Leadership Strategies

Creative Energy Options

Leadership Strategies: Let the jerks at work be your teachers

By Sylvia Lafair | June 6, 2018 | Comments Off on Leadership Strategies: Let the jerks at work be your teachers

 My advice to those of you dealing with less than ideal personalities at work:  Let the jerks at work be your teachers. Here’s an email that I think belongs to all of us as we search for meaning at work, I think we all want more than just a paycheck. We want a place to grow…

Read More
Creative Energy Options

Here’s How to Avoid the 5 Basic Mistakes That Create Job Stress

By Sylvia Lafair | May 31, 2018 | Comments Off on Here’s How to Avoid the 5 Basic Mistakes That Create Job Stress

Do you ever just wish that you could have a moratorium on change? That maybe, just for a month you could count on things staying the same? That you could depend on your work colleagues to show up and do their jobs so you could do yours? That sales would percolate and products get shipped…

Read More
Creative Energy Options

Leadership Strategies: Can Emotional Intelligence Be Learned?

By Sylvia Lafair | May 30, 2018 | Comments Off on Leadership Strategies: Can Emotional Intelligence Be Learned?

How do we learn emotional intelligence? Can we change our basic nature just by willing it to happen? Here is my response to one of my clients who was so sick and tired of feeling like a bully boss and not sure what to do. Let me know your thoughts too. Dear Dr. Sylvia, I…

Read More
Creative Energy Options

3 Habits of Naive Leaders

By Sylvia Lafair | May 24, 2018 | Comments Off on 3 Habits of Naive Leaders

Stupid leaders are a dime a dozen. What they do looks the same through the centuries. Here’s what Cicero, Roman politician and lawyer who served as consul in 63 BC had to say, “Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.” Habit #1: Repetition. You know the saying that if you…

Read More
Creative Energy Options

These are the Best and Worst Things About Success

By Sylvia Lafair | May 21, 2018 | Comments Off on These are the Best and Worst Things About Success

Let’s start with a short quiz: What’s the best thing about workplace success? A. You get more money. B. You get more recognition. C. You get more work. If you answered “A,” you are on the right track. Workplace success usually translates to earning more money. If you’re like most people, you want a financial…

Read More
Creative Energy Options

Leadership Strategies: How to be confident

By Sylvia Lafair | May 15, 2018 | Comments Off on Leadership Strategies: How to be confident

How to be confident instead of strong-willed and stubborn so you can get unstuck at work. I received the following email that got me thinking about how complex it is to be confident when you feel you’ve been blind-sided. Here’s what was said…. “I had my performance review last week and it was awful. When…

Read More
Creative Energy Options

Being Pushy is Good For You, Here’s Why…

By Sylvia Lafair | May 10, 2018 | Comments Off on Being Pushy is Good For You, Here’s Why…

What if you’ve gone too far in your comments about someone? What if you’ve been called out for being excessive in challenging others in a meeting? What if you have been shunned after you mocked a colleague? Our world of extremes is starting to backfire. Don’t get caught in the tidal wave of seeing how…

Read More
Creative Energy Options

Leadership strategies: How to look at your decision making

By Sylvia Lafair | May 8, 2018 | Comments Off on Leadership strategies: How to look at your decision making

You as a leader must think about and understand how to look at your decision making… Leadership today relies on astute decision making. Life moves so fast there’s little room left for mistakes.   How much time have you spent really, I mean really, looking at how you make decisions? Here’s a clue to why so…

Read More
Creative Energy Options

How to Ease Conflict by Knowing the Difference Between Facts and Emotions

By Sylvia Lafair | May 7, 2018 | Comments Off on How to Ease Conflict by Knowing the Difference Between Facts and Emotions

Facts are married to emotion. As a leader, it’s your job to ask the right questions that lead to what the key issues are. The natural tendency for most people is to deflect the real reasons for hurt and feeling discounted. It’s the emotions that will resolve the conflict, not just the facts. Here’s what happens in…

Read More
Creative Energy Options

Communication is Complex: Help! BUT They Always Said The Right Thing

By Sylvia Lafair | May 2, 2018 | Comments Off on Communication is Complex: Help! BUT They Always Said The Right Thing

Communication is complex, especially when meeting face to face.  That’s when you need to stay alert and take a deeper look at how they are talking with you.  In this post, I cover 3 ways to step back and really look at what is being said and 3 ways to check your assumptions so you…

Read More