Category Archives: Success & Leadership
Life Lessons from NFL Official #53 (the Only One Who Wears Mascara)
Many female firsts are lifetime dreams come true. But some are more a matter of chance, the happenstance of finding something you’re good at when barriers are coming down. The latter was the case for Sarah Thomas, the first woman to be an NFL official. “I was working as a paralegal when my older brother said one day that he was going to a football officials’ meeting,” she recalls. “I … [ more ]
How She Got There: Micho Spring’s Path to Becoming Chair of Global Corporate Practice and New England for Weber Shandwick
Take a young woman coming of age in the 60s, when many careers were closed to her gender. Mix in political awareness from having fled communist Cuba as a child and add courage and flexibility from forging a new life with her family in New York. What you get: a college dropout, a 31-year-old deputy mayor of Boston, a top executive at one of the largest communications firms in the … [ more ]
Podcast | Be Noticed as a Real Leader
Click Play below to listen Leadership isn’t about a job title—it’s about action, commitment and will. In this 30-minute teleclass, Courtney Lynch, a founding partner of Lead Star and co-author of Leading from the Front, discusses the seven key behaviors that effective managers embrace. Listen for the encouragement and motivation you need to step up and stand out—and be tapped for bigger roles with the responsibility you crave. Podcast: Play in new … [ more ]
Podcast | Harness the Power of Your Relationships
Click Play below to listen. To be effective today, you need something that leadership strategist Erica Dhawan calls “connectional intelligence.” In 30 minutes, Dhawan, co-author of Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence, explains how to connect better and faster and use the skill to innovate growth • solve highly complex challenges • marshal resources and tap informal knowledge networks • and maximize your potential. Podcast: Play in … [ more ]
Free Teleclass | Be Noticed as a Real Leader
Be Noticed as a Real Leader Tuesday, February 28, 2017 12:00-12:30 pm Leadership isn’t about a job title—it’s about action, commitment and will. In this 30-minute teleclass, Courtney Lynch, a founding partner of Lead Star and co-author of Leading from the Front, will talk about the seven key behaviors that effective managers embrace. She will then provide the encouragement and motivation you need to step up and stand out—and be … [ more ]
Kara Swisher on Taking Risks and Having No Regrets
If there’s one thing you notice right off the bat about Kara Swisher, it’s that the executive editor of Recode does not mince words. It could be because she doesn’t have time to run circles around her meaning, but the more she speaks her mind, the more you realize that the tech journalist is simply a straight shooter. Yet Swisher is as insightful as she is direct, and the … [ more ]
Free Teleclass | Harness the Power of Your Relationships
Harness the Power of Your Relationships Tuesday, January 31, 2017 12:00-12:30 pm To be effective today, you need something that leadership strategist Erica Dhawan calls “connectional intelligence.” In 30 minutes, Dhawan, co-author of Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence, will explain how to connect better and faster and use the skill to innovate growth • solve highly complex challenges • marshal resources and tap informal knowledge networks … [ more ]
The Costly Mistake You May Be Making as a Boss
When you’re busy and under pressure, you might speak tersely, forget to smile and skip other niceties when interacting with your team. You think it’s obvious that you’re just trying to get things done, but your direct reports probably feel differently. “Most rude bosses don’t know how they’re coming across because they don’t intend to treat their employees poorly,” says Christine Porath, a professor of management at Georgetown University and … [ more ]
The Secret to Having a Life You Love
If you wish your life had more meaning, you probably think you’d need to go on an Eat-Pray-Love-esque quest to find it. And who has time for that? But the idea that meaning can be found only on ashrams or mountaintops is a cultural myth, says Emily Esfahani Smith, author of The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters.“There are sources of meaning all around us,” she explains. “They … [ more ]
Podcast | Broadcasting Happiness: Simple, Proven Strategies to Increase Happiness at Work
Click Play below to listen. Effective, positive communication is the single biggest driver of success at work. In this 30-minute teleclass, Michelle Gielan, author of Broadcasting Happiness and a former CBS Morning News anchor, will share her simple, yet scientifically based strategies to: inoculate your brain against stress and negativity • make impactful verbal and non-verbal changes to your leadership style • fuel performance in others through high-impact praise • … [ more ]
Free Teleclass | Broadcasting Happiness: Simple, Proven Strategies to Increase Happiness at Work
Broadcasting Happiness: Simple, Proven Strategies to Improve Happiness at Work Tuesday, December 20, 2016 12:00-12:30pm Central
Office Holiday Party Tips
What do you get when you take 15 years of working as a user experience designer for companies such as Google and Yahoo and combine them with keen powers of people-watching and a razor-sharp wit? Answer: Sarah Cooper’s book 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings: How to Get By Without Even Trying and her blog TheCooperReview. Of course, it’s those years of toiling away in corporate America that provide … [ more ]
Update on Happiness (It’s All Good!)
