There is a particular kind of exhaustion that leaders are carrying right now.
It's not necessarily burnout in the traditional sense. It's something more layered than that. It's the mental and emotional weight of trying to lead change while simultaneously living inside of it.
In coaching conversations, leadership offsites, and keynote discussions across industries, I'm hearing a similar theme emerge. Leaders are making decisions without complete clarity, managing today's realities while trying to anticipate tomorrow's challenges, and supporting teams through uncertainty while quietly navigating their own questions and concerns. I see it everywhere.
Recently, I spoke at the Ultimate Medical Academy Leadership Conference about what it means to "learn at the speed of change." We discussed the pace of transformation happening across healthcare and healthcare education—technology shifts, workforce changes, AI, evolving expectations, and the emotional toll leaders carry while helping people adapt. But the more conversations I have with leaders, the more I realize this is not simply a healthcare story. It's happening everywhere.
Not long ago, one of my clients described feeling as though he was holding three leadership realities at the exact same time. He was trying to make the best decisions possible in the present while keeping his organization pointed toward the future. At the same time, he felt deeply responsible for implementation—making sure his teams could successfully execute, adapt, and move forward. As he talked, I could hear the weight behind his words. Not because he lacked capability, but because he cares deeply. He wants to get it right and he feels responsible not only for the quality of the decisions being made, but for whether the organization can actually carry those decisions forward successfully. Honestly, I think many leaders are quietly carrying this same pressure right now.
Leadership today often feels like trying to rebuild the airplane while flying it.
There was a time when organizations experienced change in waves. A new system rollout, a restructuring, a strategic shift—and then a period of stabilization before the next significant change arrived. That is no longer the world leaders are operating in.
Today, change feels constant. Technology evolves before teams have fully adapted to the previous version. AI is reshaping workflows in real time. Employee expectations continue to shift. Markets change rapidly. Leaders are being asked to move faster while simultaneously maintaining culture, engagement, trust, and performance.
Many leaders are trying to answer what feels like an impossible question:
How do I keep everyone moving forward when I don't fully know what the road ahead looks like either?
That question requires a very different kind of leadership than many of us were originally taught. Because the leaders who navigate change most effectively are not necessarily the ones with all the answers. They are the ones who are willing to learn, adapt, communicate, and build trust in real time.
One of the biggest traps leaders fall into during periods of transformation is believing they must personally hold everything together ... every answer, every decision, every implementation detail, every emotional burden. I understand that instinct deeply.
During my corporate career, especially in periods of significant transformation, I often felt responsible for carrying both the strategic direction and the emotional weight of the organization. Somewhere along the way, I had convinced myself that strong leadership meant holding it all. Over time, I learned that you cannot scale leadership if you do not trust your people.
At some point, leaders have to stop trying to control every moving part and start creating the conditions where teams can figure things out together. That doesn't mean stepping away from accountability. It means recognizing that sustainable leadership requires shared ownership.
The client I mentioned earlier is learning this in real time. His breakthrough isn't about having every implementation detail perfectly solved before moving forward. It's about trusting that his team has more capability than he sometimes gives them credit for. And frankly, that's uncomfortable for many high-performing leaders. Trusting people often feels riskier than over-functioning which creates bottlenecks, exhaustion, and dependency. Trust, on the other hand, creates growth.
One question I often encourage leaders to ask themselves during periods of change is:
Where am I over-functioning in a way that may unintentionally be limiting my team's growth?
That question alone can create powerful awareness.
At the conference, I shared an idea that continues to stay with me:
The future does not belong to leaders who can simply keep up with change. It belongs to leaders who can learn at the speed of it.
That kind of leadership is not about perfection. It is about mindset, staying open instead of shutting down when uncertainty rises, curiosity instead of defensiveness and resilience instead of rigidity. Most importantly, it is about understanding that change is not just operational—it is deeply human.
Every organizational change eventually becomes a human experience for the people being asked to execute it. People don't simply adapt to new processes or technologies; they experience uncertainty, loss, excitement, fear, resistance, and possibility. That is why leaders set the emotional tone during change. Teams pay attention to how leaders respond when things feel uncertain. They notice whether leaders create fear or clarity. Whether they communicate consistently or disappear into overwhelm. Whether they attempt to carry everything alone or intentionally create connection, trust, and shared ownership.
The leaders who build change-capable cultures are not eliminating uncertainty, they are helping people move through it together.
I don't believe leaders need more pressure to have all the answers. I think they need permission to lead differently-to ask better questions, involve their teams earlier, communicate more openly about uncertainty, let go of the illusion that leadership means always appearing fully certain.
