Contributed by CEO Coach Henna Inam

Here’s a scenario. You have a friend. Every time your friend makes a mistake, you point it out to her. You berate her for making that mistake. “I can’t believe you did that again! What a moron!” Then if she wants to try something new, you say to her, “Well, not sure you’ll really make it. Remember you failed the last hundred times you tried something new.” How long would this friend stick around? Yet, do we stop to think how often we say these words to ourselves? Self-compassion is about being your own best friend, befriending who you are now, in this moment, with all your faults and failures. There is new scientific research that shows it can make you a better leader.

I recently read a fascinating interview with Kristin Neff, author of the book “Self-Compassion.” In her interview she describes self-compassion as having 3 core components: kindness toward yourself when you fail, a willingness to accept imperfections in yourself, and mindfulness in being aware of when you need to stop and practice compassion toward yourself. One of the biggest barriers to self-compassion is our misguided belief that being kind to ourselves will make us fat and happy and complacent. The research actually suggests that self-criticism actually undermines our ability to meet our goals.

Here are five ways why self-compassion can make you a better leader.

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Contributed by CEO Coach Henna Inam

The Joy of Office Politics. Oxymoron? Almost every leader I talk to hates office politics and sees it as a necessary evil to get things done. What if we discovered steps that would actually help make office politics joyful? Would you try them?

Here’s a recent client situation that inspired me to write this blog post. My client is a senior leader in a new role in the Supply Chain in a manufacturing company. She is responsible for major transformation of the Supply Chain function. The new CEO of her division is holding her accountable for making it happen. She has a dotted line reporting relationship to the Supply Chain Head who is the official Sponsor of the transformation project. The problem is that the Supply Chain Head was recently demoted in position and does not have a great relationship with the CEO. The transformation project is to dismantle some of what the Supply Chain Head created over his 20+ year career. He’s not exactly thrilled, as you might imagine. He is unconsciously sabotaging the efforts my client is responsible for.

She has been told by the current CEO she needs to be the “watchdog” to report back any sabotage. However, she needs the Supply Chain Head’s help, as most of the people implementing the changes work for him. Who should she be loyal to? How can she be successful? The “icky” politics of this is enough to get her to avoid the situation all together.

Does this situation sound familiar? Do you know anyone who is accountable for results where they have no direct authority and political agendas get in the way? Not you? Maybe a friend you know?

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Contributed by CEO Coach Henna Inam

Steve Jobs’ said, “I want to put a ding in the Universe.” Albert Einstein said, “Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion towards men and towards objective things.” Two people with a clear sense of purpose who made great impact.  I am personally convinced that purpose is what separates leaders from managers. Yet in our 24/7 work lives how many times do we stop to think about the one factor that makes all the difference in our leadership? Here are five reasons why our purpose is core to our leadership and some leadership practices to help you discover your purpose.

First, a true story. I was inspired to my purpose by a prostitute from Nepal. It was about 5 years ago and I was leading our company’s business in Mexico. I had just returned from a trip to our Switzerland headquarters where my team and I had been recognized as one of 10 in the organization (of 90,000 employees) for our business results. After the initial euphoria wore off, I found myself strangely disappointed. I expected to be happier and was not. It was then that I saw a documentary about child prostitution and trafficking between Nepal and the brothels in Bombay. The documentary went on to profile a young Nepali former prostitute who had created a half-way house on the border of Nepal and India to help others escape.

The power and sense of purpose that I sensed in this woman was something that had eluded me thus far in my 15+ year corporate career despite all the outward trappings of achievement and success. She had somehow figured out how to escape not just her pimps, but her small self, and instead found a bigger self in the work she was doing. Ironically, it was the discovery that achievement was not enough that set me off on a journey of discovery into my own purpose.

What is purpose? It’s the UNIQUE impact we are called to make for the benefit for others. Each one of us has a purpose and it is up to us to discover and bring it fully to our work and to our lives.

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Contributed by CEO Coach Henna Inam

You’re an achiever. You can put in long hours without burning out. You have a great ability to get started on new tasks and take on new challenges. You set new goals and levels of productivity for your group or work team. This has made you successful throughout your career. Keep doing what you’re doing because it’s all good, right? Wrong. Our achievement drive applied in the wrong situations can cause us to be blind to the needs of others and drive our teams to exhaustion. Many of the strengths we have can also be sources of derailers in our career. Does this mean we abandon our strengths? How do we truly leverage our strengths AND prevent them from becoming derailers?

The following are three leadership practices that can help.

1. Fully Understand Your Strengths. I am a big fan of Strengthsfinder 2.0 and recommend it to all of my executive coaching clients. The first step to success in our careers is to fully own and understand our strengths and to look for opportunities to exercise these strengths in our work situations. Research indicates that our success comes from fully developing our strengths rather than focusing on our weak points. So take a moment to:

a.) Discover your strengths. You can take Strengthsfinder 2.0 or use performance reviews and other 360 feedback tools to discover your strengths.
b.) Look for situations in work and life where you can bring these strengths to drive success.
c.) Proactively plan your career toward those kinds of roles where your strengths will help you stand out.
d.) Proactively think about how you can further develop these strength areas.

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Contributed by executive coach Ann Daly PhD

“It’s so easy to get distracted by what other people think, do, or say. But they don’t live your life. You need to know what you want and who you are, and you have to convey it to others quickly so that you shine at first impression.”
– Christopher Bailey, Chief Creative Officer, Burberry

At a recent women’s executive breakfast that I facilitated, I began by asking everyone to share the name of a woman they considered a model of executive presence. The answers ranged from Mother Teresa to Margaret Thatcher. Believe it or not, that combination makes perfect sense, despite the radical differences between the two women, because each one’s executive presence was rooted in the unshakeable force of her belief. I call it her “aura of authority.”

Do you possess a force of belief that immediately expresses, without words, the depth of your conviction, commitment, and competence? In other words: do you know what drives you? And how deeply do you remain connected with that drive?

The essence of executive presence is that inner force. Call it belief, call it confidence, call it charisma. It may be tough to nail down, but it’s absolutely visible, even palpable.

So how do you cultivate executive presence? And how do you cultivate executive presence as a woman in a male-defined culture? Here’s a summary of the ingredients we identified together at the breakfast.

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