Happiness is largely a choice. That may sound like magical thinking or like what no-guff grandparents meant when they said to buck up, but it’s actually the finding of a field of scientific study called positive psychology. “Many people think they can’t be happy right now because of their biochemistry or their job or life situation, but research has shown that we are not just our genes and environment,” says … [ more ]
Carla Harris on How to Lead and Succeed
When Carla Harris first went to Harvard 30-some years ago, she had two beliefs that she ended up adjusting. The first was that Harris, now a vice chairman and managing director at Morgan Stanley, would be a lawyer. The second: that only her professors would have things to teach her. “I actually learned as much from my classmates, who were from all over the country and the world,” she says. … [ more ]
Diane von Furstenberg’s Take-Charge Tips for New Managers
After decades at the helm of the luxury lifestyle brand she founded and years at the head of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Diane von Furstenberg is used to leading. To her, it’s simply “having clarity and tracing a path.” Even so, she says that she’s not perfect at it. “My problem is that I find the good in everything and everyone, and I am an enabler—not great … [ more ]
Mindy Kaling on Her First Job, Worst Job and Being the Boss
During a summer of inordinate hot air (from the election cycle as well as the heat outside), Mindy Kaling’s down-to-earthiness is a welcome cool breeze. When asked about being brave, one of the only women to create, produce, write and star in her own network series—and the only one to put her name in the show’s title—is quick to contextualize her courage. “Have I been brave?” Kaling asks. “I’m not … [ more ]
Three Ways Women Hold Themselves Back
Fifteen years ago, Trudy Bourgeois resigned from her vice president job managing a $3 billion business unit—and walked away from a healthy six-figure salary, country club memberships, first class plane tickets to everywhere for her husband and herself and much, much more. “When I told my mom about my decision, she started to cry,” Bourgeois recalls. “She asked if she needed to get the sisters together to pray. I was … [ more ]
Podcast | What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How to Become More Successful
The corporate world is filled with managers who are intelligent, skilled and even charismatic. But only a handful of them will ever reach the pinnacle. In this 30-minute talk, you’ll learn from executive coach Marshall Goldsmith how “transactional flaws” (something as simple as not saying thank you enough) can hold you back. He’ll then teach you how to change your behavior—it’s amazingly easy—so your career can soar. Click Play below … [ more ]
Have the Best Summer of Your Career
Do less and achieve more. It may sound like a dream rather than a plan for summer, but it’s actually the MO of many highly accomplished people year-round. “Successful people don’t bother with work that isn’t high value or growth oriented,” says Laura Vanderkam, a time-management expert and the author of I Know How She Does It and 168 Hours. “They prioritize, so that what matters most gets done, and … [ more ]
The Truth about Confidence
Women just need to believe in themselves more. That’s often the prescription for righting gender inequities in the workplace. But a big part of the confidence gap is not being addressed, says Janet Crawford, CEO of Cascadance, Inc., an organizational change firm that helps companies address issues of under-representation and create cultures of inclusion. “Low confidence is not an individual phenomenon, but is in part, a general consequence of something … [ more ]