Leadership today is not about standing above change, it’s about learning inside of it alongside your people. Perhaps the greatest leadership shift happening right now is moving from believing our job is to control change to recognizing that our job is to help people navigate it. That requires trust, adaptability, humility, and it requires leaders who are willing to continue learning themselves.
The pace of change isn't slowing down anytime soon. But maybe leadership today isn't about carrying more ... maybe it is about learning to trust, adapt, and navigate change together. Leaders were never meant to carry transformation alone.
What would shift for you as a leader if you trusted your team just a little bit more during change?
If your organization is navigating transformation and looking to build more resilient, change-capable leaders and teams, I'd love to partner with you through speaking, workshops, or leadership coaching focused on leading through uncertainty with greater clarity, connection, and intention.
Years ago, I was working closely with a large sales organization, and there was one business book that seemed to be circulating through every corner of the team.
The book was Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard, and the concept quickly became a favorite among the sales leaders I worked with.
The idea behind the book was simple: when you create an experience that truly stands out, you don’t just earn satisfied customers—you earn advocates. People who talk about you, recommend you, and share their experience with others without being asked.
Looking back, I’ve often thought of that concept as the precursor to something most organizations measure today: Net Promoter Score. That familiar question many companies now ask their customers:
How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?
But what always stood out to me about Raving Fans wasn’t the measurement itself. It was the mindset behind it. The goal wasn’t simply to satisfy customers—it was to create an experience so positive that people naturally talked about it.
You created raving fans.
I remember our sales team even turning the idea into a bit of a friendly contest. The idea stuck with them so much that some created playful posters hanging in their cubicles that looked like those old bulletin board flyers you might see in a laundromat—“Roommate Wanted” or “Guitar Lessons”—with the little tear-off phone number tabs along the bottom.
Their posters said something along the lines of Raving Fans Wanted.
It was clever and interestingly the memory resurfaced recently during a coaching conversation with a leader who was feeling frustrated in her career.
She had been passed over for promotion twice and was struggling to understand why. Her results were strong, her work was thoughtful and consistent, and she was respected by the people who worked closely with her. Yet she kept coming back to the same question:
Why wasn’t her work speaking for itself?
As we talked, it became clear that the challenge wasn’t capability or performance. It was visibility—and more specifically, how uncomfortable she felt with the idea of promoting herself. She felt awkward, almost self-serving, highlighting her accomplishments. She preferred to focus on doing great work and trusted that others would notice. At the same time, she was watching colleagues around her openly share their successes and make sure their contributions were visible ... sometimes appropriately and sometimes a little generously.
This is a tension I see often with leaders I coach, and especially with women. Many thoughtful, high-performing leaders believe that if they simply do excellent work, it will eventually be recognized. For many women, advocating for themselves can feel misaligned with how they want to lead, so reframing visibility through the lens of advocates and champions often feels far more authentic. But the reality inside most organizations is that many of the conversations that shape careers happen when you are not in the room.
In many ways, this is really a conversation about leadership visibility, how your reputation and contributions are understood and advocated for even when you’re not present.
Leadership teams regularly gather to discuss promotions, succession planning, and new opportunities. When those conversations happen, people inevitably begin talking about people, about who might be ready, who has demonstrated leadership potential, and who could step into the next opportunity.
In those moments, reputations travel through the room. And often, the most influential voice advocating for you in that conversation isn’t your own.
It’s someone else saying, “Let me tell you about her.”
That realization brought me back to the concept of Raving Fans, because the idea applies just as much to leadership as it does to customers.
Instead of asking, How do I promote myself?, a more helpful question might be:
Who are my raving fans?
Who are the people who will speak about your leadership when you are not in the room? Who has experienced your work closely enough to advocate for you? Who believes in your judgment, credibility, and the way you lead?
Those voices matter. In many cases, they carry far more influence than anything you could say about yourself. This doesn’t mean leaders should ignore visibility altogether. Part of leadership is helping others understand the impact of your work and the value you bring to the organization. But effective visibility isn’t about constant self-promotion, it's about building trust, relationships, and credibility so that others naturally talk about your leadership when the moment calls for it.
So how do you intentionally build the kind of reputation that creates these advocates?
In my experience working with leaders and teams, raving fans are rarely created through self-promotion. They are created through consistent leadership behaviors that others experience firsthand.
Deliver meaningful results that others experience.
Strong work matters, but it becomes far more powerful when people experience it directly. When colleagues or leaders work alongside you on important initiatives and see how you think, solve problems, and navigate challenges, they gain firsthand insight into your leadership.
Make your impact visible without making it about you.
