Powerful at Work: The Blog

Most of us have had a job or worked for someone who clearly had a favorite. While going home and complaining about how unfair it is to our spouse or gossiping about it with other coworkers might seem therapeutic, it’s definitely not going to gain you any favor.

Just seeing the word “favoritism” most likely stirs up some emotions. Most people see favoritism as being completely unfair, but what if favoritism were inevitable? It’s human nature to prefer one thing over another and whether in our work or home lives, we each have our own favorites.

I hate to break it to you, but we all have mental health issues. When it comes to dealing with these issues, we have two options: Sweep them under the rug or address them. If we choose to sweep them under the rug, they will eventually come to the surface and most likely be an even bigger problem than if we had dealt with them head on in the first place.

What if mental health challenges were as visible as physical health challenges, would we treat people differently? It’s easy to see when someone has a broken limb. We offer them support, extra accommodations and give them plenty of time to heal. But when someone is suffering from anxiety or depression, we sometimes think it’s something they can overcome quickly.

Somehow talking about mental health has become taboo, especially in the workplace. I hate to break it to you, but we all have sanity issues. And by ignoring them, we force ourselves into having a false sense of health. We go into survival mode and operate from a place of fight or flight.

People have been put in leadership positions based on their technical skills, and not because they have experience leading people. Or solopreneurs have grown their businesses to the point where needing a team is necessary to support further growth. Leaders set the tone for their organization and if they’re not using emotional intelligence to understand themselves and others, they won’t have much success leading their teams.

Most of us know what it’s like to feel tired, burnt out and sometimes even sick at the thought of going to work. As leaders and business owners, that’s definitely not how we want our employees to feel when coming to work with us.

“A visionary is a leader of excellence who sees what others do not see, who achieves for now and plans for the future, who positively impacts different generations and raises up other visionaries.” ― Onyi Anyado Thought Leaders don’t play it safe. They are visionaries who run the risk of being wrong. They are using their wisdom, expertise and experience to make predictions for the future. Sounds intimidating, doesn’t it?

Chances are you’ve experienced a time when your words were taken out of context, resulting in major conflict. There’s no worse feeling than offending someone or being so misunderstood that your character was questioned. What you say and how you say it is magnified when you are a leader. It carries a lot of weight. Talk about pressure…

If you’re the type of leader who is constantly pouring into everyone on your team, you miss developing yourself. Yes, even leaders need a personal development plan. “As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.” - John C. Maxwell

Have you ever struggled with what type of leader you will be? Will you be the “Mr. Nice Guy” who lets everything slide? Will you become besties with everyone on your team? Or will you be the tough as nails leader who controls everything? You know the “because I’m the boss and I said so” type of leader…

One mistake a lot of business owners make is trying to do everything themselves. While surely you have some incredible capabilities, doing it all yourself is a one way ticket to the path of burnout. And as amazing as you are, it’s impossible to be an expert in everything you do. And that’s why you’ve hired a team, right?