Blogs
The Ultimate Guide: Leadership Skills to Strengthen the Bottom Line and Connect Teams for Success.
The Ultimate Guide to Leadership Skills: 5 Skills That Strengthen the Bottom LineSummary: Leadership has taken some nasty hits in the last few years. High-profile leaders are here today and gone tomorrow. Initially holding promise, they disappoint and disappear. Here is what is needed for modern leadership training.Dear Dr. Sylvia,We have gone through five, yes…
How to become the leader of choice
How do I become the leader of choice? I have received so many e-mails lately from many talented leaders expressing their desire to become “the leader everyone wants to work with,” to become a leader of choice. I have spent so much time researching to find the formula for leaders to really make a huge…
Leadership Strategies: Getting to the next level of development
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
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
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?
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 Simple Ways to Stop Your Co-Workers from Driving You Nuts
It’s tough to confront people. Well, at least that’s what 90% of the population says. Is your tendency to avoid or even worse, deny, that difficult issues exist at your office? It’s so much easier to blame others for being impossible to work with. We live in a “he did it, she did it, they…
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…
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…
How to Untangle a Nasty Feud at Work
Power struggles are the essence of great theater (think Hamilton). Yet, if the backstabbing is not squelched, the damage is deadly. Read about Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr and their duel. Or better yet, beg, borrow or steal (well, not the latter) and get tickets to see this brilliant play that is basically about office politics…
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…
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…