What’s Wrong With Leadership Development (And 5 Ways To Fix It)

As an executive coach and founder of a leadership development learning platform, I thrive on seeing our clients achieve lasting change. Unfortunately, not all organizations see positive outcomes from their leadership development programs, despite the global market exceeding $81 billion a year.

Post-pandemic, it's clear that this investment often fails to deliver expected results. So what's the issue, and more importantly, how can we solve it?

Image by fahribaabdullah14 from Pixabay

Too Many Leaders Aren’t Prepared

One of the biggest red flags about leadership development I’ve seen recently comes from the Josh Bersin Company. Their two-year study of corporate leadership programs found that just one out of four companies believes their leadership training efforts are delivering high value. Additionally, only 24% of companies say their development model is relevant and up-to-date. This is alarming—and also not an outlier.

You don’t have to look far to find other indicators that leadership development programs are falling short. I’ve seen in my own work that far too many managers are promoted not because they’re ready to lead, but because there’s an operational need. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), an international HR association based in London, calls managers who have not had formal leadership training "accidental managers."

It gets worse. CIPD also found that these ill-prepared managers are driving employees away—specifically, one in three employees who quit. And 84% of respondents in a study by the Society for Human Resource Management said poorly trained managers create stress and extra work. Might this help explain why less than one-third of U.S. employees feel they are engaged at work?

I believe that a lack of training and preparation for leadership roles is also damaging managers’ mental health—to devastating effect regarding their performance. More than half of managers feel burned out. It’s time for this to change.

5 Key Steps For Change

Clearly, the leadership development industry as a whole needs a shakedown. We must rethink how we approach our work. That imperative has been top-of-mind for both me and my company as we have responded to pandemic-driven changes in the business environment while simultaneously developing our own leadership development platform. Here are five of our key learnings, based on both our own experiences and current research:

1. Mental health comes first.

Even before leadership development, prioritize enhancing your managers’ well-being. No training program can be truly effective if the participants are at their breaking point with stress, fatigue and burnout.

2. Expand access to leadership development.

As Josh Bersin puts it: "Leadership is now everyone’s job. The new employee or first-line manager who’s leading a project to save money or analyze the sales team is now a leader. What education, training and perspectives have you given this person?"

When only a few employees get access to leadership development, your organization misses out on what others could potentially contribute. Even small improvements across a larger number of employees can have a big impact.

3. Increase the relevance of training.

Leadership development is not "one size fits all." You can’t just throw a huge online content library at your employees and expect them to figure out what they need. Instead, look for programs you can customize according to both organizational goals and your employees’ needs.

4. Leverage the power of connection.

Your employees have so much wisdom to share with each other, but mentorship, sponsorship and peer learning are all underutilized tools when it comes to leadership development. As a bonus, such programs also strengthen connections that may have frayed during the shift to hybrid work.

5. Build learning into every day.

Most of us have had the experience of going to a development workshop or event, learning things we’re excited about—but then never putting that knowledge into action. Studies have found that if we don’t apply what we’ve learned within a day or two, then we’ll forget most of it. It’s more effective to take even a little time every day to learn and then start trying out that new knowledge right away.

Final Thoughts

I’ll end with a call to action. Think about the current state of leadership at your own organization. What’s happening with your leadership development programs? And how effective are your managers and leaders?

Now, more than ever, companies must invest wisely in their leaders and empower them to drive meaningful change in the ever-evolving business landscape. The future depends on it.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com. To read more of my contributions to Forbes Coaches Council, click here.

Are You Leveraging Your Coaching Skills?

In the past few years, we’ve seen a big shift in expectations for leaders. Previously, leadership largely followed a “command and control” model. Leaders figured out what to do and told others to do it. But today we value a new kind of leader — one who’s skilled at coaching employees to find their own solutions.

“Increasingly, coaching is becoming integral to the fabric of a learning culture—a skill that good managers at all levels need to develop and deploy,” Herminia Ibarra of London Business School and leadership trainer Anne Scoular wrote in Harvard Business Review.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Honing your coaching skills benefits your team members and the organization as a whole, as well as your own career path. (In fact, we believe so strongly in the power of coaching that we created the New Lens app to make coaching easier for leaders and more accessible to employees at all levels.) In today’s article, I’ll help you assess where you are now with your coaching skills and how you can coach more frequently and more effectively.

