by Caroline Leach | Feb 16, 2025 | Careers, Leadership
Pings. Dings. Rings.
Our work days are overflowing with distractions.
In a busy environment, how can you increase your executive presence?
By doing the opposite.
By releasing the pull of technology.
By being fully PRESENT with people.
Being present is a topic Tom Larsen and I explored last fall in a talk at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Tom leads the EMBA Career Strategy & Development Team, and I’m an executive coach for students in the program.
Executive presence is about a feedback loop:
1️⃣ PLANNING: how do you want to show up?
2️⃣ EXECUTION: how are you showing up?
3️⃣ REFLECTION: how did you show up?
4️⃣ IMPROVE: what do you want to change?
Being present is part of the planning process. It’s being deliberate and deciding in advance how you want to show up.
Tom shared a story about a senior executive he’s coaching. This leader sets simple rules for how they require their team to show up in board meetings: no phones, no computers, and only the paper they need to engage in the meeting. Instead, this leader encourages the team to observe how other leaders and board members interact with each other.
Try these tips in your next video call or in-person meeting:
- Silence your phone.
- Put your phone away.
- Maintain eye contact.
- Sit or stand up straight.
- Ask clarifying questions.
Make it just you and the person or people you’re meeting with in the moment.
Put everything else aside. Just be there.
If unrelated thoughts pop into your mind, jot them down for later.
How do you also handle the reality that business moves quickly and you want to be responsive to your colleagues?
Check messages before and after meetings. Build in a few minutes between meetings, by scheduling them for 25 minutes instead of 30.
Better yet, do a calendar audit and decline meetings you don’t need to attend.
Do I always follow my own advice?
Not as often as I’d like.
But think about a meeting where you and your colleagues were fully present with each other.
How did the quality of your discussions and decisions differ from meetings where you and others were distracted?
What are your strategies for being fully present with people?
by Caroline Leach | Jan 31, 2025 | Leadership
Just weeks ago, the year seemed shiny, new, and full of possibilities. So much has happened since then. As a result, what’s important for leaders?
Pondering this question reminded me of a talk I gave with Tom Larsen last fall at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Tom and I spoke about executive presence for Executive MBA students. Tom leads the EMBA Career Strategy & Development Team, and I’m an executive coach for students in the program.
As Tom shared, executive presence is about a feedback loop:
1️⃣ PLANNING: how do you want to show up?
2️⃣ EXECUTION: how are you showing up?
3️⃣ REFLECTION: how did you show up?
4️⃣ IMPROVE: what do you want to change?
How are you executing and showing up when business moves faster and becomes more complex each day?
As leaders, we need to move quickly and easily, even and especially in difficult situations.
It’s about BEING AGILE, moving speedily and seamlessly, and being adaptable, responsive, and effective in the face of rapid and unprecedented change and uncertainty.
Here’s what I shared with students about agility:
👉 Don’t get stuck on or too attached to points of view or courses of action.
👉 Pay attention to what’s going on around you – with your team, organization, industry, and the world – and how that may impact your priorities and focus areas.
👉 Be flexible, and bend in the wind – don’t be rigid and break in the wind.
Related to that is the Italian concept of “sprezzatura.” It’s an effortless grace and the art of making the difficult appear easy. It’s maintaining calmness and nonchalance while executing complex tasks. And it links to agility by having a light touch and not being too attached to the outcome.
To do this well requires that you take good care of yourself, so you have the capacity and the wherewithal to pivot and spring into action when needed.
How are YOU being agile as a leader?
by Caroline Leach | Apr 30, 2024 | Work/Life
“There’s a reason we are drawn
to gazing at the ocean.
It is said the ocean provides
a closer reflection of who
we are than any mirror.”
-Rick Rubin, author of The Creative Act: A Way of Being
What gives YOU a closer reflection of who you are?
by Caroline Leach | Mar 31, 2024 | Learning
How can you use AI more often in your daily work? 🤖
I’ve been contemplating how to best use AI in my communication, consulting, and coaching business.
And it feels a bit overwhelming at times.
When that happens, I break things down into simple steps.
What’s the easiest way to start?
For me it’s been using the existing AI features in my business and personal tech stack – all the digital tools I use frequently.
Most everything has AI features, so increasingly I’m using them. Just a few:
1. LinkedIn: rewrite with AI
2. iStockPhoto: AI generator
3. MS Teams: speaker coach
In the last example, I’m now using the Speaker Coach feature of Microsoft Teams in meetings where I’m presenting.
