A few years ago, I probably wouldn’t have written this blog. Actually, that’s not true. Twenty-five years ago, I definitely wouldn’t have written it.
Early in my corporate career, I picked up a copy of Meditation for Dummies. At the time, my interest in meditation had very little to do with leadership. I was exploring it as a tool for my personal life and, if I’m being completely transparent, hoping to manifest some of the things I dreamed about—the husband, the beautiful home, the perfect family, the life I imagined for myself.
I achieved much of that, by the way!
What I didn’t realize when I picked up that book was that meditation would eventually become one of the most valuable tools in my leadership toolbox. Not because it magically created the life or career I wanted, but because over time, it helped me quiet the noise, become more self-aware, trust myself, and feel more connected to what I know to be true.
Today, as an executive coach, I see just how much leaders need that kind of space.
So many of the leaders I work with are smart, capable, successful high achievers who are managing a lot. Their minds are still running long after the workday ends. They’re thinking about the meeting that didn’t go well, tomorrow’s presentation, the difficult conversation they need to have, the organizational change coming around the corner, and the 47 other things on their list. They have trouble turning it off at night, transitioning from work to home, and creating boundaries between all the different parts of their lives.
I often describe it as living on the hamster wheel.
For years, I’ve talked about helping leaders get off that wheel so they can become more intentional about their choices and how they show up. But lately, I’ve been thinking there may be an opportunity to go a little further.
What if leadership isn’t only about becoming more intentional? What if it’s also about becoming more aligned?
And this is where things might get a little “woo woo.”
Many of us learned how to compartmentalize as we moved through our careers. I certainly did. Work went in one box. Family went in another. Stress, fears, dreams, relationships—they all had their own boxes too. We became incredibly skilled at packaging things up, putting them on the appropriate shelf, and opening whichever box the situation required.
In my corporate leadership years, that served me well. I followed the rules, worked hard, delivered results, and did what needed to be done. I always had a thread of care, concern, and heart running through my leadership, but I was still separating parts of myself rather than considering how all those pieces fit together.
Over time, that began to change. I became more intentional about how I showed up and more attuned to the people around me. In the workplace, we called some of that emotional intelligence and empathy. Later, I described it in my book as “leading with heart” and being intentional in how you show up.
Today, I think I would describe it a little differently.
I would call it aligned leadership.
Aligned leadership is what happens when your values, intuition, actions, energy, and intentions begin working together rather than competing for your attention. You aren’t leaving parts of yourself at the door when you walk into work because, really, none of us do. We are one whole human being showing up every day to interact, connect, influence, impact, and lead other whole human beings.
When you begin leading from that place, something shifts.
I have a coaching client who is incredibly open to growth. He rarely comes into our conversations with a perfectly packaged coaching topic. Instead, he brings whatever is occupying his mental real estate at that moment—a relationship, an anticipated conflict, a challenge, or something he can’t quite stop thinking about.
Our conversations are fluid. We explore what’s happening, look at it from different perspectives, and consider how he wants to show up. And then, inevitably, the thing we’ve been talking about seems to appear in his work.
Sometimes within days. Recently, it happened within an hour of our coaching conversation.
We joke about these moments, and he calls them coincidences. He would also really like us to spend more coaching time talking about his college football team so he can speak another national championship into existence. 😂
But I’ve come to believe there are very few coincidences. Maybe there are more coordinated incidents.
When something occupies our thoughts, attention, and energy, we become more aware of the opportunities, patterns, people, and circumstances connected to it. We notice things we might have missed before. We’re more prepared when the situation arrives, and because we’ve created space to consider our intentions, we can respond differently when it does.
Is that “woo woo”? Maybe.
But it’s also incredibly practical leadership.
Leadership is fundamentally about awareness, and that awareness has to start with ourselves. The most effective leaders don’t just understand business metrics, market conditions, and organizational challenges. They understand what’s happening inside themselves, too. They recognize when they’re operating from fear instead of confidence, reacting instead of responding, or forcing an outcome instead of creating enough space for clarity to emerge.
Meditation has helped me create that space, but meditation isn’t the only answer. I have clients who use apps like Headspace, while others insist they “aren’t good at meditating” because they can’t turn their brains off. My response is always that the goal isn’t necessarily to turn your brain off.
Find what works for you.
Maybe it’s exercise, a long walk, time in nature, prayer, journaling, or even a walking meditation. Maybe it’s simply ten quiet minutes before everyone else wakes up. The practice matters less than your willingness to create enough space to hear yourself again.
