Over the last week, I’ve given a lot of thought into which client I should highlight as an example of discovering talents. There have been many, all unique, with so many talents to share. I anticipate using this person as an example throughout the process of describing how you discover yourself and match it to the market, so it has been difficult to pick the “best” one. With much thought, I’ve decided to make this example personal. No, I’m not going to describe myself and my journey, but I’m not going to use a paying client either. Instead, I’m going
LESSONS ON LEADERSHIP FROM BOB WOODWARD I had the unique opportunity to hear Bob Woodward, who along with Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate Scandal, speak in a private session to the Blackburn Institute at the University of Alabama. Bob was asked the question, “What advice would you give to students about leadership?” Instead of giving points on leadership, or even discussing one of the seven Presidents he has interviewed, he told the story of Katharine Graham, owner of the Washington Post. By describing the key points of one of their discussions about the Watergate story he emphasized these key points: She was “mind
The first step in finding your light is to know yourself. The three pieces of knowing yourself involve discovering your talents, passions and values. We’ll start first with identifying your talents. There are many ways to define and identify talents, but for the purpose of career exploration and development, I think they best way to identify your talents is to define them in the way that employers do. After all, the whole point of knowing yourself is so that you can be able to find a career that you enjoy doing so that your light can shine. KSAOs – Knowledge,
4 TIPS FOR C LEVEL EXECUTIVES TO EMPOWER THE MIDDLE MANAGER I often think that being a “middle manager” may be the worst place to be in the organizational hierarchy. I often have middle managers in my leadership classes who complain that they feel stuck in the role of go-betweener. They feel as though the purpose they serve is to act as a buffer between employees and upper management without the authority to make key decisions that they feel are best for their people and the company. I recently saw this happening to a middle manager that told me, “I
As a child, I remember singing “This Little Light of Mine” in Vacation Bible School. My favorite part was when we got to sing, “Hide it under a bushel, NO! I’m gonna let it shine!” I think I, in part, loved this section of the song because we got to yell the word, “NO!” when yelling was hardly ever allowed in church or at any other place for that matter. Now as a career and leadership coach, I find that I love this part of the song because shouting a resounding “NO!” to hiding your “light” under a