This week I’m talking to all of you out there who just want to make everyone happy. You know who you are. You are the person who says to me, “No. I didn’t give her feedback on that. I just don’t want to upset her. I don’t like making people unhappy.” You are one who tells me that you are doing everything you can to please grumpy coworkers and you are sick and tired of trying.

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If the pandemic did nothing else it highlighted leadership strengths and weaknesses across all industries. One of the most critical leadership qualities, empathy, was arguably the leadership quality that sunk or elevated those in leadership positions. The evidence is clear that business and school leaders lacking this skill are struggling to retain their best employees. Why?

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No matter what your role is in your organization, you can become someone who models reflective thinking, and help people get more comfortable with giving and receiving feedback. Here is one simple way that you can be the role model for reflective thinking.

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Your lens on the world is made up of your values, how you’ve been socialized and educated, your experiences, your culture and heritage, and even your communication style. All of which is informed by your biases.

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Have you noticed that you are receiving more and more work-related communications outside of working hours? As work-from-home situations have increased, so too have texts, phone calls, and emails during non-work hours. The boundaries that define work time and non-work time are becoming more cloudy. A combination of factors is causing work hours to spill into personal time.

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Change is happening rapidly, and things are changing for every single one of us. Like the weather, often the change is outside our control. We get stuck in “what was”. No matter how much I may want to stay hung up on “yesterday” in my mind, it is never possible to go back there. Not even on a day that replicates yesterday in so many ways. Because I’ve changed.

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It seems that for some, workplace norms and expectations that were easily adhered to prior to the pandemic are now forgotten. Before the pandemic, people got to work on time, they maintained great boundaries between socializing and work time, and spent time consistently focused on work. Now it seems much of that has disintegrated.

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The role of a leader is to hold the focus and the vision for the team. If the leader isn’t maintaining focus while communicating, the team just can’t follow. When you are leading it is essential to be clear on the direction you want the team to go, and use all the aides available to you to communicate that direction.

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Many of my clients contact me to talk about a specific negative trait in one employee or a snag in one process. As we talk through their concern, I become aware of how much mental real estate this challenge is taking up in their brain. They are spending so much attention and focus on wrangling this problem, that their focus is not on protecting all the things that are right. As a result, they are risking damaging what is already in great shape.

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​I was a director who worked within a triad of three executives. Each one was strong-willed, opinionated, and took it quite personally when their ideas were not the ones that were agreed upon. It was quite possible that I could easily upset any of them at any time. I navigated this treacherous territory quite well. Coworkers often asked me how I managed to work with all three without making any enemies. I didn’t quite have the words to explain it until I read Tracy Bower’s Forbes article on agreeableness as a trait to gain success in your life and work.

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