Speaker Coach analyzes your speaking along six dimensions:
1. Filler words
2. Pace
3. Inclusiveness
4. Intonation
5. Monologue
6. Repetitive language
It sends a private report just to you as the user right after the meeting.
A sample report from a client meeting is below.
During the meeting, I got a private notification that I was speaking too fast.
Although it was momentarily jarring, it helped me slow down in the moment.
Filler words are also a challenge for me. Too often I say “like” and “you know” that can detract from my message.
In this client meeting, I used filler words 6 times.
In a bigger presentation later the same day? Only 1 time.
So AI is helping me be a better speaker. And a better communication coach for other leaders.
How is AI helping you do better work? Drop a comment 👇
by Caroline Leach | Jan 28, 2024 | Change, Learning
How do you learn to do something new?
Not by thinking, planning, or strategizing.
Instead, we learn simply by doing the new thing.
We learn by being okay feeling uncomfortable and awkward.
We learn by experimenting and having a beginner’s mindset.
Over the weekend, I was reminded of this.
One of my new endeavors for the year is taking adult ballet classes.
It’s been decades since I studied dance almost daily as a teen.
My mind remembers, but my body needs to re-learn how to do the steps.
Our instructor told the packed classroom at the outset, “the way to learn to dance … is to dance.”
So simple. Yet maybe it’s not the first thought when we start something new.
It could be anything new, whether it’s leading, marketing, designing, or something else.
For those who follow me, you know I’m learning to speak Spanish.
This year I’m also learning more about AI. I’m curious about how to better apply it to my work communicating, coaching, and leading.
One of the cool new LinkedIn tools is “rewrite with AI.” So this post appears in two versions, A and B. What resonates with you in each post and why? Drop a comment and let me know. 👇
This is Version A, written by me.
_____________________________
This is Version B, rewritten with AI.
How do you learn to do something new? Not by overthinking, but by simply doing. We learn by embracing the discomfort of being a beginner and experimenting with a beginner’s mindset. This weekend, I was reminded of this while taking adult ballet classes. Though it’s been decades since I last danced daily, my instructor reminded us that “the way to learn to dance…is to dance.” It’s a simple concept, yet one we often overlook when starting something new. Whether it’s learning a new language like Spanish or exploring the possibilities of AI, the key is to take action and learn by doing. So what new skill are you looking to tackle this year? Share in the comments below.
__________
P.S. One of the most fascinating learnings from this “rewrite with AI” experiment? I did it 3 times as I made slight edits to my post, and each time the rewrite was fairly different. Trying to decide what to make of that.
by Caroline Leach | Dec 28, 2023 | Change, Work/Life
How was your 2023? What are your hopes for 2024?
Here’s a fun and easy exercise to consider both. It’s called “The Wheel of Life,” from the the Co-Active Training Institute.
Pick a number between 1 and 10 for your satisfaction in these areas of your life (1 is the lowest and closest to the center of the wheel; 10 is the highest and closest to the outer edge of the wheel):
- Career
- Family and friends
- Significant other
- Fun and recreation
- Health
- Money
- Personal growth
- Physical environment
Feel free to modify the categories if you like.
Each category is like a wedge or a slice of pie in the wheel.
Plot your numbers around the wheel and then connect the dots.
The purpose? To see how smooth or bumpy your ride of life is.
The bigger the variation in numbers among categories, the bumpier the ride.
You can also use this to reflect on:
- What’s going well in your life?
- What would you like to improve?
- What actions will increase your satisfaction?
The wheel of life is one of the first exercises I learned in coach training at CTI.
It was fun to revisit it today with year-end reflection and year-ahead planning.
What are your reflection and planning rituals? Would love to know in a comment!
by Caroline Leach | Dec 17, 2023 | Social Media
¡Hola! This fall semester I am both a communications professor at UCS and a student taking Spanish at El Camino College. Our last day of Spanish class was this week. I am grateful to our wonderful professor Maria Barrio de Mendoza and my fellow students.
¡Hola! Este semestre de otoño soy profesora de comunicaciones en USC y estudiante de español en El Camino College. Nuestro último día de clase de español fue esta semana. Estoy agradecida a nuestra maravillosa profesora María Barrio de Mendoza y a mis compañeros de estudios.
_______________
So many of you encouraged me at the end of August when I started my Spanish studies.
My daughter got me started on the Duolingo app over the summer.
Learning Spanish was on my to-do list for YEARS.
We think we have plenty of time, but we never really know.
So I enrolled in Spanish 1 this fall to formalize the learning process.
