leadership

“Derailer” Disrupting Your Meetings? Try This 3-Step Technique

Do you have a meeting participant who regularly interjects plot twists that cause confusion, doubt, or fear? I call them grenade launchers, and I have a technique for getting things back on track. But the first thing to keep in mind is that their grenade-launching behavior often stems from fear-based conditioning. They’ve learned that it’sContinueContinue reading ““Derailer” Disrupting Your Meetings? Try This 3-Step Technique”

Not Feeling Motivated? Use These 5 Questions to Fuel Your Drive

When you’re feeling stuck, these questions will help you shift out of avoidance and into action. I’ve used these with coaching clients and organizations for more than a decade, and they’ve always helped to elicit the feelings we need to experience to begin a task we’re dreading or reignite momentum for a change we’ve alreadyContinueContinue reading “Not Feeling Motivated? Use These 5 Questions to Fuel Your Drive”

Conditioning: The Hidden Key to Change Management Success

One of the most overlooked drivers of successful change is conditioning – the process by which people learn to associate their actions with cues and outcomes. Understanding how conditioning works can dramatically improve how you design and deliver change programs, helping employees embrace new behaviors more quickly and sustainably. How Conditioning Shapes Behavior Conditioning happensContinueContinue reading “Conditioning: The Hidden Key to Change Management Success”

How Bad Bosses Drain Energy — And What Great Leaders Do Instead

In my work with organizations across industries, I’ve witnessed a common, costly dynamic: employees spending more energy protecting themselves than contributing their best ideas and efforts. When leaders create emotionally unsafe environments, they unwittingly shift employees’ focus away from meaningful work toward constant vigilance – scanning for threats to their reputation, security, or well-being. AsContinueContinue reading “How Bad Bosses Drain Energy — And What Great Leaders Do Instead”

The NINE Method for Calm & Confidence

An excerpt from my 2024 book, Shifting the Energy: When you find your mind stuck on painful thoughts or you detect tension in your body, it’s helpful to take a few minutes to recalibrate so you don’t continue to burn through emotional and cognitive energy at such a rapid pace. NINE stands for Notice, Invite,ContinueContinue reading “The NINE Method for Calm & Confidence”

How to Leverage Listening for Smoother Relationships

Bottom Line Up Front: Listening only happens when others feel heard, and how well we listen is based on our intention while the other person is talking. Many of us often enter conversations with the intention of multi-tasking or judging what we hear. I call these Distracted Listening and Defensive Listening, and neither are helpfulContinueContinue reading “How to Leverage Listening for Smoother Relationships”

Overwhelmed? Use Your Values to Tame Your To-Do List

While the pandemic lockdown helped many of us recalibrate our life priorities and gave us a new perspective on how we should spend our time, some of us are finding ourselves sliding back into the old familiar grind of high-pressure hustling to tackle the ever-expanding to-do list. The root cause? Prioritization. When too many thingsContinueContinue reading “Overwhelmed? Use Your Values to Tame Your To-Do List”

3 Ways to Avoid Failed Transformations

“Why didn’t anyone talk to us first? We could have saved the company a lot of money. They should have at least come down to see how we do things before investing so much time and money into something that doesn’t work.”From a manufacturing employee reacting to a failed systems and process transformation In myContinueContinue reading “3 Ways to Avoid Failed Transformations”

Multi-year research study reveals the need for more “love” at work

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJanuary 24, 2024 CONTACTJessica Walter, jessica@leadingperspectives.org NEWS RELEASEJanuary 24, 2024 – Jessica Walter, a former communication executive and global leadership consultant, made an unexpected discovery in her research into the shifting expectations around work life and the environments employees are willing to work in. “Three characteristics were continually appearing in the research asContinueContinue reading “Multi-year research study reveals the need for more “love” at work”

Defining “Trust” at Work

It’s one of the core elements of emotionally healthy relationships and productive businesses, but our definition of “trust” gets cloudy and confusing. Trust is the level of confidence someone has in your willingness and ability to protect them. That definition works with many of your stakeholder groups, including the employees you lead as well asContinueContinue reading “Defining “Trust” at Work”