Because beneath all the business buzzwords we use—resilience, agility, adaptability, change leadership—there is something much more human: connection.
Connection to yourself. Connection to your purpose. Connection to the people you lead.
My own journey to understand this has been decades in the making. From watching Oprah as a teenager in the '80s, to Tony Robbins, Brendon Burchard, Abraham Hicks, Gabby Bernstein, and so many others along the way, I’ve absorbed ideas and inspiration that have ultimately helped me arrive at my own sense of what I know to be true.
And today, that feels grounding. Calm. Confident. Connected. There is less forcing and more knowing.
Maybe that sounds “woo woo” to some people. I’m okay with that.
Because I’m beginning to think the leaders we need for the future aren’t those who get better at compartmentalizing, pushing harder, or running faster on the hamster wheel. We need leaders who are deeply connected to themselves so they can more authentically connect with others. Leaders who create space to listen, notice, trust, and choose. Leaders who bring their whole selves to the responsibility of leading other human beings.
Perhaps that is the next evolution of intentional leadership.
A little less forcing. A little more alignment. And yes, maybe even a little more “woo woo.”
If you’re ready to get off the hamster wheel and explore what greater intention and alignment could look like in your own leadership, let’s connect. Sometimes the most powerful shift starts by simply creating enough space to hear what’s already there.
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.
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.
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.”
I recently read a statistic: only 50% of businesses are still operating after 5 years. So, I quickly did some math and discovered that I established my LLC and took my first client after leaving the corporate world in 2017. Looks like I’m officially five years in – I made it!
My passion for leadership development began in my work at Catalina, and after some life-changing events, I left 70-hour work weeks to follow that passion. I knew I wanted more autonomy, flexibility, and fulfillment, and I wanted to make an even bigger impact. I wanted to take my experience and share it with other grow-minded leaders. So I started my company, named White Cap Coaching with inspiration from my kids (representing the things we love to do as a family – be on the water and in the mountains) and grew it from the ground up.
The topic of leadership resonated with me so much I wrote an entire book about it – Lead with Heart & Leave a Legacy.
And over the past 5 years, I’ve led my company through multiple evolutions. I’ve refined my messaging, impact, and moved from what I knew – traditional corporate speak (the male CEOs I worked with and for over the years taught me well!) – to a more authentic, relatable and intentional message. Now, my messaging matches my experiences and, most importantly, the unique and meaningful value and service that only I can provide to my amazing clients.
I cannot believe it has been 5 years already! I have connected with so many wonderful, intentional leaders and learned so much from them, and I’ve practiced specific strategies for success to help me stay focused and set me up for success.
As a solopreneur with a mission to support leaders as they define their own legacy of leadership for a happy, successful, and fulfilling life and career, I’ve learned quite a few things along the way. And today, I’d love to share the 5 keys to business that I’ve unlocked at this point in my business.
In the early days, I was caught in the trap of looking at others who were further along their path. I thought if I emulated what I saw them doing, it would accelerate my success.
But the truth is that comparing yourself to others knocks you off track from your true purpose. Comparison is the fastest way to forget the reason you started your business to begin with.
For me, it was to help leaders find simplicity in the complex and to be in service to them to find fulfillment, meaning & impact in their roles as leaders and in their lives as beautiful, whole people. Comparison can be evil. I learned that the faster path to success happened when I wasn’t worried about what others thought, or how others perceive me. I learned to practice finding inspiration in others’ successes while staying aligned to the path I was on without any apology for it.
I quickly realized that if I spent too much time trying to perfect what I was working on, I would never move forward. My business has changed in mind blowing ways since it began.
Over the years, I’ve changed my:
Trying to perfect everything was a distraction from the true work I needed to do. Instead of creating something perfect, stay in motion and keep moving forward – refining and improving as you go.
Starting your own business, especially as a solopreneur, requires a lot. The path will never be easy, but it can involve more ease.
I was working 70 hours a week in the corporate world, and I easily carried that bad habit into my new business at first. But I had to remind myself that I started this business to be different, to enjoy my work, to have more time and freedom.
Starting your own business isn’t easy but there should be some ease associated. Once I figured out how to stay in flow and connected to the work that I was doing and the impact I was making, I felt a lot more ease. It was also important that I operated in alignment, modeling what I was teaching my clients in my own work and business.
Intention is a huge reason my business has thrived for five years! In my work, intention shows up in every aspect of what I do:
Showing up with intention helps me stay in alignment, be flexible with my work, and know when to pivot.
