5 Leadership Behaviors That Drive Employee Engagement and Retention

How can we improve employee engagement and retention? I don’t know a leader who isn’t focused on that question. There are good reasons for that: Every year, employees who aren’t engaged cause $8.8 trillion in lost productivity globally. In the U.S., voluntary turnover costs companies $1 trillion annually. As a company focused on leadership development, we think about engagement and retention in terms of the effect that leaders and managers can have. We’ve identified five leadership behaviors that have a big impact: 

Photo by Kindel Media

1. Promoting wellbeing. When employees are physically and emotionally spent, they can’t fully engage in their work, and they’re more likely to leave.

2. Encouraging flexibility. Employees want to work in a way that fits the rest of their lives.

3. Enabling growth and development. Helping an employee learn shows them that they are valued.

4. Delivering clear expectations. If employees don’t know what success looks like, they have a harder time engaging with their work.

5. Showing respect — always. Demonstrating care for employees is an essential, not a “soft skill.”

Let’s explore each of those behaviors, and how they affect engagement and retention, in more depth.

1. Wellness: The Foundation for Engagement and Retention

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, more organizations are recognizing the importance of employee wellbeing and making it a priority for leaders and managers. And with good reason: Gallup reports that wellbeing is top of mind for employees when they consider whether to look for a new job.

Employee wellbeing isn’t the sole responsibility of managers, of course. In the U.S., 80% of companies with more than 50 employees have wellness programs. But leaders and managers still have a huge impact on employees’ physical and mental health. They set the tone for so much — including how long employees work, whether they take enough breaks, and whether they feel the psychological safety to express themselves, take risks and make decisions with confidence.

Promoting wellbeing can take many forms. Teams can open their meetings by doing a wellness activity together, like a quick mindful breathing exercise. During one-on-ones, managers can encourage employees to talk openly about the employee’s stress levels and what steps to take (like reducing their workload) if their stress is getting out of hand.

2. Flexibility: Leadership Is Different in a Hybrid Environment

It’s no secret how much employees value flexibility, especially after the pandemic showed that many professionals don’t have to be in the office to work successfully. But flexibility can also be a flashpoint between leaders and employees, as we’ve seen most recently with Amazon’s return-to-office mandates.

Managers in companies that allow remote or hybrid work should get up-to-date on the best practices for leading remote teams. For example, employees who take advantage of these flexible schedules should be evaluated the same way as their in-office counterparts, and must be kept in the loop on communications. This isn’t instinctive. Even if managers went through extensive leadership training before the pandemic, they need a new set of skills for our new work environment. According to Gallup, however, 70% of managers have not been trained on how to lead a hybrid team.

Even if a team has fully returned to the office, there are still opportunities to grant flexibility. For example, allow employees who pick up their kids from school to leave early and then catch up later that evening.

3. Development: Learning Opportunities Dramatically Affect Retention

Employees want to work at companies where their leaders and managers care about their growth and development. In one survey, 94% of employees said they would stay at their company longer if it invested in helping them learn.

Companies can make this investment in their employees’ development even when training budgets are tight. Giving more regular, and more useful, feedback is a great start. Employees want to know how they are doing and expect their leaders to tell them. Even if it might be hard to hear in the moment, most people value getting practical, actionable feedback.

Delegating with growth in mind is another underutilized tool for growth and development. I’m a big fan of this strategy because it leads to learning in the flow of work, which is more likely to stick. I’ve also found that connection strengthens learning, whether it happens through mentorship, cohort learning or ERGs.

At Newberry Solutions, we’re especially excited about the potential for high-tech options, like our New Lens® platform, to make learning and development more affordable and more accessible. As I’ve written before, opening up leadership development to more employees helps companies identify more potential leaders and keeps ambitious, growth-minded employees from jumping ship.

4. Clarity: Communicate Clear Expectations

I frequently hear from the professionals I work with that they get frustrated because their bosses don’t set clear expectations for their work or define what success looks like for their roles. I also hear from employees who get frustrated because their bosses send conflicting messages: They say one thing, but their actions seem to  indicate something completely different.