Why?
1. I live in Los Angeles, where there are millions of Spanish speakers
2. Learning a new language is like taking my middle-aged brain to the gym
3. The flow state of studying is a welcome respite from our troubled world
Here’s what I learned, in addition to 2 years of high-school Spanish …
HAVING A BEGINNER’S MINDSET IS BOTH HUMBLING AND NECESSARY. It was hard to speak up in class week after week, not always giving the right answers or pronouncing words correctly. What I came to realize, though, is that’s part of the learning process. Making mistakes is how we learn.
IT’S POSSIBLE TO LEARN ANYTHING NEW AT ANY AGE. Yes, it takes me a lot longer now to memorize Spanish words and verb conjugations than it did when I took French in high school. Keeping at it and pushing through the messy and difficult parts was the breakthrough.
OUR COMMUNITY COLLEGES PROVIDE SO MANY OPPORTUNITIES. Our class was blessed with a dedicated professor in Maria Barrio De Mendoza. She made learning fun. It was inspiring to meet students who are decades younger than me and forging their paths in the world.
LEARNING A SECOND LANGUAGE SHINES A NEW LIGHT ON ENGLISH. As a communicator, I’ve always been fascinated with the English language and the nuances of word meanings. Learning Spanish is making me re-examine English and how I write and speak.
IT IS HEAVENLY TO BE IN THE FLOW STATE OF STUDYING. The world can be a difficult place, and there are many problems that don’t have nice, neat answers. But in studying a language there’s always a right answer. And somehow that makes solving other life problems easier.
by Caroline Leach | Nov 30, 2023 | Leadership
How can you lead successfully in a diverse world? This was the topic of a vibrant panel discussion recently at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Speaking to Executive MBA students, we talked about what defines a high-performing and inclusive business; examples of successful equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) practices; and key leadership traits to foster inclusion.
High-performing and inclusive leaders lean into:
1. Humility
2. Empathy
3. Curiosity
3. Authenticity
4. Vulnerability
In our complex world, leaders can’t always know all the answers. Problem solving is a collaborative effort. It means ensuring a wide range of voices and views are involved in giving input and making decisions.
I learned so much from fellow panelists TeNita Ballard, MBA, John Iino, Terra Potts, Alexis Tirado, and Mark Zee.
It was a delight to help organize this panel with school EDI leaders Mana Yamaguchi (and panel moderator) and Purvi Mehra MD, along with career development school rep Ryan Hayes.
The Career and Leadership Development director Tom Larsen along with Jasmine Perrett were instrumental in bringing the experience together.
Many thanks to all who were involved!
A special bonus: it was also hashtag#BruinFamilyWeekend. My son Connor Leach and I enjoyed chatting with and hearing from faculty, staff, parents, and students. Connor is a UCLA anthropology and history major. So proud of him, and energized by the learning scene!
by Caroline Leach | Oct 31, 2023 | Social Media
As a busy leader, how can you get more done?
How can you be more effective in less time?
Here’s a two-word solution: SKIP PERFECTION.
Get a project, a task, or an email to “good enough” place, and call it complete.
Submit that deliverable, and move on to the next task.
Because that frees up your time for the real work of leadership: spending time with people:
* Sharing a vision
* Inspiring action
* Giving feedback
My LinkedIn content creation journey is an exercise in skipping perfection.
In July and August, I posted daily as an experiment. More here: https://lnkd.in/g6qsVmJS
Now I’m posting a few times a week, a more sustainable cadence.
What enables me to do this?
* Not overthinking or overdoing
* Considering the ROI of more effort
* Tapping “post” before I feel fully ready
Of course, this doesn’t mean doing sloppy work or abdicating responsibility.
It simply means asking: what is the true level of effort needed?
It may be much less than we think.
P.S. Perfection is a theme I’ve explored before: https://lnkd.in/gVpwuJjv. So it’s no surprise that this week I was drawn to the Hidden Brain podcast episode on “Escaping Perfectionism.” Psychologist Thomas Curran joined to talk about the dark side of perfection and better ways to walk through life. Highly recommended!
by Caroline Leach | Sep 25, 2023 | Social Media
A lot can happen in 3 months.
You can end the year strong.
BTW, calendars are an artificial construct.
But the psychology of a season and a 90-day time frame is powerful.
Here are a few questions that can help you define your autumn intentions:
👉 How do you choose to lead?
👉 What do you want to change?
👉 What are you saying “yes” to?
👉 What are you saying “no” to?
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