One of the most effective ways to share your contributions is to frame them around outcomes and team success. When leaders communicate progress, lessons learned, and results achieved, they help others understand the value of their work without needing to center themselves in the story.
Build strong relationships across the organization.
Advocates rarely come from people who only know you through reports or occasional meetings. They come from people who have worked with you, collaborated with you, and seen how you show up in real situations.
Support and elevate others.
One of the most powerful ways to create advocates is by becoming one yourself. Leaders who notice great work, recognize others publicly, and speak positively about colleagues create a culture where advocacy becomes mutual.
Over time, these experiences build trust and credibility. They shape how others talk about your leadership when you’re not present and this is when the real power of reputation begins to show up.
There is another side to this idea that I believe is just as important.
If you’re in a leadership role today, you also have the opportunity to become someone else’s raving fan. When leaders speak up for others in the room, recognize their contributions, and advocate for their potential, they create moments that can shape careers. Some of the most meaningful moments in my own career came from leaders who did exactly that—leaders who believed in my capabilities and spoke up for me when opportunities were being discussed. Those moments matter more than we sometimes realize.
So here’s a question worth reflecting on.
If your name came up in a leadership conversation tomorrow, who would be your raving fans? Who would be the person in the room willing to say, “Let me tell you about her.” And perhaps just as importantly—whose raving fan are you becoming?
Because leadership impact doesn’t grow only through the work we do. It grows through the trust we build, the experiences we create for others, and the people who believe in the way we lead—enough to say our name when we’re not there.
If you’ve ever struggled with how to advocate for yourself without feeling like you’re self-promoting, you’re not alone. Many of the leaders I work with—especially women—are navigating how to make their impact visible in a way that still feels authentic.
Building credibility, cultivating advocates, and ensuring your work is recognized in the right rooms are leadership skills that can transform a career.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to connect.
There’s a unique energy that comes with stepping into a new leadership role—especially when it’s an elevated one. Excitement, pressure, big ideas, a fresh mandate, and the desire to make an early mark all collide at once. Most leaders describe this moment as a mix of adrenaline and responsibility: “This is my chance to make an impact.”
And it is.
But here’s what often gets lost in the noise of expectations, strategy refreshes, and early wins:
You’re not the only one transitioning—your team is too.
In fact, while you’re thinking about the big strategic shifts, your new executive peers, and the expectations of the CEO or board, your team is silently trying to answer a different set of questions:
What does this mean for us?
How do we work with you?
What do you expect?
And how do we succeed under your leadership?
This is where many new leaders unintentionally misstep. Not because they aren’t capable, prepared, or well-intentioned—but because their focus tilts upward and outward, rather than downward and inward. They invest heavily in the organizational transition, while under-investing in their team’s transition to them.
And that gap becomes costly.
Much has been written about the importance of a leader’s first few months on the job. Michael Watkins’ classic book, The First 90 Days remains a go-to resource for leaders everywhere—because it teaches you how to diagnose the organization, gain early wins, and build momentum quickly.
What’s important to remember … you cannot accelerate your impact if your team stays stuck at the starting line.
I’m working right now with a leader who was recently promoted to a C-level role. He has plenty to focus on—aligning with a new executive team, reshaping his strategy, and identifying the levers he can influence now that he’s sitting one seat higher.
Yet one of the most important questions he’s learning to ask is also the simplest:
“How is my team experiencing me in this transition?”
That awareness is the difference between a leader who simply steps into the role and one who truly lands in it.
That’s why I use a New Leader Assimilation process with newly elevated executives—a focused, insight-driven approach that gives leaders the clarity, expectations, and early alignment they need to lead effectively with their teams. It’s not heavy, and it’s not a long-term intervention. It’s a quick-hit, high-impact alignment that ensures the team moves forward together, not in parallel.
Like it or not, assumptions are the silent killers of a new leadership role.
When a leader doesn’t take time to understand how their team is experiencing the transition, here’s what usually happens:
And the worst part?
By the time misalignment becomes visible, it’s already impacting performance.
Early alignment is not about hand-holding. It’s about eliminating ambiguity before it becomes friction. It’s about equipping your team to move with you, not behind you. And it’s about avoiding the trap so many new leaders fall into …
Leading with horsepower instead of partnership.
If you’re stepping into a new leadership role — especially an elevated one — here are four intentional leadership moves to ensure you don’t leave your team behind as you surge forward.
You won’t get real insights by asking, “How’s everything going?”
You will get real insights by asking:
Whether gathered through a structured interview process or through your own conversations, these insights are gold. They tell you exactly where your early leadership will matter most.
Because your team will absolutely follow you—but they want to know you see them first.