How Coaching Pays Off

As an executive coach myself, I can tell you that coaching delivers real results, including:

• Greater self-awareness

• Improved critical thinking skills

• Less turnover (94% of employees would stay longer at a company that helps them learn)

• Improved engagement and motivation

But providing regular coaching can be a challenge for managers. With recent workforce cuts at many companies, schedules are tight. Furthermore, according to Chief Learning Officer, managers may lack the skills to be effective coaches: “Most managers are hired or promoted based on their tenure with the organization or past experience in non-managerial roles. They’re chosen based on legacy rather than skills. They may have what it takes to run the business, but they often lack the ability to support, motivate and empower a team.”

The Definition of Coaching

To strengthen your coaching skills, let’s take a look at how often you’re currently coaching. To do that, we have to first understand what coaching is — and isn’t.

The International Coaching Foundation defines coaching others as “a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”

This definition of coaching from tennis coach Timothy Gallwey also applies to coaching in the workplace: “"Coaching is unlocking a person's potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them."

Many of the common interactions we have with our reports do not qualify as coaching, including:

• Telling someone exactly what to do.

• Giving them advice on what to do.

• Offering them performance feedback.

Instead, coaching is more about listening and asking powerful open-ended questions to help someone else challenge their thinking, broaden their perspective and get unstuck.

Based on these definitions, how are you doing as a coach to your direct reports? How often are you asking coaching questions vs. giving directions or providing feedback?

Listen and Ask Questions

Now let’s think about how you can coach more frequently. A good starting point is to keep an eye out for coachable moments as they arise during your day. You don’t have to coach constantly. It’s not the right solution in every situation. For example, in a high-risk, high-visibility scenario, it’s probably safer to give direct instructions in the moment and then coach later.

When you identify good opportunities for coaching, remember to practice active listening. Pay attention to what your direct report is really communicating and don’t just wait for your chance to talk. By listening deeply, you can identify questions that can help employees develop their own solutions. A common mistake here is to ask leading questions that are more about nudging the person to the solution you would choose. Instead, your questions should sound more like these:

• “What’s most important to you about this issue?”

• “What problem are you really trying to solve?”

• “What have you tried already, and what did you learn from that?”

A New Way to Coach

In addition to the coaching you provide, you can also look for other ways to offer your team members more coaching. Technology now makes the benefits of coaching more accessible than ever. Our New Lens app, for example, can supplement your own coaching with content that’s targeted to common situations we’ve seen our clients face. Schedule a demo now.

Your Theme Words for 2023

Earlier this month, I shared with you my theme word for 2023: fun! And I’m having a lot of fun hearing about your 2023 theme words. I love the variety and the inspiration I’m finding in all of your thoughtful intentions.

Image by Annette Meyer from Pixabay

If you’ve chosen your theme word, keep the momentum going by choosing the one or two next actions you will take to bring your theme to life. Remember, you don’t have to figure out the whole year at once. Trying to do so just ends up being overwhelming. Once you complete those first couple of steps, then you can identify a couple more.

If you haven’t chosen a theme word for 2023 yet, it’s not too late to set the tone for the rest of the year. Maybe the responses here will spark an idea for you. (You can also still share your 2023 theme word with me and other members of the Newberry Executive Solutions community.)

My theme word of this year is grace. I’m going to work at going out of my way to give compassion, kindness and love throughout 2023.

• Susan Asimakis

Joyful! I want to have a joyful life and do things that bring me joy. When I do things that bring me joy, I attract joy. Joyful!

• Nicole DiRocco

Emerge.

– Yvonne Evers

My theme word for the year is opportunity. I want to open myself to all the possibilities in life and work. I want to do things differently than I have before and see every risk as a reward.

• Jeannie Gardner

I so love this exercise. I've chosen a word for the last several years. And this year, it's actually an acronym: #THINK2023. I want to think more so that my responses are:

Thoughtful
Helpful
Inspiring
Nice
Kind

— Renee Hansen

Mine is growth. Keeping a growth mindset in terms of new opportunities, personal development, building new relationships, turning lemons into lemonade. Here's to growth for all in 2023!

• Sally Siegel

Mine is gratitude.

• Beth Spinda

My word is investment: putting in the work now and seeing benefits later.

— Amina Thomas

Together, we can turn our intentions for 2023 into reality. As always, we’re here to support you with Newberry Executive Solutions’ services and self-paced tools. Our newest solution, the award-winning New Lens app, integrates the essential elements of a successful leadership development program for today’s workplace. New Lens draws on decades of in-the-field learning working with business leaders, a track record of success helping over 75% of our clients get promoted, and an approach that is affordable, scalable and customizable. We would love to see if it can help you. Schedule a demo now.

