

The Value of “Tough Love”
In the first job I held out of law school, my boss demanded that I think. He demanded a strategy or a plan. He demanded follow through. He demanded responsibility. He demanded my best. He got it. To be clear, he was not abusive nor was there any bullying. His kindness was there – in his praise, his openness to new ideas and curiosity about my thinking. He also has a great sense of humor. His tough love was simply about holding the highest expectations of everyone at th


“The Emperor’s New Clothes”
I was reminded of this story when I was speaking with a friend about her organization’s culture. It is a story that is similar to many organizations. The top brass thought everything was fine and told everyone that they “just needed to work harder”. “What is it with this new generation?” they would ask themselves. Employees felt the top brass was out of touch. New ideas were dismissed. New employees were told not to disagree. While the company continued to have “a great


Building Internal Resilience
I believe that leadership is an inside job. Meaning regardless of the valuable external techniques offered to improve our leadership, management or communication skills – it all boils down to our inner game. By inner game, I mean what we believe about ourselves. Specifically, looking at our inner chatter – how we manage our resilience to things that throw us off course. Our inner game shows up – not when our business is rocking and rolling (although parts of it might!). B