Out Of The Comfort Zone

Ever wonder about how much courage it takes to be a great leader or to start a company? Tune to hear how one person quit a successful career to start a company in an area he knew nothing about – going from failure to failure and learning along the way. The Washington Speaker’s Bureau, is now a highly successful business that represents legendary leaders. speakers over the years. Don't miss the opportunity to hear the lessons learned from the leaders and the founder’s own experience.

Taking a stretch role forces you out of your comfort zone, into new territory and growth. For such times, can you practice new leadership skills the way you would practice to acquire any new skill? Theatre may hold the answer and it’s not as far-fetched as it might sound. Tune in to see how the ideas and techniques from the world of theatre helps leaders to grow, safely move out of their comfort zones, and perform in new ways that will grow you, your career, and your organization.

It seems that there is no end to the feedback we get – especially at work. While some of it may be constructive and well delivered, a lot of feedback isn’t that useful. Yet, being seen as someone to “takes feedback well” is important. And of course, without feedback, we don’t grow enough. How can you best receive feedback, get the best from the message even if the deliverer isn’t so skilled? How can you better hear, respond to, act on, and dismiss feedback? How can you take it “less personally”?

Trust has never been more important. However, our focus on quarterly returns and profits plus the lurch from one crisis to the next has eroded the trust we have in our senior most leaders. In this climate, what can you do as an individual leader in a large (or small) organization to build trust? What are the habits that make trust a fact rather than a wish list? And, how do you change behaviors? Join us to find out.

My guest is an accomplished business woman in financial services who has successfully led teams to generate great results. Tune in to hear her experiences on leading for the first time, going from being a peer to a manager on the team, wining over a new boss, persuading others, navigating politics and advice for men and women.

One of the qualities of admired leaders is their level of energy. Regardless how tough the going gets, these leaders seem to be able to keep their energy up. So what is it that they do that the rest of us don’t do? To answer this question, we are going to look at our sources of energy and at what drains energy. We will focus on what we strategies have proven successful in managing energy zappers. And, we will discuss how all of this affects a leader’s presence.

Relationships are critically important to success at work yet they are fraught with challenges. What is it that makes relationships so complicated? Where do we get stuck? What can we do to make relationships easier? Ultimately, how can we have a more positive impact on the organizational culture?

Some of the trickiest situations to navigate are ones that involve disagreement, conflict, with someone who has more power than you. So how does power alter your approach to conflict? How can you recognize the type of conflict situation you find yourself in? What can you do? Tune in to find out.

Hardly a day goes by when there isn’t some discussion on stress in the workplace. Increasing workloads, competing demands, global teams and multiple bosses are adding to stress levels. How much stress is too much? What can you do to manage stress levels? And, how do you generate greater resilience so you are less affected by stress? Join us to find out. Today we are going to talk about how to recognize when the stress levels are in the non-productive zone for you, what to do to recover and how to have more resilience in general so demands are less taxing.

Ever wonder what successful people know that you don’t know? For one, successful leaders tend to have mental toughness – they can let things go, they don’t take comments so personally and they focus on what matters to name a few. My guest today has the answer to what mentally tough people do and discovered 13 things they don’t do. Tune in to hear the 13 bad habits you should break today along with tips on how to do that.

Most of us have heard how important networking is: but, usually we see that as a means to get a new role or a promotion, to raise visibility or profile. We want to challenge the notion of why and how you network. We want you to see networking and building bridges in a whole new light. Have you ever considered networking as a route to innovation? What mental models do you hold about effective networking and are those the most effective ones? What new tactics could you use for building bridges? Join us to find out.

Want to know how a leader actually moves to a new role, leading experts and gaining their trust without having any experience in the area? How does such a leader deliver results, decide what is most important and have impact? Tune in to hear the lessons from a successful executive and how he transitioned from role to role.

Most of us, at some point in time, find ourselves struggling with a co-worker. Either the style doesn’t suit us, the values are inconsistent with ours or the behaviors are not what we expect from others. Learning to navigate these situations is just part of managing your career. But what do you do when the behavior tends towards bullying? How do you recognize bully versus other annoying behaviors? What can you do to keep your sanity? How do you win against a bully? Can you? What if the bully is more senior than you? Join us to hear practical, tested solutions.

How do you define what gives you meaning and purpose? If it's about achieving a goal like getting promoted or being best in class, then tune in to learn how that frame undermines success and what works better. Then stay tuned to learn how to unlock change and to persuade others.

Ever since Tom Peter’s wrote Brand You, we have been talking about our personal reputations as our brands. Your reputation, your brand, is an important component of your career success without a doubt. How can you as a person define what you want your personal leadership brand to be in a way that gives you purpose and direction? Equally, how do you begin to turn that image into a reality in your organization? Tune in for an insightful perspective on what brand means and a very practical approach.

The ability to spot and shrink capacity gaps is an urgent responsibility for all leaders. What’s your capacity at work? Can you take on more or are you at or beyond your limits of effectiveness? Do you even recognize when you have reached the peak of your capacity? More importantly, what can you do about it for yourself and for your team? Join us to for tips on how manage capacity.

It seems that there is no end to the feedback we get – especially at work. While some of it may be constructive and well delivered, a lot of feedback isn’t that useful. Yet, being seen as someone to “takes feedback well” is important. And of course, without feedback, we don’t grow enough. How can you best receive feedback, get the best from the message even if the deliverer isn’t so skilled? How can you better hear, respond to, act on, and dismiss feedback? How can you take it “less personally”?

As leaders, most of our time is spent in conversation – some of it highly effective and some of it less so. Yet, the most admired and productive leaders show greater Conversational Intelligence. What is this secret skill? How can you improve your conversational intelligence?

Peter Drucker says: 'The leader of the past may have been a person who knew how to tell, but certainly the leader of the future will be a person who knows how to ask.' Asking great questions may well be the secret to inspiring, motivating and engaging people. What are the questions great leaders ask? If you want to learn the secret using great questions or you want to expand your repertoire of questions, tune in.

Have you ever wondered why some leaders just manage to consistently out-perform everyone in their field? They out-produce, they transform industries and they develop great teams. Have you ever noticed that these leaders have a huge fan base of people who have worked for him/her? What makes this group of leaders so special – what do they do that the rest of us don’t do? Tune in to find out