Leadership Development for a Changing World

It’s been only a couple of years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. But it feels like we’ve all gone through at least a couple of decades’ worth of change since then.

Through our work with some of the world’s top companies, we at Newberry Solutions have seen firsthand the effect of this upheaval and uncertainty on organizations and the leaders who drive their success.

What we are all experiencing is nothing less than a transformation in how we work and what organizations are asking of their leaders. As our work environment dramatically changes, so, too, must leadership development.

That’s why we’re excited to share with you our response to these new challenges. “Leadership Development for a Changing World” is a white paper that explains why and how your leadership development efforts must evolve.

We’re eager to hear your feedback and questions after you read the report. Please feel free to tag me in your LinkedIn posts about this report or contact us directly at info@newlensleadership.com. At the heart of all we do is our passionate belief that leaders can change the world when we cultivate their full potential. And that’s what we hope this white paper empowers you to do. Start reading now at https://www.newberrysolutions.com/white-paper.

Flexible Work Schedules: The Unwritten Rules — 2022 Update

I first published this article about how to lead successfully when you have a flexible work schedule almost three years ago. Of course, a lot has changed since then! The pandemic dramatically accelerated the trend toward flexible scheduling. What hasn’t changed are the “unwritten rules” for sending the right messages about your leadership when you are working a flexible schedule. Today, I want to update my strategies on how you can do that in our dramatically reshaped work environment.

Demands for Flexibility Grow

When I originally wrote this article, it was already becoming clear that flexible scheduling was on the rise and that it was especially important to women. One study found that having flexible hours reduced the wage gap between working moms and women who don't have children. We were also starting to see how flexible schedules support women's ambitions. At companies with flexible work arrangements, more high-potential women aspire to the senior executive/CEO level compared with firms without such arrangements.

Since the pandemic, professionals, especially women, have been loud and clear in voicing their desire for flexible work schedules. One survey found that two-thirds of employees would consider changing jobs if they had to go back to the office full time. Harvard Business Review calls flexibility the “key to retaining women.”

But while women want flexibility at work, we also can feel hesitancy about taking advantage of it. Many women worry that nontraditional working arrangements will keep them from getting promoted.

So how can we balance the benefits of flexible work schedules with being an effective leader?

Managing Assumptions and Expectations

Working fully or partially from home and working unconventional hours have become more common and more accepted during the pandemic. But that doesn’t mean everyone is on board.

You may still run into others' perceptions of what a typical workday should look like and what it says about you when you're doing something different.

During my last executive role at Deloitte, I incorporated some informal flexibility into my schedule. Some of my team members were in different time zones, and I had a 2-year-old son at home. So, it made sense for me to leave the office a little earlier in the afternoon, go home to spend some time with my son and then do some more work after he went to bed.

This was great for managing both my personal and professional priorities. But because of my after-hours emails, some of my team members, especially those in other cities, thought I worked nonstop and all the time. Even worse, they thought I expected them to keep similar long hours, which just wasn't the case.

The Hidden Messages in After-Hours Emails

As I discovered, when people get an email from you that has a time stamp that is outside regular business hours, it raises questions. I remember discussing this with a couple of clients, one who often works a few hours late at night and the other who starts before her small children wake up, often sending her first emails before 7 a.m.

Neither of these clients feels overworked or overwhelmed. In fact, they are well in control of their schedules and are far from burnout. But the optics of their email habits convey a different message to people who don’t understand their schedules. Their team members may assume (as my former colleagues did) that they:

• Are constantly checking email

• Expect their teams to work well beyond regular business hours

• Are approaching burnout and are up at all hours working

• Can’t effectively manage their workload, delegate or ask for help

If you put yourself in others’ shoes for a minute and reflect about your own behavior, what might it say to people about you?

Communicate Clearly About Your Schedule

Especially as we continue to experience an unpredictable work environment, don't leave it to others to draw their own conclusions about your capabilities or your stress level. Consider proactively sharing how the strategies you’ve implemented increase your productivity and effectiveness as a leader. Remember that most people have difficulty working in a way that is sustainable and sharing your approach may give them permission to start making changes.

That's what I did with my colleagues at Deloitte. When I realized that they thought I never unplugged, I knew that I needed to explain my approach and “connect the dots” for them. I told them that I wasn't always working — and that I didn't expect them to, either. I also encouraged them to adapt their schedules to fit their own needs (as long as business needs were also met).

