Karen’s Articles
Mistakes and the Art of Owning It
For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about mistakes including how we make them, how we respond, and more recently, how not everything that feels off track is actually a mistake. This week, I want to come back to something very practical. What happens in the...
Mistakes and How They Shape Us
For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about mistakes at work, including how we make them, how we respond, and what people remember. This past weekend gave me a different lens through which to consider mistakes. The weekend didn’t have the look or feel of...
How to Lead Like a Leader When Others Mess Up
Last week, I wrote about what to do when you make a mistake. What about when you are a leader and someone on your team makes a mistake? A mistake can become bigger than it needs to be when a leader acts too strongly or harshly. The response to the initial mistake...
When You Mess Up at Work (Because You Will)
I stepped in it this week. Interestingly, I was also hired as a coach by a leader who also, in a very different way, made a big mistake. We all make mistakes, some of us more than others. So how can we prepare, learn from them, and recover well? Over the years,...
When the Comments Become the Conversation
Over the past few weeks I have shared thoughts on workplace culture stemming from an incident during a program I was facilitating. The CEO made an off-hand and disrespectful comment about a colleague’s lunch, mocking curry for sure, and perhaps ethnicity. Then he...
The Signal Leaders Send
The last two weeks, we examined how a comment, nervous laughter, and the phrase “that’s just the way he is” created a culture that valued harmony over honesty. I was reminded of this situation recently, when after the winter Olympics I watched a public leadership...
“That’s Just the Way He Is”
Last week, I wrote about a lunch moment that produced nervous laughter. When I later apologized to my sponsor for not being more assertive and questioning in the moment, he shrugged. “That’s just the way he is,” he assured me. According to Edgar Schein, the most...
Nervous Laughter: What Leaders Normalize Creates Culture
In the spring of 2017, a former client flattered me by inviting me into his new company to work with their eleven person senior leadership team on culture. “They work well enough together,” he said. “But something’s missing.” We met several times discussing how to...
Does Your Teammate Talk Too Much?
I was on a coaching call recently, and my client was agitated about her colleague. “Every time any topic comes up,” she said, “Pauline jumps in.” Pauline (name changed, of course) always contributes to everything. She shares her opinion in every discussion, even...
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