What I’ve observed is part of a larger issue. A survey by Gallup found that only 44% of respondents strongly agreed that they know what’s expected of them at work. Even worse? That figure is a 15% drop from 10 years ago.

So why are leaders seemingly getting less clear? I believe factors include heavier workloads, more distractions (there are more than four times as many smart-phone users as there were 10 years ago) and managers and leaders who aren’t skilled communicators, especially when working with remote employees.

To give employees the clarity they want, managers and leaders should “connect the dots” between an employee’s work and the big-picture goals of the organization, as well as between the manager’s own goals and actions. It also helps to slow and be a little more thoughtful and deliberate when communicating expectations. 

5. Respect: Engage Employees by Showing Authentic Care

Respect is the theme that unites everything on this list. While so much has changed in our workplaces over the past several years, one thing remains the same as ever: People want to be treated like people. They want to work for leaders who care about them and honor their humanity. In fact, the Center for Creative Leadership has found that “treating people with respect on a daily basis is one of the most helpful things an individual leader can do.”

Unfortunately, though, employees feel less cared for at work than they did four years ago. With all of us so busy, even the best-intentioned leaders can overlook the important behaviors that demonstrate their respect to employees. However, this is a pattern that leaders can start turning around quickly. Just one meaningful conversation per week with their manager makes a difference in an employee’s performance. That conversation can be a chance to do some of the other things on this list: Check in on the employee’s wellbeing; clarify any questions they have about expectations; ask them about their goals and the development opportunities they need to achieve those goals.

Another way to show respect is balancing results and relationships. “In most situations, this only requires making small exceptions for people (when kids get sick, accidents happen, or someone needs a mental health break), but the impact on satisfaction and engagement will be significant,” leadership development consultants Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman write in Harvard Business Review.

An anecdote that Zenger and Folkman shared in their article has really stayed with me, and I want to leave it with you as an example of how leaders can demonstrate respect. In explaining why he appreciates his boss so much, an employee said, “He calls me when he doesn’t need anything.” 

Isn’t that the kind of leader we all want to be?

Next Steps

If you’re ready to improve engagement and retention at your organization, there are a couple of ways that our New Lens platform can help:

1.  Delivering the learning opportunities that employees crave. New Lens is a Capability Academy built on decades of leadership success and in-the-field learning from proven business leaders. It's designed to be affordable, scalable and customizable, allowing you to expand access to leadership development training, personalize learning, enable growth in the flow of work and even build relationships

2.  Developing leaders that employees love working for. New Lens emphasizes the skills, such as communicating with impact and developing a high-performing team, that managers need to really move the needle on engagement and retention.

Schedule a demo today to see what New Lens can do for your organization. Visit www.newlensleadership.com or contact us at info@newlensleadership.com to learn more and get started.

Flexible Work Schedules: The Unwritten Rules — 2022 Update

I first published this article about how to lead successfully when you have a flexible work schedule almost three years ago. Of course, a lot has changed since then! The pandemic dramatically accelerated the trend toward flexible scheduling. What hasn’t changed are the “unwritten rules” for sending the right messages about your leadership when you are working a flexible schedule. Today, I want to update my strategies on how you can do that in our dramatically reshaped work environment.

Demands for Flexibility Grow

When I originally wrote this article, it was already becoming clear that flexible scheduling was on the rise and that it was especially important to women. One study found that having flexible hours reduced the wage gap between working moms and women who don't have children. We were also starting to see how flexible schedules support women's ambitions. At companies with flexible work arrangements, more high-potential women aspire to the senior executive/CEO level compared with firms without such arrangements.

Since the pandemic, professionals, especially women, have been loud and clear in voicing their desire for flexible work schedules. One survey found that two-thirds of employees would consider changing jobs if they had to go back to the office full time. Harvard Business Review calls flexibility the “key to retaining women.”

But while women want flexibility at work, we also can feel hesitancy about taking advantage of it. Many women worry that nontraditional working arrangements will keep them from getting promoted.

So how can we balance the benefits of flexible work schedules with being an effective leader?

Managing Assumptions and Expectations

Working fully or partially from home and working unconventional hours have become more common and more accepted during the pandemic. But that doesn’t mean everyone is on board.