But sometimes you may have to tweak your approach to better fit the culture. For example, if you frequently send emails outside of normal business hours, you may inadvertently set an expectation that others have to change the hours they work to accommodate you. So, unless it’s urgent, I suggest that you save your draft emails to send during business hours. This will reinforce your commitment to everyone working in a way that honors their personal and professional priorities. With burnout on the rise, that’s something your team really needs.

I want to challenge you to take 5-10 minutes to identify the assumptions people may be making about you, based on how you work. Are they taking away the right messages about your leadership? 

If you’re looking for ways that your organization can develop and support leaders as they navigate the challenges of hybrid work, I invite you to schedule a demo of my New Lens app. Unlike traditional approaches, New Lens makes learning digestible through bite-sized lessons that employees can access whenever and wherever they work.

3 Ways to Build Your Personal Leadership Brand

A couple of years ago, many of us were adapting to remote work. Now we’re experiencing another period of transition. Some organizations are bringing employees back to the office full or part time. Others are making remote-work arrangements permanent. Whether you are working at the office, at home or some combination of the two, now is a good time to notice the messages you are sending other people about your personal leadership brand. 

Photo by Rebrand Cities

We tend to overlook that while we know everything we’re saying or doing at work, others don't have a full picture of what our performance looks like. They just see little snapshots of us here and there. Today, I want you to think about the snapshots that you're showing other people and how you can be more strategic about them.

1. Pay Attention to Your Body Language

Effective leaders know that body language is key to executive presence. What are you saying without speaking a word?

Working at the office: If you’ve been working remotely, you may not think much about your body language outside of video calls. But now that you are back in the office, remember that leaders are always in the “invisible spotlight.” People pay attention even when you think they are not. 

If, for example, you’re sitting in a meeting with an intense expression and arms folded, others might think you are closed off and unreceptive.  Or if you’re always rushing around the office, others could assume that you can’t handle what’s on your plate. 

As you return to the office, pay special attention to your body language and whether it conveys the messages you want to send about your personal leadership brand. This might take some extra effort at first, but should soon become second nature again.

Working from home: Your body language sends messages even through video calls. Have you fallen into any bad habits, like scheduling back-to-back Zoom meetings that leave you feeling drained? Take some time this week to focus on what your energy level looks like (slouching, yawning, difficulty focusing) and how that impacts the perception of your engagement and confidence. 

Having the right chair, desk and computer setup in your home office makes it easier to manage physical fatigue from sitting and will help you maintain a polished and professional posture on video calls. Take time to evaluate what you need.

2. Focus on Eye Contact

Eye contact is an aspect of nonverbal communication that deserves special attention. We automatically look at others’ eyes to figure out what they’re thinking and feeling and whether we can trust them.

Working at the office: If you frequently look at your phone when talking to others, it could convey a lack of interest and respect. Looking down or away can imply low confidence. On the other hand, holding direct eye contact for too long can feel intimidating.

So, what’s the right amount of eye contact to enhance your personal leadership brand? Researchers from Michigan State University recommend maintaining eye contact 50% of the time when you are speaking and 70% of the time when you are listening.

Working from home: It’s easy to forget about the importance of eye contact when you’re interacting with others on video calls instead of in person. But it still makes a big difference in how others perceive you.

Look into your webcam when speaking. When you’re listening, it’s more obvious than you might think when you sneak a peek at another screen. If the other screen is brighter, the lighting changes on your face. And if you wear glasses, they may even see the reflection of the other screen and know that you’re not paying full attention to the meeting. If you do need to look at another screen (for example, to find an email that’s relevant to the conversation), you can let others know what you’re doing so that they don’t assume you’re multitasking.

3. Be Intentional About Your Appearance

Think about the people you know who always look put together. That becomes part of their leadership brand and something that distinguishes them. How are you leveraging your appearance?

Working at the office: Are you getting used to waking up earlier and commuting again? It can be a tough transition. Give yourself enough time in the morning to get ready. Showing up at the office half-baked won’t exactly inspire confidence in your abilities.

As you head back to the office, you may also discover that your work clothes from a couple of years ago don’t fit as well or look dated. You can use this as an opportunity to evaluate your business wardrobe and align it with your personal brand as a leader. Do you want to show others that you’re creative, innovative, or ready for a promotion? You can reinforce these qualities in how you dress, accessorize, or style your hair.

