Leadership
Mentoring Women for Career Development
In mentoring women for career development, Maree focuses on six priorities women need to address for career success. They need to (1) have a career development plan, (2) develop their networks, (3) build a social media presence, (4) create a professional identity, (5) learn to self-promote, (6) integrate work and family. Most women will have mastered some of these; few will have mastered all. It is those they haven’t mastered that are probably blocking the career development they seek. Because mentoring is so personalised, it can focus on those individual challenges that each woman brings to the process.
Read MoreEmpowering You Through Mentoring
Have you ever had a watershed experience, an experience that inspires an aha moment of insight that calls for you to make a big change in your life?
Such watershed experiences come uninvited and without an attached plan, which initially can shake our foundations because they raise questions about the road we are travelling, questions we previously hadn’t asked ourselves.
When we stop and take those questions seriously, however, and open ourselves up to finding answers, we so often discover in our answers a conviction that inspires us to follow through and make a change.
It was the COVID pandemic that presented me with my watershed experience and the aha moment of insight. I am turning the next page of my life and spending the next part of it empowering leaders through mentoring.
Read MoreTake Back Control in a Crisis
Tony Schwartz and Emily Pines wrote a great article during COVID titled “Coping with Fatigue, Fear and Panic During a Crisis”. I shared it at the time, but most would have read it with COVID eyes. I am sharing it again in this blog post because it has a universal message for any crisis we may be going through. Tony and Emily tell us that 3 Selves rear their heads when we face a crisis – The Survival Self, The Overwhelmed Self and The Adult Self. The only one that will help us manage and move through the crisis contructively is if we can take back control by acting out of our Adult Self.
Read MoreEmpowering You Through Mentoring
During the last week People Empowered turned 17 years old. It felt very right to celebrate 17 years, rather than wait until the 20th anniversary which most people would have done. Why? Because I’m re-branding again.
People Empowered has continued to provide leadership development for 17 years – workshops, training, mentoring, coaching consultation and facilitation. But COVID has caused me, like so many others, to re-evaluate what I want to be doing into the future, where I can make most impact and difference for leaders. I’ve decided to specialise in mentoring from my 17th year onwards and that’s why I am celebrating. Soon I will have a revamped website that will reveal how I can empower you through mentoring.
Read MoreSelf-Leadership is Leading From Within
Some weeks ago I had this video conversation about Self-Leadership with colleague and friend, Ian Berry. He wanted to talk with me about my ebook “Lead from Within -Be An Empowered Leader For An Unpredicable Future.” This is the book people receive when they sign up to my blog. I believe that the first responsibility of leaders today is to lead and manage themselves. If they cannot do that, they have no right to expect to lead and manage others. This means, as the late Jim Rohn said, “working as hard on yourself as you do on your job”. It means making a commitment to developing and enhancing their self-leadership. We discuss the 7 self-leadership skills that significantly enhance the leadership of those who commit to working on themselves with a mentor or coach.
Read MoreWhy Leaders Need To Make R-U-O-K- Day Bigger Than A Day.
On R-U-O-K Day I wrote a post on LinkedIn, sharing an article, published in the Guardian, by clinical psychologist, Dr Sanah Ahsan, titled “I’m a Psychologist – and I believe we’ve been told devastating lies about mental health”. Because this post was so widely read, liked and shared, I have developed it out into a much longer article.
She gave us cause to pause and think on R-U-O-K Day when she said that “society’s understanding of mental health issues locates the problem inside the person – and ignores the politics of their distress”.
My own experience is consistent with this belief.
Advancing Your Career As A Professional Woman
If you’re reading this blog post, then you are a professional woman, one of the hundreds out there, committed to advancing your career. I’m sure, however, that you have a variety of motivations for doing that. I asked two groups of women who did a workshop with me on “Advancing Your Career”, why they wanted to advance their careers. Here are 11 of the many responses I received. But what are the obstacles standing in the way of these women achieving them? I don’t necessarily agree with all of these realities and I have great respect for the women who challenge them wanting to make a difference. There are significant structural and cultural issues in society that are often all but impossible for professional women to surmount. But things are begining to change. I am inspired by professional women of all ages who are wanting to make a difference. I am privileged to support them in mentoring.
Read MoreLessons For Leaders From The Pandemic
It was a privilege to be asked by a colleague and good friend of mine, Gary Ryan, to write and record the forward to his book “Disruption Leadership Matters – lessons for leaders from the pandemic”.
Gary’s book went on to become an Amazon Number #1 Best Seller on Kindle. I am sure many of the people in my People Empowered Community would be interesed in Gary’s book. I am forwarding you a copy of my Forward and the audio version of it. I hope it inspires you to buy Gary’s book in what ever version most resonates with you.
Read MoreWhat Now After the Death of the Annual Performance Appraisal?
Many organisations are not aware of the death of the annual performance appraisal. The main reason is that it no longer, if it ever did, produces the outcomes it sets for itself. There are still too many organisations using them to develop, enhance and assess the performance of their people. There is an alternative, moving from Performance Management to Performance Leadership. This is a move to on-going daily or weekly performance conversations that give feedback on the spot or certainly on a very regular basis, rather than the retrospective feedback that comes with an annual appraisal.
Read MoreTake Your Foot Off the Brake – Create a New Story.
How often do you look outside yourself for the reasons why you don’t achieve your goals and dreams? How often do you blame those external factors for obstructing your success, or for making it impossible?
It’s so much easier to do that than look inside yourself, to go down deep and discover what is crippling your spirit and your soul, what has stolen your drive to be fully who you can be. That takes you right outside your comfort zone. That is hard work.
You immortalise the story of your life and you hold on to it because it gives you a reason to stay stuck where you are. But it is only a story, to which you have given more weight and power than it actually has.Take your foot off the brake and create a new story for yourself.
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