You may still run into others' perceptions of what a typical workday should look like and what it says about you when you're doing something different.

During my last executive role at Deloitte, I incorporated some informal flexibility into my schedule. Some of my team members were in different time zones, and I had a 2-year-old son at home. So, it made sense for me to leave the office a little earlier in the afternoon, go home to spend some time with my son and then do some more work after he went to bed.

This was great for managing both my personal and professional priorities. But because of my after-hours emails, some of my team members, especially those in other cities, thought I worked nonstop and all the time. Even worse, they thought I expected them to keep similar long hours, which just wasn't the case.

The Hidden Messages in After-Hours Emails

As I discovered, when people get an email from you that has a time stamp that is outside regular business hours, it raises questions. I remember discussing this with a couple of clients, one who often works a few hours late at night and the other who starts before her small children wake up, often sending her first emails before 7 a.m.

Neither of these clients feels overworked or overwhelmed. In fact, they are well in control of their schedules and are far from burnout. But the optics of their email habits convey a different message to people who don’t understand their schedules. Their team members may assume (as my former colleagues did) that they:

• Are constantly checking email

• Expect their teams to work well beyond regular business hours

• Are approaching burnout and are up at all hours working

• Can’t effectively manage their workload, delegate or ask for help

If you put yourself in others’ shoes for a minute and reflect about your own behavior, what might it say to people about you?

Communicate Clearly About Your Schedule

Especially as we continue to experience an unpredictable work environment, don't leave it to others to draw their own conclusions about your capabilities or your stress level. Consider proactively sharing how the strategies you’ve implemented increase your productivity and effectiveness as a leader. Remember that most people have difficulty working in a way that is sustainable and sharing your approach may give them permission to start making changes.

That's what I did with my colleagues at Deloitte. When I realized that they thought I never unplugged, I knew that I needed to explain my approach and “connect the dots” for them. I told them that I wasn't always working — and that I didn't expect them to, either. I also encouraged them to adapt their schedules to fit their own needs (as long as business needs were also met).

But sometimes you may have to tweak your approach to better fit the culture. For example, if you frequently send emails outside of normal business hours, you may inadvertently set an expectation that others have to change the hours they work to accommodate you. So, unless it’s urgent, I suggest that you save your draft emails to send during business hours. This will reinforce your commitment to everyone working in a way that honors their personal and professional priorities. With burnout on the rise, that’s something your team really needs.

I want to challenge you to take 5-10 minutes to identify the assumptions people may be making about you, based on how you work. Are they taking away the right messages about your leadership? 

If you’re looking for ways that your organization can develop and support leaders as they navigate the challenges of hybrid work, I invite you to schedule a demo of my New Lens app. Unlike traditional approaches, New Lens makes learning digestible through bite-sized lessons that employees can access whenever and wherever they work.

3 Ways to Build Your Personal Leadership Brand

A couple of years ago, many of us were adapting to remote work. Now we’re experiencing another period of transition. Some organizations are bringing employees back to the office full or part time. Others are making remote-work arrangements permanent. Whether you are working at the office, at home or some combination of the two, now is a good time to notice the messages you are sending other people about your personal leadership brand. 

Photo by Rebrand Cities

We tend to overlook that while we know everything we’re saying or doing at work, others don't have a full picture of what our performance looks like. They just see little snapshots of us here and there. Today, I want you to think about the snapshots that you're showing other people and how you can be more strategic about them.

1. Pay Attention to Your Body Language

Effective leaders know that body language is key to executive presence. What are you saying without speaking a word?

Working at the office: If you’ve been working remotely, you may not think much about your body language outside of video calls. But now that you are back in the office, remember that leaders are always in the “invisible spotlight.” People pay attention even when you think they are not. 

If, for example, you’re sitting in a meeting with an intense expression and arms folded, others might think you are closed off and unreceptive.  Or if you’re always rushing around the office, others could assume that you can’t handle what’s on your plate. 

As you return to the office, pay special attention to your body language and whether it conveys the messages you want to send about your personal leadership brand. This might take some extra effort at first, but should soon become second nature again.