Working at home: Part of presenting yourself professionally is understanding the norms of your organization, which may be different for video meetings vs. in-person work.  Look to your managers for clues about the new “dress code.” For example, perhaps you and your colleagues previously wore suits at the office. But now your managers wear polos or button-down shirts or blouses for video meetings, but not T-shirts. Use that information to guide your choices.

You can also look more professional during video calls by improving your home-office setup. Quality lighting helps you look more awake and energized. The distance you sit from your camera can also affect how you look.

Like it or not, the way you present yourself plays a big role in how others perceive your personal leadership brand. But it's also one of the easiest areas to make positive changes – and you can have fun with it. What is one step you will take this week to be more deliberate about the snapshots that you show other people?

Want more strategies like these? This article was adapted from our New Lens app for leadership development. New Lens delivers bite-size lessons and immediately useful action steps so that you can make learning a part of even the busiest workdays. Schedule your demo now.

4 Questions to Take You Into 2022

Annually on this blog, I share a series of questions that can have a profound effect on how you move forward into the new year. Consistently, I hear from both my coaching clients and my readers that this simple exercise yields big insights with just a brief time investment. Whether you answer these questions each year with me, or if this is your first time reading them, I hope that they’ll create “aha” moments and positive momentum as we head into 2022. All you need are a few distraction-free minutes (as little as 10 should do the job) and a pen and paper. (Yes, you can use your computer if you want, but you'll get the most out of this exercise if you write your answers out by hand.)

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

1. What Did You Learn About Your Leadership in 2021?

If there’s one thing we can say about the past couple of years, it’s that they’ve put us to the test. What have you observed about yourself amid the challenges of 2021?

2. What Did You Learn from Other Leaders?

You can learn a lot about the kind of leader you want to be — and the kind you don’t want to be — from the other leaders around you.

3. What Do You Want to Take Forward Into 2022?

Want to know a surprisingly common mistake that many high-performing leaders make? They don’t pause often enough to notice the results they’re creating and how they create those results. When you understand how you accomplish what you do, you can put your own personal best practices into play more deliberately — and help others leverage them. What were your wins in 2021? How did you make them happen? And how can you use those same strategies to achieve your 2022 goals?

4. What Do You Want to Leave Behind?

The end of the year is a good time to think about any setbacks, mistakes, conflicts or big changes that you find yourself dwelling on. Sometimes we can stay stuck in frustration even as we push ourselves to move forward and be more resilient. But resilience doesn’t mean simply powering through. Instead, it requires delving into our thoughts and feelings and taking a look at successes and failures – so we can learn from them and make different choices. My article “Why Can’t I Get Over This?” has some strategies you can use to get past any stumbling blocks you want to leave in 2021.

Planning for Next Year?

As the year winds down, arm yourself and your team with easy-to-use, high impact tools. If you haven’t already, check out the New Lens® app to start getting results immediately without breaking the budget.

This is my last blog article of 2021, and I want to thank all of you for reading this year. I’ll be back in the new year with more resources to help you accomplish what’s important to you.

Women Leaders Shine at Two Events

As a board member for Texas Women’s Foundation, I’m passionate about the organization’s mission to make Texas a better place for women and girls. These past few weeks, it’s been especially exciting to be part of the foundation, thanks to two events that addressed some of the major challenges of our times.

Leadership Forum & Awards

On April 29, TWF presented its Leadership Forum & Awards Celebration to celebrate the impact of women leaders across Texas.

The keynote speaker was Adriana Gascoigne, the founder and CEO of Girls in Tech, a nonprofit organization that empowers, educates and engages women in the tech industry.

Gascoigne talked about how we've lost 50 years in gains for women during the pandemic. The time to invest in women is now. She also shared research from her organization about the tech industry. Findings include a high rate of burnout among women with male bosses.

Gascoigne left her audience with this advice:

• Every failure is an opportunity to learn and build resilience. Fail fast and be open to change.

• Keep your voice. Find your passion and purpose and stick with them.

• Partner with the right people and get advocates.

Congratulations to co-chairs Hattie Hill and Jana Etheridge for this meaningful and valuable event. I also want to extend warm congratulations to the award honorees: Trisha Cunningham, Jin-Ya Huang, Rani Puranik, Judy Treviño, Cheryl Polote Williamson, Diana Mao and Kim Roxie.