This month as I celebrate my 5 years in business, I am privileged to gather with clients, colleagues, and friends to celebrate this accomplishment and thank those who supported me along the way.
The journey has not always been easy, there have been many ups and downs (including a significant health scare!) but starting my own business and following my passion has been one of the biggest wins of all. Over the past 5 years, whenever work became stressful and busy or something did not go my way, I often forgot to count the wins.
But celebrating even the small wins matters. All of those tiny victories have contributed to my overall success – helping me become a better leader and entrepreneur.
I started my business journey investing 25 years in the same company, learning 7 leadership lessons.
And now 5 years into my business as a solopreneur, I’m sharing the 5 keys to business I’ve discovered so far.
These milestones are the perfect opportunity to reflect on my experience and share all I’ve learned.
I’m endlessly grateful for the people I’ve met, the leaders I’ve coached, the lives I’ve changed, and the business I’ve created. Cheers to the next five years as a small business owner!
I recently had an opportunity to host a leadership development session with an impressive leadership team in Chicago. When they gathered together for our custom workshop, it was the first time they had all been in the same room in two years due to Covid-19 and what transpired in the time that had past gave significant importance on the development of the leader as learner.
David, the CEO, worked with me to create a customized goal and topic for this leadership development workshop. He asked me to introduce strategies and tools to help his team be more open to new ideas, to “rethink” the way things had been done before, and to be curious problem solvers, decision-makers, and leaders. Based on these goals for the team, I curated an extremely relevant topic for leaders today – “Are You Learning as Fast as the World is Changing?”
To prepare for our session, I asked the team to read Think Again by Adam Grant. This helped them feel equipped to dig deeply into the concept of rethinking.
The key point of our session was this: In a world that never stops changing, leaders can never stop learning.
I helped the leadership team embrace their role as continuous, curious learners by questioning common responses to their current actions and situations. We interrogated the validity of “that’s the way we’ve always done it” to see that just because something has been done a certain way does not mean it can’t be done differently.
Change-capable leaders must grow and evolve with the world. The leader’s job is constantly learning – rethinking current policies, questioning current responses, and investigating new potential solutions.
When your talent embraces their role, leader as learner:
David, the CEO, and I also developed another important objective for this session: allowing people time to reconnect with each other.
We spent a little less time “doing” and more time “being.” This time was crucial to the team – allowing them space and energy to renew their commitment to the organization and their roles as leaders.
The face-to-face time we prioritized brought up many interesting conversations, including:
These discussions helped the leaders better understand their peers and themselves.
Our custom session – focused on seeing the leader as a learner – was a perfect mix of learning and applying new concepts AND time sharing about what work and life look and feel like in today’s environment.
Not everyone will be able to keep pace in a constantly changing and demanding world and business environment.
Really smart people are studying the “future of work” and reporting that 10% of jobs will be automated in the next year, and 50% of jobs will be automated in the next decade. Specific requirements must be met to survive and thrive in the present and near future.
Successful leaders of the future must be proficient in these 3 soft skills:
1 | Balance between doing & learning
How much time on your calendar is spent doing vs. learning? Finding the right balance between current business demands and continuous learning is hard. The fast-paced environment often distracts leaders from their best, discouraging them from being curious, innovative, active, and engaged learners.
Leaders are often head down, trying to manage customer demands, fire drills, and simply keep up. Given this reality, it is easy to lose sight of the importance of learning. But if you want to be successful long-term, it is especially important to practice continuous learning. The leaders who will thrive are consistently, intentionally learning.
2 | Intention
As leaders progress and advance in their careers, they become less comfortable learning. Not knowing something, asking questions, being curious, and reaching out to experts require them to be brave.
Not knowing the answer to a question does not make a leader unintelligent. However, not asking and not learning something new because they are afraid will cause leaders to miss on many beautiful opportunities. The access to knowledge is there, but as they get further along, they have to be even more intentional about learning.
3 | Active Listening
Active listening is a key to learning. It is essential to listen to the thoughts and perspectives of people from different backgrounds to rethink our own perspectives, biases, and judgments that keep us opening up to other perspectives and from learning. By listening more deeply – and not just responding with the first thought that comes to mind – we can respond more intentionally. This kind of mindset helps encourage a culture of learning and an environment for others to learn, share thoughts, and allow their ideas to flourish.
Are you and your employees ready to develop soft skills for the ever-changing future world?
If you’re interested in ensuring your team is growing and adapting to current and future demands, contact me to create and facilitate a custom leadership development session.