You know what you expect from your team, but do you know what they expect from you?
One of the most important parts of assimilation work is surfacing mutual expectations early. People rarely say these things out loud, yet they shape everything: trust, accountability, communication, decision-making.
Think of it as closing the gaps before they become frustrations.
Great teams don’t happen by accident. Even small agreements—how you communicate, how you meet, how decisions get made, become the scaffolding for trust and performance.
This is where I lightly weave in principles from frameworks like The Five Behaviors®—trust, communication, clarity, accountability, and results—to create shared language and early norms.
It doesn’t need to be exhaustive. It just needs to be intentional.
If there’s one idea to carry with you from all of this, it’s that early impact is never created in isolation. While your role may have changed, your success is still deeply connected to the people who now look to you for clarity, direction, and leadership in this next chapter.
You were selected for this role because of your experience, your judgment, and your ability to think strategically. Those strengths matter. But what ultimately determines whether your first 100 days build momentum—or quietly create friction—is how well your team understands you, trusts you, and feels equipped to succeed alongside you.
This is why leading the work and leading the team must happen at the same time. When leaders focus exclusively on strategy, speed, and early wins, teams are left trying to catch up. But when leaders slow down just enough to create alignment, surface expectations, and establish clear ways of working, something powerful happens: the team moves forward with them, not behind them.
Your first 100 days aren’t about proving that you belong in the role. They’re about creating the conditions for others to do their best work under your leadership. And when you do that—when you bring your team with you intentionally—your impact doesn’t just grow.
It compounds.
If you’re navigating a leadership transition and want to set your team up for success early, let’s connect!
We’re in a moment unlike anything most leaders have ever experienced. Technology, especially AI, is moving faster than our structures, our policies, and honestly… our comfort zones.
Organizations are racing to capture the benefits of efficiency, insights, and productivity. CEOs are pushing for acceleration, eager to stay competitive. Teams are ready to experiment, innovate, and learn.
And then there’s the leader who unintentionally slows everything down.
Not because they want to, and not because they don’t see the opportunity. More often, it’s because their leadership instincts were built for a different era, one that valued certainty, caution, and control. Those instincts once made them effective. Today, they can hold leaders back at the exact moment their organizations need momentum.
This tension is real, and I see it in many rooms I work in. Leaders are being asked to empower their teams and unleash new technology, while also protecting the business from risks we’re still trying to understand.
It’s a delicate balance and a harsh reality that everything around us is changing, and leaders must change too. The leadership behaviors that once made us successful are not the behaviors that will carry us forward.
And that’s where unlearning comes in.
Insights from the Stanford Digital Economy Lab’s Canaries in the Coal Mine highlight just how much the ground beneath us is shifting. For the first time in a long time, workers in their 40s and beyond are being hired at faster rates than early-career talent.
This trend is emerging because AI is absorbing the task-heavy, entry-level responsibilities that used to serve as foundational training grounds. Organizations now need people with judgment, critical thinking, and the capacity to navigate complexity—skills that come from real-world experience.
But, here’s the nuance … experience only creates impact when leaders are willing to rethink and relearn. Those who cling tightly to the leadership patterns that once defined their success may find themselves unintentionally creating friction where momentum is needed most.
I worked with a leader recently who faced this head-on. For years, she was known for her ability to anticipate risks, manage details meticulously, and ensure everything was buttoned up before moving forward. Her teams trusted her. Her results were strong. But as her company adopted AI-driven processes and began moving faster, those same strengths began slowing her team down. They hesitated to bring her ideas. They waited for her approval. They matched their pace to her comfort level rather than the pace the business needed.
In one coaching conversation, she said shared:
“I realized I was protecting the organization from risks that no longer mattered—and exposing us to risks I didn’t even see.”
That was the moment she began unlearning. Not her wisdom, not her experience—but the beliefs that no longer supported the leader she was becoming. As she let go, her team stepped up. They moved faster. They innovated more. They felt trusted and empowered.
That’s the shift unlearning makes possible.
As leaders, we must learn to hold two truths at once:
On one side, we have a responsibility to manage risk thoughtfully.
AI does raise questions about governance, accuracy, bias, legality, and ethics. Leaders cannot ignore these concerns.
On the other side, we must move quickly enough that our organizations—and our people—don’t fall behind.
The greater risk now is standing still.
Leading today means balancing these two forces, not choosing one over the other. And that balance requires unlearning old habits, old rules, and old beliefs about what “good leadership” looks like.
The leadership playbook that worked even five years ago no longer fits the world we’re operating in. A few old rules you may recognize include:
Old Rule: Wait for perfect information before deciding.