Working from home: Your body language sends messages even through video calls. Have you fallen into any bad habits, like scheduling back-to-back Zoom meetings that leave you feeling drained? Take some time this week to focus on what your energy level looks like (slouching, yawning, difficulty focusing) and how that impacts the perception of your engagement and confidence. 

Having the right chair, desk and computer setup in your home office makes it easier to manage physical fatigue from sitting and will help you maintain a polished and professional posture on video calls. Take time to evaluate what you need.

2. Focus on Eye Contact

Eye contact is an aspect of nonverbal communication that deserves special attention. We automatically look at others’ eyes to figure out what they’re thinking and feeling and whether we can trust them.

Working at the office: If you frequently look at your phone when talking to others, it could convey a lack of interest and respect. Looking down or away can imply low confidence. On the other hand, holding direct eye contact for too long can feel intimidating.

So, what’s the right amount of eye contact to enhance your personal leadership brand? Researchers from Michigan State University recommend maintaining eye contact 50% of the time when you are speaking and 70% of the time when you are listening.

Working from home: It’s easy to forget about the importance of eye contact when you’re interacting with others on video calls instead of in person. But it still makes a big difference in how others perceive you.

Look into your webcam when speaking. When you’re listening, it’s more obvious than you might think when you sneak a peek at another screen. If the other screen is brighter, the lighting changes on your face. And if you wear glasses, they may even see the reflection of the other screen and know that you’re not paying full attention to the meeting. If you do need to look at another screen (for example, to find an email that’s relevant to the conversation), you can let others know what you’re doing so that they don’t assume you’re multitasking.

3. Be Intentional About Your Appearance

Think about the people you know who always look put together. That becomes part of their leadership brand and something that distinguishes them. How are you leveraging your appearance?

Working at the office: Are you getting used to waking up earlier and commuting again? It can be a tough transition. Give yourself enough time in the morning to get ready. Showing up at the office half-baked won’t exactly inspire confidence in your abilities.

As you head back to the office, you may also discover that your work clothes from a couple of years ago don’t fit as well or look dated. You can use this as an opportunity to evaluate your business wardrobe and align it with your personal brand as a leader. Do you want to show others that you’re creative, innovative, or ready for a promotion? You can reinforce these qualities in how you dress, accessorize, or style your hair.

Working at home: Part of presenting yourself professionally is understanding the norms of your organization, which may be different for video meetings vs. in-person work.  Look to your managers for clues about the new “dress code.” For example, perhaps you and your colleagues previously wore suits at the office. But now your managers wear polos or button-down shirts or blouses for video meetings, but not T-shirts. Use that information to guide your choices.

You can also look more professional during video calls by improving your home-office setup. Quality lighting helps you look more awake and energized. The distance you sit from your camera can also affect how you look.

Like it or not, the way you present yourself plays a big role in how others perceive your personal leadership brand. But it's also one of the easiest areas to make positive changes – and you can have fun with it. What is one step you will take this week to be more deliberate about the snapshots that you show other people?

Want more strategies like these? This article was adapted from our New Lens app for leadership development. New Lens delivers bite-size lessons and immediately useful action steps so that you can make learning a part of even the busiest workdays. Schedule your demo now.

Retain Women Amid ‘the Great Resignation’

I’ve written before about “the Great Resignation” — the record number of people who have been leaving their jobs this year. Now we’re seeing more and more headlines that women are driving this phenomenon.

Photo by Alexander Suhorucov from Pexels

The Women in the Workplace 2021 report from McKinsey & Company and Lean In highlighted the growing crisis:

One in three women says that they have considered downshifting their career or leaving the workforce this year, compared with one in four who said this a few months into the pandemic. Additionally, four in ten women have considered leaving their company or switching jobs—and high employee turnover in recent months suggests that many of them are following through. … The risk to women, and to the companies that depend on their contributions, remains very real.

As we look toward the new year, I wanted to share some ideas about how organizations can turn this situation around in 2022. Hopefully, you’ll find at least one strategy on this list that you can bring to your own workplace.

Offer More Flexibility

Remote work and flexible schedules skyrocketed during the pandemic. Now some companies, including tech giants, are making those changes permanent. For example, Microsoft now allows employees to work from anywhere for half of their work week, and even 100% remotely with manager approval.