Orchid Giving Circle POWER Leadership Forum

Orchid Giving Circle at Texas Women’s Foundation is an Asian sisterhood that provides grants and fosters philanthropy primarily within and for the North Texas Asian community. On May 7, the Circle hosted the POWER Leadership Forum. I was honored to be on the planning committee for this event and to serve as one of the conversation leaders. Sponsors also receive access to my New Lens® app. I’m excited to share that we had almost 600 attendees and 100% of the funds will go to nonprofit organizations.

One key component of the forum was the Fireside Chat with Anne Chow, CEO of AT&T Business. Anne addressed the recent rise in bias against Asian Americans. A few of her key points:

• Asian Americans are often talked about as the “model minority” (successful, overachievers). Remember to lean on the power of your core cultural values — to serve, achieve and perform.

• We have to take care of ourselves. Have people in your life with who you can talk to truthfully. Let it out.

• We all own a part of helping each other be better.  We all have biases. Start with yourself by understanding and reframing your own biases.

Anne also talked about how to manage your energy in challenging times:

• It’s not about achieving work/life balance. Balance is bogus — you have one life to live; not separate personal and professional lives.  In your time-pressed life, focus on the quality of time you spend with others, not the quantity.  Optimize your life to the success measures that you define.

• We all face choice points about where to put our time and energy. When you are making a choice, think about whether it is a “no do-over” moment  — one when you or the other person would always remember that you weren’t there. 

• No one needs to know what your “no do-over” moments are or should tell you what they should be.  You can frame it as an “immovable commitment.”

• Science shows that we are not truly happy unless we are helping others. Pick your head up, get involved in your community, and lift others up.

I also appreciated the takeaways from other panelists:

• Be intentional with your time. Manage your moments.

• Ask for what you need; wish out loud.

• Do not just focus on tasks; take time to consistently invest in relationships.

• Learn from your mistakes and quickly move forward.

• Strategically use your energy.

• Your voice matters, especially during this challenging time for the Asian community.

• Volunteering in the community is a way to grow your skills in a safe environment and build your network of influence.

I hope that you’ll consider joining in Texas Women’s Foundation’s work to drive change for women. To learn more about donating or volunteering, visit the Get Involved page on the organization’s website.

[Podcast] Building a Change Mindset

Patti and I dive into how we think about change – right where our ability to navigate uncertainty begins. I share strategies from my experience helping leaders work through the craziness of 2020, cancer treatment during a pandemic, and creating a successful business.

Listen to the podcast here...

One Thing Video Series: Is Stress Affecting Your Relationships?

For busy professionals, prolonged stress affects how we show up for others, both at work and at home. And who isn't experiencing consistent stress these days? In my latest One Thing You Can Do video, I talk about protecting yourself, and your relationships, from stress.

One Thing Video Series: Get More Visibility for Your Accomplishments

Are you getting the recognition you deserve for all of the great work you are accomplishing? If not, my latest One Thing You Can Do video will teach you one of my top strategies for increasing your visibility.

One Thing Video Series: Do You Practice What You Preach?

Do your team members take your feedback to heart? If you're not noticing the changes you'd like to see, consider whether you're modeling the behaviors you want your direct reports to show. I explain more about the importance of "practicing what you preach" in my latest One Thing You Can Do video.

Want to Be More Productive? Pause

Over the past week, I coached at least four high-performing leaders on the importance of carving out time for critical work. Although they know this matters, they are having difficulty making it happen.

For example, one client told me that he regularly blocks time on his calendar, but when the dedicated time slot rolls around, something interesting happens. Instead of tackling the work he intended to complete, he starts responding to emails.

So why is he getting bogged down in email when he knows it’s not the biggest priority?  The answer is simple: He is tired — and the critical work he should do is mentally taxing. 

Reducing the size of his email inbox still makes him feel productive — like he did accomplish something. But he knows that he is sabotaging his own effectiveness. To change this pattern, he has to go beyond blocking time on his calendar to address his underlying mental fatigue.

In my last blog article, I shared the importance of putting a little breathing room in your schedule, especially if your level of busyness has reached new heights in this crazy  environment. Today we’ll build on that idea. Once you have more capacity in your schedule, how can you use it to lead more effectively?

What Kind of Break Do You Need?

High performers often instinctively respond to stressful times by doing, doing, doing. But here's an important distinction: Being in motion does not necessarily mean that you're moving forward.

None of us are built to work nonstop. In fact, researchers say we need a pause about every 90 minutes so that our brains can consolidate information. After reading my last article, I hope you identified some strategies to integrate more pauses into your day.