New Reality: Perfect information doesn’t exist in a landscape that evolves daily.
Old Rule: Protect your team by avoiding risk.
New Reality: Protect them by empowering thoughtful experimentation.
Old Rule: Leaders should have the answers.
New Reality: Leaders must create environments where the best answers can emerge.
Old Rule: Slow and steady keeps you safe.
New Reality: Slow and steady can mean falling behind.
Unlearning isn’t about discarding wisdom—it’s about updating it for the world we’re leading in now.
Here are three practical steps leaders can take to begin unlearning in a productive and confidence-building way:
As AI accelerates and organizations adapt, the leaders who succeed will be those who can let go of outdated patterns, embrace new ways of working, and create environments where teams feel empowered to learn, experiment, and grow.
Experience still matters—but only when paired with adaptability.
Confidence still matters—but only when paired with curiosity.
Leadership still matters—but it must evolve.
AI is reshaping how we work. Unlearning is reshaping how we lead. And in the coming years, the leaders who can do both—thoughtfully and intentionally—will set the pace for everyone else.
Let’s explore how unlearning old patterns, empowering your teams, and leading with intention can help you navigate change with clarity and confidence.
Book time with me here and let’s talk about what’s possible.
When I work with leaders, our conversations often start with the whirlwind of today—the challenges they’re navigating, the pressure to deliver, the teams they’re managing, and the strategies they’re refining. And understandably so. There’s a lot coming at leaders right now.
But one of the most important roles I play as a coach is to help them lift their gaze beyond today’s fire drills. To pause the urgency just long enough to ask: Where are you going? And are you building the team, the function, and the strong relationships today that will support that future?
In today’s complex, fast-moving environment, strong relationships are no longer a nice-to-have. They’re a differentiator. A strategy. A lifeline. And they’re often what separates leaders who thrive in ambiguity from those who feel stuck in it.
We often think of leadership in terms of output—decisions made, goals hit, change managed. But beneath every major achievement is a network of relationships that either helped get it done or made it harder.
Years ago, I heard someone describe relationships at work like a bank account. You make deposits by showing up, following through, being helpful, building trust. And yes, you make withdrawals—especially when things go sideways, the stakes are high, or you need support.
That metaphor stuck with me throughout my corporate career—especially in my operational roles where I was constantly supporting sales and execution. I knew that in times of high pressure, I’d need to rely on others. And if I hadn’t made enough deposits? Those asks would come up short.
I called them “chits.” You never want to be in a storm with no chits in the bank.
Building strong relationships used to be something that happened over time—through projects, hallway chats, shared experiences. But let’s be real: the world of work looks very different today. Hybrid environments, heavier workloads, and increasingly matrixed organizations mean that relationships don’t build themselves anymore.
In fact, they often get de-prioritized.
That’s a mistake.
Because the complexity we’re navigating today means our relational bank accounts are being depleted faster than ever. The volume of change, the demand for cross-functional collaboration, and the sheer speed of decision-making require a new level of relationship equity.
So instead of hoping relationships will form organically, I encourage leaders to be intentional about building them—strategically, proactively, and authentically.
Let’s talk about how relationships are built today. In my coaching conversations, I’ve found that strong, strategic relationships form in three main areas:
One challenge I hear often from leaders is that building relationships feels awkward. Do I just randomly set up a coffee chat with someone? Won’t that seem strange?
Maybe. But when done with intention, it doesn’t have to.
Start with those you already collaborate with. Set up brief check-ins that include space for more than just status updates. Ask how you can support their priorities. Use your existing network—your inner circle—to help connect you with others.
Think of it like networking, but within your own organization.
As Korn Ferry recently shared in their article, "5 Ways to Be Sure Your Boss Sees Your Good Work“, many professionals feel uncomfortable promoting themselves or asking others to advocate for them. But enrolling your close-in circle in your success is not self-serving—it’s strategic. And it’s part of building that bank account.
If you’ve built trust with someone, let them know what you’re working toward. Ask if they’d be willing to share your contributions, advocate for your work, or make introductions to help expand your impact. You’re not asking for favors—you’re cultivating relationship equity.
Final Thought:
The complexity of leadership isn’t going away. If anything, it’s increasing. But your relationships—your leadership bank account—can be your most powerful asset.
Be intentional. Build early. And remember: the leaders who thrive in today’s world aren’t just managing tasks—they’re nurturing connection.
Let’s build something together.
If you're looking to elevate your leadership impact by strengthening your relationships and influence across your organization, I’d love to connect.
In my work with senior leaders across industries, one conversation comes up again and again—especially for leaders stepping into VP or senior leadership roles for the first time.