Flexibility is especially important to women. That makes sense, considering that women make up 75% of caregivers. However, simply offering remote or hybrid work options is not a cure-all when it comes to retaining women. Such changes must be implemented thoughtfully to ensure that women who are working remotely are not penalized for being less visible at the office

Promote Mentorship and Sponsorship

Understandably, women are leaving their jobs when they don’t see opportunities for advancement. And one reason that women don’t move up the ladder at the same rate as men do is that men are sponsored more often. 

What’s the difference between a mentor and a sponsor? While both provide valuable career advice, sponsors also connect you to opportunities and advocate for you.

A program that connects women to mentors and sponsors sends a powerful message. That’s what companies like HERE Technologies have found.

Emphasize Wellbeing

During the pandemic, more organizations began to embrace the idea that employee wellbeing isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s essential for sustainable success. Because women are more stressed and burned out than men are, wellbeing initiatives are a powerful tool for retaining women employees. 

Your company can support employees by offering wellness subsidies, as Deloitte and DocuSign do. Or you could help employees access mental health services, as Starbucks and Target do.

Resources You Can Use

At Newberry Executive Solutions, our focus is providing resources that organizations can use to engage and retain the women leaders that are so crucial to their future. As your company makes plans for 2022, I invite you to explore our programs, books, New Lens app and other offerings that can help you invest in women.

The Great Resignation: How Leaders Can Respond

The headlines just keep coming about a phenomenon that’s being called “the Great Resignation.” A record number of Americans have been quitting their jobs. In August alone, the number was 4.3 million. With this trend showing no signs of reversing anytime soon, what can you do as a leader to retain employees in your organization?

Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels

Why Are So Many People Quitting?

First, it’s important to understand what’s driving this wave of resignations. The reasons vary across different fields. But there are a few common themes among professionals:

• Necessity. Childcare has long been expensive and, in some regions, scarce. But now the field is experiencing its own labor shortage, which makes it even harder for families to find workable options. As a result, some moms are forced out of the job market.

• Burnout. According to the Women in the Workplace 2021 report from McKinsey & Company and Lean In, 42% of women often or almost always feel burned out. 

• Flexibility. Many of us got used to working from home and having more autonomy to control our own schedules during the pandemic. Now some professionals would rather quit than return to the office full time.

• Changing values. The pandemic has made us take a new look at what’s really important to us. That’s led some people to shift their focus away from work and seek new careers that offer them more balance and meaning.

How to Improve Retention

So what should leaders do to retain employees amid these rapid changes in the work environment?

• Adapt and evolve. We aren’t going “back to normal.” The pandemic-driven changes in how we work are here to stay. To retain employees (and recruit new ones), organizations must embrace this new reality and update their policies on things like flexible schedules and working from home. 

• Focus on results. As a leader, as much as you have autonomy to, emphasize outcomes instead of processes. In other words, evaluate your team members on what they accomplish vs. when or where they do their work.

• Prioritize well-being. This was one of the three key recommendations from the Women in the Workplace report. Promoting well-being goes beyond offering flexible schedules. It also involves understanding what else employees really need to honor both their professional and personal priorities, whether that’s a childcare stipend or quarterly mental health days.

• Collaborate, align and adjust. The solutions that will most improve retention are those that you develop with your employees to address both their needs and your organization’s. This isn’t a situation you can address once and then consider everything solved for good. Instead, check in with your team members regularly to see what’s changed for them and how their work arrangements need to change in response.

As you lead during these challenging times, products and services from Newberry Executive Solutions are a great way to support yourself and others. You can learn how to bring out the best in your team and stay centered yourself, even amid constant change.

Share Your Ideas

“One in three women says that they have considered downshifting their career or leaving the workforce this year, compared with one in four who said this a few months into the pandemic. Additionally, four in ten women have considered leaving their company or switching jobs—and high employee turnover in recent months suggests that many of them are following through. … The risk to women, and to the companies that depend on their contributions, remains very real.”

-Women in the Workplace 2021

How can companies hold on to their female employees? In an upcoming article, I’ll be sharing examples of strategies that work. And I’d love to hear from you about what’s happening at your organization. Drop by my LinkedIn page to share your ideas and join the discussion.