So, how should you use your break? Start by checking in with yourself. During busy days, you can easily lose touch with how you are really feeling. Emotional intelligence — knowing what's going on internally for you and taking effective action based on that self-understanding — is key to being an effective leader.

On your next break, simply notice what’s going on for you physically and mentally. What’s your stress level? How connected do you feel? What’s your level of energy and engagement?

Once you realize how you're doing, you’ll know the type of break that will help you the most. If you've been on back-to-back calls, a walk to get some fresh air, stretching or deep breathing and quiet might be the most restorative things you can do. On the other hand, if you've had your head down doing complex work on your own, you might want something more interactive, like checking in with family or friends or a quick conversation. One size does not fit all, so do what works best for you. 

The Proactive Pause

Be intentional about how you use breaks to refocus your time and energy. In other words, determine where you can have the biggest impact on the business and redirect your time accordingly. When you're “in the weeds,” you may not notice anything beyond what's right in front of you: your next email, meeting or fire drill.

Even taking just 10 minutes to reflect can boost your productivity and effectiveness. Use these questions to get started:

• How well does my calendar align with what’s most critical?

• If my calendar is out of sync, what can I delegate, defer or stop doing?

• Which critical meetings do I need to prepare for in the next two weeks?

• What issues or obstacles should I prioritize and proactively manage?

• Whom do I need to check in with? How in tune am I with my manager and team?

To get more done in less time, use some of the breaks in your schedule to proactively reflect.

What's Coming Up

So far, we've worked through two big steps toward developing a more sustainable approach to work during these stressful times:

1. Create capacity in your schedule for breaks.

2. Use those breaks to restore yourself mentally and to reconnect to what matters most.

In my next article, I'll help you clear a mental block that's making a lot of high performers unproductive and even unhappy right now. In the meantime, I invite you to explore my self-paced tools that will help you keep growing as a leader no matter how busy you are.

One Thing Video Series: How Are You Showing Up?

Your presence — the way you show up with others — is one of the key parts of your personal brand as a leader. The unpredictability of our world and our work lives today can affect how you show up. In my latest One Thing You Can Do video, I'll give you a few ideas for making sure that the way you're coming across reflects how you want others to see you.

How to Stop 'Getting By' and Start Leading Strategically

Back in March, the global pandemic upended the way we work. For most of us, this initially felt like a short-term crisis. So we dug in to power through.

But now, almost five months later, you might be stuck in this mode — which damages both your executive presence and your career prospects.

As the deep shifts in our work lives continue, we have to find a more sustainable approach. Today I'm kicking off a new series of blog articles to help you pause, reconnect with the bigger picture and be the leader you want to be even in the most challenging of times.

At Home, We're Working More 

As an executive coach, I'm seeing too many leaders right now who are packing their calendars, working at all hours and saying "yes" to everything.

What's driving this? Cuts and restructuring at many organizations are leaving fewer people to do the same amount of work (or even more). There's also a new urgency around showing your value in order to protect your job.

At the same time, working from home is making our jobs more logistically challenging and blurring the lines between our work and personal lives.

When Microsoft recently studied its own newly remote workforce, it discovered some dramatic changes in how employees were working:

• Time spent in meetings each week rose by 10%.

• Using instant messaging activity as an indicator, Microsoft found that employees were working more during lunch and evenings. Weekend work also grew.

• Also based on instant messaging, managers' workload has grown more than that of individual contributors.

• All of this adds up to a workweek that, on average, is about four hours longer.

Are You Neglecting Strategy?

This relentless pace has consequences. You might think that your hard work makes you a team player. But constantly focusing on the tactical vs. the strategic actually reduces the value you create as a leader. If you're always "putting out fires," you have less time for your truly important work, such as tracking what's going on with your team, motivating and engaging your team members and managing up with your bosses.

Remember also that, as a leader, you are always in the "invisible spotlight." Others are constantly drawing conclusions about your leadership based on what they observe. As working from home eliminates our in-person interactions, your virtual executive presence takes on greater weight. So think about what messages you are conveying by, for example, sending a lot of after-hours emails or arriving late to Zoom calls because you were in another video meeting.

Give Yourself Some Space

It's time to start thinking beyond just getting through these unprecedented times. How can you do so in a way that shows others that you are a strong leader and that sets the stage for your future success?

The first step is simply freeing up some more capacity in your schedule. To do so, take a moment to think about the most important work you need to be doing right now. Has it changed recently? Do you need to adjust your schedule to shift more time toward your top priorities?