They say:
“I know how to deliver results. I’ve built my career on execution and getting things done. But now, the expectations feel different. I’m not just leading a team; I’m expected to influence across the organization, partner with the C-suite and think far beyond my function. How do I make that leap?”
That’s what I call the growth edge—the space between where you are today and the leader you need to become to thrive at the next level.
The shift from delivering results to driving strategy can feel like stepping onto a completely different playing field. And that’s because, in many ways, it is.
At the Director level, success often comes from execution excellence—delivering projects on time, leading teams to hit targets and ensuring operational efficiency. Those skills don’t disappear at the VP level, but they become table stakes. They’re the minimum expectation, not what sets you apart.
At the VP level, the spotlight widens. Suddenly, you’re:
It’s not like there’s a playbook or checklist for this shift. No one hands you a “how to VP” manual. The roadmap is unwritten because the real growth edge isn’t about what you do—it’s about how you show up.
Your growth edge is in your how.
This is where the biggest mindset shift happens—and where many leaders get stuck.
At this level, your how matters more than your what. How you engage your peers. How you frame and communicate ideas. How you build trust across functions. How you elevate the conversations you’re in.
Your growth edge is defined by how you step into that bigger, broader, more visible leadership role. It’s less about the technical mastery that got you here and more about the leadership presence and strategic thinking that will keep you here—and help you thrive.
As I recently shared recently with a team of senior leaders, those who successfully navigate this shift do three things consistently. These aren’t just “nice to do”—they’re essential for leaders operating at the VP level and beyond.
At the operational level, it’s easy to get caught up in the what—tasks, deliverables, and updates. But senior leaders don’t need (or want) to be in the weeds. They care about the why—the business impact, the risks, the opportunities.
Every time you communicate—whether to your team, peers, or boss—ask yourself: Am I framing this conversation around why it matters? Am I connecting this work to the bigger picture?
This small shift in framing elevates your voice and positions you as a strategic partner, not just an executor.
At higher levels, the ambiguity factor skyrockets. Change happens fast, decisions are made with limited information and senior leaders often operate in gray areas. In these moments, clear communication is a superpower.
If you don’t shape the narrative, someone else will. Be intentional about how you communicate, whether it’s a status update, a team meeting, or a one-on-one with your boss. Ask yourself:
Clear, intentional communication helps you manage up and foster alignment across your peers and teams.
It’s easy to get stuck in the day-to-day grind. But the leaders who thrive at the VP level are the ones who carve out time to zoom out. They don’t just execute—they ask bigger questions:
That shift—from short-term tactics to long-term strategy—is a hallmark of leaders who own their growth edge.
The truth is, no one is going to tap you on the shoulder and say, “Here’s exactly what you need to do to succeed at this level.” The most successful leaders write their own playbook, one built on intentional leadership.
Intentional leaders know that how they show up matters as much as what they deliver.
That’s why your growth edge isn’t just a career milestone—it’s a mindset shift. It’s about owning how you show up, how you add value and how you lead when the path forward isn’t always clear.
So, I’ll ask you the same question I asked that senior leader: What’s your growth edge right now?
Maybe it’s elevating your voice in executive meetings. Maybe it’s becoming more comfortable navigating ambiguity. Or maybe it’s building stronger cross-functional relationships to drive enterprise-wide initiatives.
Wherever your edge lies, I encourage you to lean into it—intentionally. The biggest growth happens when we’re willing to step into the discomfort of not having all the answers—and lead anyway.
If you’re navigating this shift—or preparing for it—I’d love to help you explore your growth edge and build the intentional strategies to thrive. Let’s connect to discuss how executive coaching or leadership workshops can help you (or your team) make the leap.
As we step into the new year, many of us carry the weight of rising costs, economic uncertainties and personal pressures. These challenges don't remain outside the workplace; they walk in with us each day and we are faced with how to navigate overwhelm.
I've noticed this firsthand in my recent coaching sessions. Despite having some downtime over the holidays, many of my clients have jumped straight back into the grind. Instead of easing into the year, they're displaying a mix of excitement and stress behaviors, with urgency and anxiety running high. It's as if there's no time to pause, organize, or gain clarity before diving back in.
This observation underscores a critical point: as leaders, we must balance supporting our teams with caring for ourselves. Let's explore how we can navigate both.
When external pressures mount, leaders have a unique opportunity to create stability and connection within their teams. Here are three actionable ways to support your team during challenging times:
Supporting your team is crucial, but you can't pour from an empty cup. Leaders face their pressures, which can lead to frustration, disengagement, or even burnout when these go unaddressed. Korn Ferry's recent article on the rise of Cranky Boss Syndrome highlights this growing trend among leaders.
