we don’t give the feedback that we should. Then, I help you shift your mindset to give feedback in a way that breeds trust and sets the employee up for success.

Leadership is only as hard as you make it. In this episode, I’m going to help you shift your mindset so you can identify how some of your most “challenging” employees operate, what they’re really communicating when they behave how they do and how you can work with them to leverage their talent, educate them, and organically create the type of team that accomplishes goals and works seamlessly.

Stop trying to force yourself into positions, teams and organizations who are too small for you. What do I mean by that? Well I can right away when I’m working with a team whether or not they are operating under antiquated principals that don’t serve them, on pace with the world or looking forward to what’s next. I can also tell whether I’m going to have to drag a team along, be able to collaborat...

This episode is the reason I started this podcast. It’s all about communication being genuine. And the genuine communication, coupled with the interest in the person being successful helps with collaboration. And guess what? Collaboration under these circumstances truly solves problems AND develops strong relationships between you and your team members. Check this episode out and make having conve...

How do high performing teams spend less time on emotions and more time on performing? I believe it has to do with the leader clearly communicating what the team can expect from their leader and what the leader in turn expects from their team. The leader’s job is to model what they commit to and hold the team accountable for reciprocating. This shifts the team from being emotional to taking action...

It’s not rocket science. You need to do the thing to get the results. Nothing else will get you the results. In this episode, I give you three practical recommendations you can start using today to gain credibility and get results. And the best part? They’re not even hard.

Don’t let employees waste your time by asking you to have their conversations for them. In this episode, I’m empowering you as a leader to push back and have your employees resolve their own issues instead of putting you in the middle of them. After all, they have the grown-up title, the grown-up pay and the grown-up responsibilities. Now they get to use their grown-up words to maintain their own...

You can still say “no” to an employee and walk away with your relationship intact. But in order for this to happen, you, as a leader, must come to the table prepared to talk…not defend…but truly talk and problem solve. I’m going to show you how to overcome two of the biggest objections leaders give when it comes to approving requests. Make these simple adjustments and whether you can help your emp...

One of the worst situations a leader can be in is having to choose between losing an employee if they aren’t promoted or promoting an underprepared employee into a role they’ll likely fail in. Here, I go over why I NEVER recommend promoting people before they’re ready. I give you the steps and solid verbiage for how you can convey to the employee that they won’t be offered the job and I also tell...

When I ask leaders if they have considered conducting “stay interviews” to help them understand how they can retain their top performers, many times I hear that they already do this. But what the leader describes to me is far from a stay interview. Let me help you with three keys to a successful stay interview. I’ll give you the best questions to ask during your first interview…there are only 3…an...

I often hear from leaders that they’re worried about getting sued when it comes to addressing concerns with employees. Oftentimes, these worries aren’t things that will really come true. However, here, I talk about situations leaders unknowingly get themselves into that could put them at more risk than anything they came to me about in the first place. In this episode, I help you so you aren’t wri...

What is the threshold for making a performance conversation more formal? How many times do I need to address a performance issue before moving the discussion to the next disciplinary level? Well I hate to say this but the answer is…it depends. In this episode, I talk you through the rationale I use when making recommendations to leaders in terms of performance documentation and when to address at...

In this episode, I’m going to help shift your thinking from a progressive performance document system to a system that meets the development needs of the employee. We’ll review the documentation levels and what we might use each level for. I’ll give you a high-level intro to a system that focuses on the process and not the person. And we’ll wrap up with how to double check your document level to m...

When you write a performance document, your first goal should be to write it so it’s a tool for the employee to leverage to improve. Anything outside of that should be for legal or your own record keeping purposes…but really, even legal or record keeping purposes serve for almost none of the document. This episode is all about what you should leave off the document and why to ensure your focus sta...

Let’s find out if your document drafting skills are as strong as you think they are. Here, I share the mindset I recommend leaders use when drafting the document and the steps that have served me well in creating something meaningful to give to an employee. I give you a few tips to help keep you out of hot water legally and otherwise. And of course I’m going to give you some recommendations on how...

It’s been one year since I launched my podcast and today, I’m talking about one of my favorite topics…how to work with people who are argumentative and confrontational. I know, I know…I hear this all the time. Why are these your favorite people to work with? Well, I love working with unpleasant people because I know how to develop rapport with them and turn our relationship into something truly co...

Using witnesses to help you feel more comfortable during a performance conversation may cost you elsewhere. In this episode, I talk about why I’m not a big fan of constantly using a witness when you have performance conversations, how to protect your credibility against liars and when I do recommend witnesses or extra participants.

If you are an empath and struggle when an employee is having performance concerns, you need to listen to this episode. We’re going to shape your mindset when it comes to emotions, performance and partnering with employees. Then we’ll address problem solving as a team and how this shapes your relationship with the employee. And finally, we’ll discuss training, touch points and your follow up on end...

This month, I’m sharing feedback from leaders who shared what makes them the most anxious about giving performance feedback, what happens to them physically, what happens to them mentally and how they work past their body’s responses to the anxiety they’re feeling. In this episode, we cover feeling like you aren’t being taken seriously, not letting emotions come into play, making lists (the do’s a...

I’m going to debunk the biggest lie you were ever told as a leader. Then I’m going to help you shift your mindset by doing some practical things to actually help you feel more comfortable having high stakes conversations with your colleagues. By leveraging these recommendations and reflecting on your mindset, reactions and feelings, you will become more comfortable having conversations with just a...

It’s easy to draft the perfect performance document, slide it across the table to the employee and check the box that you’ve taken care of addressing the issue. Unfortunately, no one remembers what’s on the performance document. They do, however, remember how they felt. Here, I break down the three main reasons performance documents should be used, how to address conduct in a way that isn’t demora...

Poor behavior can be one of the hardest things to address. Many times, it’s not blatant and as a leader, you might not see it. Here we discuss how to address behavior to ensure everyone is creating the culture you envision for your team and how to address behavior that you don’t witness but is reported to you.

No one likes to be told they aren’t meeting performance expectations. But what if you took your titles and set them to the side and focused on what is actually going on. I guarantee you it’s not whether someone is meeting expectations. That’s the result. Instead of focusing on the outcome, look at what happened to get to that outcome and work out from there. You don’t need fancy titles and if you...