Your team will love digging into the topic “Are you learning as fast as the world is changing?” and your entire organization will benefit from this targeted, intentional development.
Just as I challenge my clients to grow, develop, and progress as intentional leaders and toward their goals, they also challenge me. Through our discussions, I regularly learn new things that are reinforced daily, and I am challenged to continue to embody the coaching mindset (one of the ICF core competencies).
This challenge serves me well, as I ensure to “walk the talk” – both in my work and in my life.
Most recently, a client conversation inspired a discussion, and further consideration, of intention.
Intention has always been a major concept and guiding principle for me, both as a leader and as a coach of leaders.
I practiced intentional leadership, wrote about it in my book, and now I help my clients define and practice how to show up and engage with others with intention in their own leadership.
It’s clear that being intentional is a big deal. Being a present, effective, heart-led leader is a defining characteristic. But it doesn’t always have to be a big habit or a big practice.
In the previously mentioned discussion with my client, our conversation showed me the power of practicing, and demonstrating, micro-moments of intention.
As I’ve written about a number of times, and like I tell all of my clients – being an intentional leader requires thought and planning. Choosing to lead with intention can be time-consuming and detailed. You can feel like you need dedicated time to think, plan, and get ahead of your goals each day.
You spend time considering, “Who can I purposefully engage with today?” and “How can I show up in this meeting to best engage with my team and inspire them to take action to solve XYZ?”
An intentional leader champions their employees, connects with their colleagues, and acts with purpose.
Whew! I’m exhausted just reading that description. It’s true – being an intentional leader does take time, energy, and focus. (And it’s worth it!)
But it doesn’t always have to be so arduous. In fact, there are daily opportunities to practice micro-moments of intention outside of the bigger, more recognizable areas of intention.
You’re not always going to have a plan – and that’s okay. The best leaders know how to embrace micro-moments of intention to stand in their power and remain in the driver’s seat of a particular situation.
You can be intentional without a plan! These micro-moments are all about reinforcing your ability to lead with intention at your core, without a pre-planned effort or decision.
To put it another way, these micro-moments help you build an intrinsic, natural reflex and habit of being intentional. They are a powerful addition to your leadership toolkit! And micro-moments help you show your people who you really are.
What do these micro-moments look like in practice? Let’s explore some examples.
A micro-moment of intention can be a:
Take 3 minutes right now and jot down a few times today when you experienced a potential micro-moment of intention.
Did you choose to act with intention or did you let the moment pass? This isn’t a practice in judgment – it’s about recognizing how often these moments occur and being more aware of how we engage with them.
Invite the micro-moments in and choose to show up with intention. This is how you’ll become the leader you want to be.
Need help understanding how to engage with more intention or improve your skills as an intentional leader? This is exactly what I help my clients with, and I’d love to see how I can help you step into your true leadership potential. Everyone benefits when you lead with compassion, empathy, and intention.
Let’s chat and see what’s possible when we work together. Click here to schedule a free consultation.
If right now you are making a big decision in your career, you aren’t alone. I know so many people making some kind of change. For some, it has been forced while others are just finding it to be time to move on. Either way, it feels like a season of change…and growth!
I am working with a client right now who is in the fortunate position to decide between two new job opportunities. She describes the options as the difference between “known” and “unknown”. Known because it is a company that she has admired for years and she is still in touch with former colleagues who now work there. Unknown because it is a company whose culture and leadership philosophies she only knows through interview questions and glass door reviews.
Something in her heart and her gut is drawing her toward the unknown. Her head is vying for the known. We have been working on that alignment – head, heart, gut.
What I love is that she is open to exploring what is holding her back from stepping into the unknown and giving her full attention and energy toward that more unfamiliar choice.
We often get caught up in the fear of what we might lose that we actually miss seeing what we stand to gain.
She came to the conclusion...her choice of the unknown could be the risk she takes that allows her to do something greater. Wow, something greater! Isn’t that what we all say we want? But do we all know what this means? When faced with a crossroad, are you clear on where you are headed?
If you don’t have a vision of "greater" for yourself then you will never get your head, heart & gut to align. This limits the energy you have to fully commit to the choice you make.
For most who take the time to answer this question, they learn that it isn’t always more money, or a bigger title, team or office.
Greater is that thing that allows you to live out your purpose. Greater is possibility. Greater is what you do effortlessly. Greater is what gives you energy. Greater is what allows you to be your best self in your career and your life 💜