Here are three strategies for self-care and personal growth:
When leaders invest in themselves and their teams, the ripple effects are transformative. Teams become more connected, aligned and motivated. Leaders, in turn, feel more equipped to handle challenges without succumbing to overwhelm.
This isn't about striving for perfection—it's about showing up with intention. Your ability to manage stress and lead with empathy can make all the difference in how your team navigates difficult times. While external stressors may not disappear overnight, the culture you create can provide a sense of stability and purpose that helps your team thrive.
You don't have to do it alone if you're navigating the challenges of leading through stress and overwhelm. Executive coaching can help you stay grounded, maintain a growth mindset, and lead your team with clarity and heart. Learn more about my coaching services and explore how coaching can support you on this journey.
AI is no longer just a concept of the future—it’s here, reshaping how we work, innovate, and grow. According to the 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report from Microsoft and LinkedIn, 75% of employees are now using AI at work, with nearly half adopting it in the past six months. That pace of change is remarkable and organizations are rushing to answer critical questions like:
But as leaders grapple with these questions, there’s one that often gets overlooked:
How are we leading the people side of this transformation?
This question is at the heart of successful change leadership. And it’s one I’ve seen ignored far too often, both in my corporate career and in the work I do today with leadership teams navigating transformational change.
Let me take you back to the early 2010s when I was part of a leadership team tasked with driving a digital transformation at a large company. By the time I joined, the initiative had been ongoing for more than five years without measurable success. Our private equity firm was frustrated, our CEO was under pressure, and consultants from Bain were brought in to diagnose the issue.
I’ll never forget the day Bain presented their findings to the executive leadership team. They told us bluntly:
“The problem isn’t your digital roadmap, your go-to-market strategy, or your products. The problem is right here in this room.”
Their message was clear—we would continue to fail until we focused on engaging the hearts and minds of the people executing the change. As I looked around the room, I realized they were right. We weren’t aligned as a leadership team and I wasn’t convinced we could rise to the challenge.
Shortly after that meeting, I left the company and 11 months later, it filed for bankruptcy.
That experience taught me a profound lesson: Transformation is about people. It starts with an aligned leadership team that models the behaviors they want to see throughout the organization. When leaders fail to engage their people, focusing only on systems, processes and outcomes, the change is doomed before it begins.
Fast-forward to today and I see echoes of this lesson in my work with a leadership team driving their own transformation. They’re integrating data and AI into their strategy—critical enablers for long-term growth. At a recent offsite, the head of this team used the word “collectively” seven times in a 15-minute kickoff.
He wasn’t just throwing out corporate jargon. He was intentional, using the word to paint a vision of a future where silos are broken, alignment is strong and friction is replaced with seamless collaboration.
Transformation, whether AI or any other major shift drives it, requires more than technical skills and strategic plans. It demands relationships built on trust, respect and shared purpose. It’s not just about what gets done; it’s about how it gets done.
AI represents one of the most significant shifts in how work gets done. It’s a game-changer for efficiency and growth—but its potential will only be realized if leaders prioritize the people behind the change.
In a recent panel discussion I facilitated, technology thought leader Peter High with Metis Strategy shared a powerful insight: 80% of focus should be on the people and process aspect of AI.
It’s not just about implementing AI tools, it’s about helping people understand them, use them effectively and embrace the change. That requires intentional leadership and it requires engaging hearts and minds.
Every major change initiative hinges on how leaders guide their teams. If you’ve ever been part of a failed change effort, you’ve likely heard these sentiments:
These are symptoms of a lack of intentional leadership. When leaders focus solely on what they want to achieve—efficiency, cost savings, or productivity—they miss the opportunity to inspire their teams to fully buy-in and execute the change.
By contrast, when leaders focus on how they lead—fostering alignment, building trust, and engaging their people—the change becomes achievable and sustainable.
AI is here to stay. It’s transforming how we work, but its success depends on how well leaders navigate the people side of change. So, as you think about AI at work and its role in your organization, ask yourself:
The biggest ROI in the AI equation isn’t just about the tools—it’s about the people.
Want to measure your own intentionality as a leader? Take my Heart Leader Assessment to discover how your leadership style supports transformational change and connects the “how” with the “why.”
In my work with teams, I often emphasize the importance of trust—especially vulnerability-based trust—where members can admit mistakes, ask for help, and feel safe sharing their perceived weaknesses. But we don’t talk about another aspect of trust enough: trusting ourselves.