Next, think about what you can get off of your plate. Are there meetings you can cancel or decline? Can you turn a one-hour meeting into a 30-minute one? Can you delegate more? Adding even a few minutes back into your day can provide some relief if you're feeling frenzied and overscheduled.

In my next article, I'll show you how to make the most of the capacity you've restored to your schedule. In the meantime, I invite you to explore my self-paced tools that will help you keep growing as a leader no matter how busy you are.

Are You Waiting for Things to Get 'Back to Normal'?

A lot of high performers have been pushing hard lately, figuring that they'll catch their breath when things get "back to normal."

If that sounds like you, I want you to pause for a moment and reconsider your approach. The seismic changes we are all experiencing continue to unfold. Since "no normal is the new normal," what does that mean for the way you work and live?

This Is a Year Like No Other

When we're so busy with day-to-day tasks, it's easy to forget everything that's changed in just the past 12 or so weeks.

Covid-19, which was declared a pandemic on March 11, may have you worried about your own health or the health of loved ones. You may have also experienced profound changes at work. The economic impact of the pandemic has spurred furloughs and layoffs. With those cuts, people who still have jobs face heavier workloads. Many of us also began working from home — while simultaneously caring for our kids all day as schools closed.

And then, in the midst of the pandemic, George Floyd's death set off protests, civil unrest and a national reckoning with racism. If you are a Black American, you may have felt more anxiety and depression. On the business front, many organizations are making changes to better support diversity. (And some have faced public allegations of racism.)

That's a lot! As people have been pointing out on social media, it's like we're experiencing the 1918 flu epidemic, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s all at once.

Are You Stuck in Crisis Mode?

Understandably, a lot of us have been working in crisis mode — or "just trying to get through."

The problem with that approach is that it’s not sustainable with all that is going on. Some states (including Texas, where I live) have seen a surge in coronavirus cases. We're also seeing a new wave of layoffs. For those still employed, working from home remains widespread, and work-life balance is suffering. And while some districts plan to reopen schools this fall, it's far from certain how that will happen and the changes it will require. At the same time, the protests sparked by George Floyd's death continue, and new incidents (like the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks) further increase tensions.

The bottom line? "Normal" might be a long way off. You might be used to simply powering through short-term crises at work. But that isn't sustainable during this period of ongoing change. As an executive coach, I'm seeing a lot of fatigue among high performers who are relentlessly pushing themselves.

Strategies to Accept and Adapt

If you're feeling exhausted, here are some strategies to avoid burnout:

• Focus on the present. None of us can predict the changes and disruption that are ahead of us.

• Use your body to change your mind. Activities like physical exercise, dancing to music you love, singing, playing with your kids, or doing things that make you laugh can be very effective.

• Be kind to yourself. For example, if you always push for perfection in your work, ease the pressure. Your "good enough" may be more than good enough right now.

• We’ve all had moments of irritation and impatience. It’s totally understandable. Find constructive ways to release the negativity so that you don't unleash it on others. Start by pulling the thoughts and feelings out of your head (uncensored) and onto a piece of paper. You’ll be surprised at how well this works.

• Reflect about what you really need. What have you learned from the past few weeks about your own tendencies in this “new normal”? And what does that mean you should stop, start, or keep doing?

• Give yourself a break. Maybe you have to defer your dream summer vacation but can you find another way to recharge? A day trip or just taking a few days off, even if you just stay at home, might do the trick. If nothing else, deliberately add breaks into your back-to-back work schedule.

You can't control what happens next in this tumultuous year but you can make choices to improve your mindset and reenergize. This week, identify one thing you will do better navigate the new normal. My self-paced tools may help you navigate some of the challenges you are facing.

One Thing Video Series - Giving Yourself Permission

In my latest One Thing You Can Do video, we’ll take a look at how all the change of the past 12+ weeks has affected you and how to move forward.

One Thing Video Series - When Things Don't Go as Planned

When life isn't going as planned, there's one question you can ask yourself that will change everything. In my latest One Thing You Can Do video, I explain how to use this transformative question.

One Thing Video Series - Maximize the Opportunities in Front of You

How much are you noticing and maximizing the unique opportunities in front of you? Choose from three quick strategies in the next installment of One Thing You Can Do.

One Thing Video Series - Vulnerability as a leadership tool

Do you really need to be strong all the time? Tap into the power of vulnerability as a leadership tool. It will pave the way to a stronger relationship with your team.