Leadership Strategies

Is your work environment toxic with lots of “staff infections”?

By Sylvia Lafair | July 15, 2018 |

Here is what many people have emailed me regarding toxic work environments, and they all sound like they work in the same company. The only difference is the geographic location, the same toxic work environment seems to pop up everywhere. These companies are scattered around the U.S., actually around the world from Pittsburgh to Paris,…

Leadership Strategies: Getting to the next level of development

By Sylvia Lafair | June 13, 2018 |

I am always struck by the battle each of us must go through as we open the door to the next level of development. It’s time to see things with new eyes, yet, there is a lurking sense that if we stray too far from what we know, well, we might fall an shatter. I…

Leadership Strategies: Let the jerks at work be your teachers

By Sylvia Lafair | June 6, 2018 |

 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…

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

By Sylvia Lafair | May 31, 2018 |

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…

Leadership Strategies: Can Emotional Intelligence Be Learned?

By Sylvia Lafair | May 30, 2018 |

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…

3 Habits of Naive Leaders

By Sylvia Lafair | May 24, 2018 |

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…

These are the Best and Worst Things About Success

By Sylvia Lafair | May 21, 2018 |

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…

Leadership Strategies: How to be confident

By Sylvia Lafair | May 15, 2018 |

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…

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

By Sylvia Lafair | May 10, 2018 |

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…

Leadership strategies: How to look at your decision making

By Sylvia Lafair | May 8, 2018 |

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…