For leaders managing both personal and professional responsibilities, self-trust is the foundation of their leadership and personal growth. Trusting yourself isn’t just about competence or confidence. It’s deeper. It’s about silencing that inner critic, overcoming self-doubt, and believing you can navigate whatever challenges come your way. This is a lesson I’ve learned personally, having spent a portion of my corporate career doubting my capabilities, even when my results told a different story. I estimate I spent 5 of my 25 years in corporate America questioning whether I was good enough. I doubted myself more than I trusted myself—and that self-doubt robbed me of opportunities to reach my full potential.
I’ve learned that trusting yourself is an ongoing practice. Recently, this concept became clear while hiking in Colorado with my husband. Hiking is a newer hobby for me, and while I’m not tackling the “14ers” as my family does, I’ve let them push me to more challenging hikes. This past weekend, we embarked on a difficult trail—one that felt more like rock climbing at times than simply hiking.
As I climbed, I found myself wondering: What’s harder, going up or coming down? For me, going up feels more controlled and more predictable. It’s tough, but I can stop, breathe, reorient, and feel confident about where to place my next step. But on the way down, I realized that trust plays a much bigger role.
When hiking down a steep trail, especially where the footing is uncertain, you don’t have the luxury of pausing with each step. You have to trust yourself. You have to trust where you place your feet, that you can navigate the terrain, and that even if you stumble, you’ll catch yourself before tumbling down the mountain. It’s a moment-to-moment practice of believing in your ability to manage the challenge.
Here are three reasons why hiking down a steep trail requires trust in yourself—reasons that also apply to leadership:
Just like hiking down that steep trail, trusting yourself in leadership requires intention and practice. It’s not always easy, but the more you rely on self-trust, the more confident you’ll become in navigating challenges and embracing opportunities. So, how do we strengthen this vital trust in ourselves? Here are three ways to get started.
Building self-trust doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a skill that requires practice and patience. Here are three ways to deepen your trust in yourself:
Trust in yourself allows you to fully step into your potential as a leader. It gives you the courage to navigate difficult paths, the resilience to bounce back from mistakes, and the momentum to keep going when things get tough. Like hiking down that steep trail, your leadership journey will have moments when the footing feels uncertain. But with self-trust, you can keep moving forward—step by step, building confidence and flow along the way.
If you’re ready to explore how trusting yourself can help you reach your full potential, let’s talk. Sometimes, all it takes is the right support to unlock what’s already within you!
Imagine this: You’re handed a major organizational change from the top. There’s little time to process it, even less time to plan, and yet you’re expected to rally your team, drive results, and maintain a positive culture. Sound familiar? If you’re like many leaders today, this scenario is all too common. The demands are relentless, the pace is overwhelming, and the stakes feel impossibly high.
How do you stay effective, committed, and aligned with your leadership role when you’re leading under pressure and the path forward is anything but clear?
I recall many instances in my corporate career where I found myself saying, “We could have avoided this negative impact if we had involved other leaders and taken more time.”
Unfortunately, during significant organizational change, where top-down decisions were made under immense pressure, it was no surprise that essential details often slipped through the cracks. Key individuals weren’t always informed in advance, leaving me and other leaders scrambling to address the oversight in real time. It was disappointing, but it was the reality we had to deal with.
In today’s workplace, where change is constant, and perfection is often unattainable, many are tasked with not just managing but thriving in the face of leading under pressure. The meticulous planning of the past isn’t always possible now, and leaders no longer have the luxury of time to plan every detail. However, leaders have the power to adapt, learn, and support their teams through these transitions. Resilience is critical, but it goes beyond that.
It’s about cultivating a mindset that allows you to navigate these challenges and lead with strength and clarity, even when the ground beneath you is shifting.
Here are five key actions to consider when faced with this reality, along with practical strategies to help you implement them:
As a leader, you’re uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between top-down decisions and your team’s realities. Your role goes beyond executing orders; it’s about connecting with your team, understanding their concerns, and guiding them through uncertainty with empathy and purpose. Your deep care for those you lead makes your leadership truly powerful.
There’s real meaning in this work. By staying committed to the greater good—your organization and your team—you’re doing more than just getting through the day. You’re shaping a culture of resilience, adaptability, and HEART. You’re showing your team that even in tough times, they have a leader who is intentional, connected, and unwavering in their support.
Leading under pressure isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about showing up, day after day, with a mindset that says, ‘We can do this together.’ It’s about trusting your ability to guide your team through challenges and knowing your leadership makes a difference, even when the path is unclear.
Let’s connect and discuss how you’re navigating leading under pressure. I would love to talk about how you can continue leading with resilience and heart in these dynamic times.