Fed Up With Someone? Ask Yourself These 3 Questions

Have you lost your temper with a colleague recently — or had someone lose their temper with you?

Stress has a lot of us on edge lately. On top of that, remote work can make it more challenging to address conflicts before they boil over.

So how can you maintain your professionalism and protect your relationships when it seems like everyone is pushing your buttons? Let's take a closer look at what might be happening and how you can find a less stressful way to work.

Why Are Things So Tense?

First, please know that you're not alone. Communication in a dynamic, uncertain environment has its challenges. 

With added pressures and workload, many people are moving rapidly and less thoughtfully. Your colleagues may have gotten worse about looping you into discussions. Or perhaps your boss has started dumping more tasks on you at the last minute. 

Another factor is that we're missing out on a lot of the nonverbal communication that happens when we work face to face. Over email or instant messaging, we can't read each other's body language or tone of voice. As a result, we can come off as harsher than we intend. It's also harder to tell if we've offended someone else because we don't see them bristle or frown at our words.

Finally, it's easier to defer difficult conversations when we don't see the other person face to face everyday and when there's so much else going on. Although you might be thinking, "It's just not worth bringing this up right now," ignoring the issue won’t stop resentment from building up. And, eventually, it's going to blow.

How to Communicate Constructively

If an issue with a colleague has been nagging at you, stop ignoring your feelings. Instead, ask yourself these three questions:

1. What is this really about for you? 

When someone gets on your nerves, it can be less about what they did and more about them violating a value that you hold near and dear. If your boss's micromanagement drives you crazy, that's a sign that you value trust and respect. If you strongly value professional growth, your boss's failure to coach you and give performance feedback can feel out of sync.

2. What do you want this relationship to look like? 

To address these types of issues, get clearer about what you want and expect from the other person and yourself. For example, do you want to feel heard, respected or appreciated? 

And how do you want to show up in this relationship? What do you want the other person to understand about your leadership? For example, you may want to come across as calm, professional and reasonable — even under pressure. 

3. How can you provide "feedforward"?

I'm not going to recommend that you schedule a Zoom call with the other person so that you can share your frustrations. Instead, try Marshall Goldsmith's approach of providing "feedforward" instead of feedback. Frame the conversation in terms of the behavior you want to see and your positive intent. For example: "I appreciate how involved you are in my work and know that you're really busy. To maximize your time and give me an opportunity to grow, I am happy to take the lead on this project and schedule periodic check-ins to get your input and share the progress."

Business communication might look different these days, but fundamentals like clarity and respect still hold true. I want to challenge you to identify and address one communication sore spot this week. For additional strategies, pick up "Communicating With Impact" from my Leadership EDGE Series℠.

5 Ways to Self-Promote While Working Remotely

Is remote work making you feel out of sight, out of mind with your boss and other key leaders?

A recent article in Harvard Business Review argues that while working from home creates benefits like flexibility, it also carries unique pitfalls for women that can hold us back from promotions and pay raises.

In my last article, I gave you some tactics for dealing with one of those pitfalls: increasing demands at work and at home. This week, let's tackle another key question of our new WFH reality: How do you build relationships, get recognized for your contributions and advance your career when you and your colleagues can’t just run into each other in the office? Here are five of my best practices.

1. Track Your Accomplishments

I have always recommended keeping track of your successes. But it's now more important than ever. With our days so busy, it's easy to overlook all the ways you're creating value. So make it a point to regularly jot down your accomplishments — even if some of them don’t seem like a big deal. Then write down the impact of each accomplishment to help you notice its relevance.  You’ll find that even those small successes can have a big impact. For example, just one productive meeting with an influential leader can set the stage for a strong working relationship.

When you track your accomplishments, you will have them top of mind – which will make it easier to communicate them to others. Trust me, it's also a great morale booster as you realize the difference you’re making!

2. Strategically Communicate Your Value

After you start logging your accomplishments, the next step is to tell others about them. Don’t assume that others will simply notice your hard work and recognize you for it. Remember, your boss has a lot on her plate, too. "Tastefully tooting your own horn" isn't bragging. It's helping your boss understand all the ways you add value so that she can more fully leverage them.

