Today’s blog will give you some insight into the workings of The Birkman Method, a behavioral analysis tool that focuses on motivation, self-perception, social perception, and mindset when helping a person identify a desired work path. As a career coach, I regularly use this tool to help teens and adults answer some of their most
How to Find a Good Workplace If You’re a Minority and How to Navigate It Once You Get There
If you’re in the minority, whether that be because of race, sex, gender, or physical ability, for example, supercharge your job search to include not only a challenging position with good pay but also a welcoming workplace conducive to helping you thrive; and have a plan for how you’ll meet your potential once you get
Having Great Leadership Skills: “What’s in It for Me?”
Strong leadership skills can improve many facets of your work experience as well as your organization’s—and your own—potential for long-term success. Whether you aspire to head a Fortune 500 company or to work for higher-ups, it’s good to take advantage of opportunities to improve and expand these skills. Let’s bore down into some WIFMs (what’s
Career Exploration: How to Discover Your Dream Career
An old saying goes, “Man does not eat by bread alone”—in other words, we all need more than basic necessities to thrive. Apply this concept to finding the right career—a journey that involves career exploration, career development, self-development, and self-improvement—and it conveys that we must do more than make good money to be happy in
Why Playing Favorites Makes for Poor Leadership
We’re all human. And as we know, humans are not perfect and can make errors at times. Therefore, being a leader naturally means you may make mistakes of your own. The key here is to avoid falling into certain leadership traps. I’m referring to the type of missteps that can cause heightened workplace turmoil and
The Value and Benefit of Setting Work Benchmarks
As I write this, I’m thinking about a friend who received a poor job review six months into her very first “real” job at 23. This happened after earning an accelerated master’s degree at a top college. My friend is an extremely smart woman, but she was young and never had worked full time. So,
The Best Leaders Temper Their Touch
Being a leader is tough, and many times you have to be tough—in a good way—to make sure the job gets done properly. Circumstances, however, should dictate how tough you should be. It’s not a great thing to be hard all of the time. Sometimes you have to take a light approach to achieve your
Is Your Work Leader A Bully? What You Should Do
Wouldn’t it be a great professional world if all managers respected the employees they supervise? Let’s face it though: Some bosses do not understand what the word “respect” means. It’s unfortunate for them that they have so much to learn about being a leader and challenging for you if that person is who you report
Great Leaders See Their Employees as “Teachers”
In next month’s blog post, I will focus on the all-too-common leadership pitfall of playing favorites. Here, we’ll address another common leadership trap: the notion that you’re responsible for absolute knowledge and, therefore, have nothing to learn from your direct reports. There are many benefits of looking to your employees as “teachers” who positively inform
Look For Leadership at Every Organizational Level
Surprisingly, most employees on the job look to management as the sole “owners” of leadership qualities and behavior. However, the truth is that your job title should never reflect your leadership effort and leadership can and does exist at every organizational level. Simply put, every employee, no matter where they stand on the ladder of