Without the impromptu interactions that happen in an office, you have to be even more intentional about communicating your accomplishments and their significance. That could mean being ready to share one of your team’s successes on your next Zoom call. As a bonus, it also recognizes your team members. Or you could simply email your boss regular updates about your progress as an FYI (which she can easily forward to others).

3. Reframe Career Conversations

If your organization has gone through restructuring or downsizing, you might feel awkward about asking your boss for time to discuss your career goals. But you can do this in a way that's helpful for both of you.

As always, you're more likely to get promoted or achieve other career goals when you make clear to others that you're thinking about more than what you want. That's especially true today. Your boss will be more receptive when you frame your message more like this:

Given the recent organizational changes, how can I best use my skills and experience to make a difference? I want to continue to grow as a leader and add more value to the company. 

4. Remember What Works for You

While our work environment has changed, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to building relationships or raising your visibility. The same fundamental principles hold true. You may just need to adapt them a little for the work-at-home world.

That's the message I gave one of my former clients when we caught up recently. She had just started a new job and was worried about how to get to know her new colleagues and work effectively with them without ever meeting them face to face.

Here's the surprising thing: As an experienced executive in an externally facing role, she has built her career on her ability to successfully cultivate strong, authentic relationships. But during this period of significant change, she kept thinking about what may be difficult instead of focusing on what she already knows that can help her. 

Take a moment now to jot down strategies you have used to increase your visibility and advance your career so far. How would you adapt those strategies for the current environment? Some strategies you may not need to adapt at all. For example, you can establish a regular cadence of sharing one or two accomplishments each week, forward positive feedback you’ve received, or be fully present to engage more impactfully.

5. Keep Growing as a Leader

It's totally understandable if you haven't had a spare moment in the past six months to even consider professional development. But hopefully you've started to create some capacity in your schedule to reflect about where you are, where you want to go and how to get there. Investing in building your skills and expertise is one way to strategically advance your career, differentiate yourself and boost your confidence. 

Even before the pandemic, online learning opportunities were dramatically expanding. Think about the type of virtual experience that could help you develop your leadership skills. Start by checking out my WOW! (Women on the Way to peak performance) Program℠. I've delivered WOW! at top corporations, and it is now available as a self-paced program that you can complete on your own, with a colleague or through your own informal learning circle.

Want to Be More Productive? Pause

Over the past week, I coached at least four high-performing leaders on the importance of carving out time for critical work. Although they know this matters, they are having difficulty making it happen.

For example, one client told me that he regularly blocks time on his calendar, but when the dedicated time slot rolls around, something interesting happens. Instead of tackling the work he intended to complete, he starts responding to emails.

So why is he getting bogged down in email when he knows it’s not the biggest priority?  The answer is simple: He is tired — and the critical work he should do is mentally taxing. 

Reducing the size of his email inbox still makes him feel productive — like he did accomplish something. But he knows that he is sabotaging his own effectiveness. To change this pattern, he has to go beyond blocking time on his calendar to address his underlying mental fatigue.

In my last blog article, I shared the importance of putting a little breathing room in your schedule, especially if your level of busyness has reached new heights in this crazy  environment. Today we’ll build on that idea. Once you have more capacity in your schedule, how can you use it to lead more effectively?

What Kind of Break Do You Need?

High performers often instinctively respond to stressful times by doing, doing, doing. But here's an important distinction: Being in motion does not necessarily mean that you're moving forward.

None of us are built to work nonstop. In fact, researchers say we need a pause about every 90 minutes so that our brains can consolidate information. After reading my last article, I hope you identified some strategies to integrate more pauses into your day.

So, how should you use your break? Start by checking in with yourself. During busy days, you can easily lose touch with how you are really feeling. Emotional intelligence — knowing what's going on internally for you and taking effective action based on that self-understanding — is key to being an effective leader.

On your next break, simply notice what’s going on for you physically and mentally. What’s your stress level? How connected do you feel? What’s your level of energy and engagement?

Once you realize how you're doing, you’ll know the type of break that will help you the most. If you've been on back-to-back calls, a walk to get some fresh air, stretching or deep breathing and quiet might be the most restorative things you can do. On the other hand, if you've had your head down doing complex work on your own, you might want something more interactive, like checking in with family or friends or a quick conversation. One size does not fit all, so do what works best for you. 

The Proactive Pause

Be intentional about how you use breaks to refocus your time and energy. In other words, determine where you can have the biggest impact on the business and redirect your time accordingly. When you're “in the weeds,” you may not notice anything beyond what's right in front of you: your next email, meeting or fire drill.

Even taking just 10 minutes to reflect can boost your productivity and effectiveness. Use these questions to get started:

• How well does my calendar align with what’s most critical?

• If my calendar is out of sync, what can I delegate, defer or stop doing?

• Which critical meetings do I need to prepare for in the next two weeks?

• What issues or obstacles should I prioritize and proactively manage?

• Whom do I need to check in with? How in tune am I with my manager and team?

To get more done in less time, use some of the breaks in your schedule to proactively reflect.

What's Coming Up

So far, we've worked through two big steps toward developing a more sustainable approach to work during these stressful times:

1. Create capacity in your schedule for breaks.

2. Use those breaks to restore yourself mentally and to reconnect to what matters most.

In my next article, I'll help you clear a mental block that's making a lot of high performers unproductive and even unhappy right now. In the meantime, I invite you to explore my self-paced tools that will help you keep growing as a leader no matter how busy you are.

How to Stop 'Getting By' and Start Leading Strategically

Back in March, the global pandemic upended the way we work. For most of us, this initially felt like a short-term crisis. So we dug in to power through.

But now, almost five months later, you might be stuck in this mode — which damages both your executive presence and your career prospects.

As the deep shifts in our work lives continue, we have to find a more sustainable approach. Today I'm kicking off a new series of blog articles to help you pause, reconnect with the bigger picture and be the leader you want to be even in the most challenging of times.

At Home, We're Working More 

As an executive coach, I'm seeing too many leaders right now who are packing their calendars, working at all hours and saying "yes" to everything.

What's driving this? Cuts and restructuring at many organizations are leaving fewer people to do the same amount of work (or even more). There's also a new urgency around showing your value in order to protect your job.

At the same time, working from home is making our jobs more logistically challenging and blurring the lines between our work and personal lives.

When Microsoft recently studied its own newly remote workforce, it discovered some dramatic changes in how employees were working:

• Time spent in meetings each week rose by 10%.

• Using instant messaging activity as an indicator, Microsoft found that employees were working more during lunch and evenings. Weekend work also grew.

• Also based on instant messaging, managers' workload has grown more than that of individual contributors.

• All of this adds up to a workweek that, on average, is about four hours longer.

Are You Neglecting Strategy?

This relentless pace has consequences. You might think that your hard work makes you a team player. But constantly focusing on the tactical vs. the strategic actually reduces the value you create as a leader. If you're always "putting out fires," you have less time for your truly important work, such as tracking what's going on with your team, motivating and engaging your team members and managing up with your bosses.

Remember also that, as a leader, you are always in the "invisible spotlight." Others are constantly drawing conclusions about your leadership based on what they observe. As working from home eliminates our in-person interactions, your virtual executive presence takes on greater weight. So think about what messages you are conveying by, for example, sending a lot of after-hours emails or arriving late to Zoom calls because you were in another video meeting.

Give Yourself Some Space

It's time to start thinking beyond just getting through these unprecedented times. How can you do so in a way that shows others that you are a strong leader and that sets the stage for your future success?

The first step is simply freeing up some more capacity in your schedule. To do so, take a moment to think about the most important work you need to be doing right now. Has it changed recently? Do you need to adjust your schedule to shift more time toward your top priorities?

Next, think about what you can get off of your plate. Are there meetings you can cancel or decline? Can you turn a one-hour meeting into a 30-minute one? Can you delegate more? Adding even a few minutes back into your day can provide some relief if you're feeling frenzied and overscheduled.

In my next article, I'll show you how to make the most of the capacity you've restored to your schedule. In the meantime, I invite you to explore my self-paced tools that will help you keep growing as a leader no matter how busy you are.