The Executive Coach's Blog

You're Doubting Yourself AND A Special Offer!

#career #coach #executive coach #executive presence #leadership #mary lee gannon #mindfulness Dec 01, 2023

Dear {{first_name}},

You’re a leader in a high performing role but deep down you understand that emotional intelligence and clarity are critical to your success. You’ve started to doubt yourself. You feel you don’t have a clear career path and feel you need more executive presence for greater influence and efficacy.

You’ve noticed your relationships are frayed, you’re resentful, you’re not sleeping well and other healthy habits have gone by the wayside too.

Here is what I know to be true:

When you have the humility to see yourself honesty you free yourself to be a more powerful leader.
When you stop focusing on being right and start focusing on getting it right you take your leadership to a whole new level.
The path you seek is directly in front of you. When you push aside the doubt, cynicism, bureaucracy and personal agendas so you can see it clearly.
Sitting back and waiting for others to notice your value is like sitting back and thinking the lion won’t eat you becau

Your 10 Step Career and Life Plan for 2024

#executive presence #leadership #plan career career goals executive mary lee gannon Nov 21, 2023

After two decades as a CEO in various roles there are definitely distinct lessons I've learned over time from the challenges and successes I have experienced. I share these at this time of year because I know you may be thinking about the New Year. When we put thought into our actions we end up with results. When we let the year carry us without intention, we often end up disappointed.

Here are '10 Lessons from the Corner Office' and a link to a FREE tool to help you plan your career with intention in 2024.

When we focus on what we have to give instead of what there is to get we realize our value.

When we are curious and compassionate, we become servant leaders instead of command and control dictators.

There is power in having your boss’s back. Find a way to do that or go somewhere you can. Don’t stay and poison yourself, your persona, and the culture.

Good people leave organizations because of bad managers who don’t position them to learn and advance

Compassion is Hard When We Have Nothing Left to Give

#leadership #plan after the promotion career career goals coach compassion mary lee gannon Oct 31, 2023

Compassion is powerful. We all think we have it. And then we see something that makes us uncomfortable and we forget how to show it.

😖 I’ve been paralyzed by this too. I had to work on how to feel, then demonstrate compassion when I had little of it for myself during a difficult divorce.

😔 Lack of compassion shows up when someone close to you is grieving and you don’t know what to say or do so you avoid, when someone is suffering and you start wondering if their situation might happen to you, when you start comparing their situation to yours, when you’re frustrated that you can’t fix their situation, and when you’re so spent you don’t have anything left to give.

😒 In all of these instances we make someone else’s suffering about us. Yes. We’re in our own heads and not their pain.

😳 At work and in life this can look like detachment, cold, unfeeling, self-consumed, and ambition driven.

✅ Compassion is an action. It is where you demonstrate your consideration and that y...

When You Can't Let Go

#career #executive coach #leadership after the promotion anxiety get hired get unstuck mary lee gannon Oct 24, 2023

You want to let go of that nasty, debilitating thought that gnaws at your peace, ambition and ability to show up for people you care about.

You try.

But doubt keeps weaseling itself back to the front of your mind and taking up more space every time it resurfaces.

📚 You read self-help books.

👂 You listen to podcasts.

🧐 You think about it a lot yet nothing changes.

💪You figure you’ll just work harder because that always worked before only now not only are you stuck, you’re exhausted. And people are distancing themselves from you.

😡You get hard on yourself because you can’t fix this.

😩You start to think there’s something wrong with you, that this will last forever and effect your relationships.

👀 You notice that your are giving up hope.

The truth is…

The reason none of these things are working is two fold…

The thing you think you need to let go of is likely not the root of the problem.

You don’t know how to interrupt the destructiv

It's a Superpower

#career #coach #executive coach #executive presence #leadership #mary lee gannon #mindfulness #plan acceptance Sep 14, 2023

I have one distinct trait that stands out among everything I do.

I see people. I see their genius very clearly. And I can get to the root of what is in the way.

I've had this quality my entire life. It used to get me in trouble because I always asked a lot of questions. It's no surprise that after a long day in my CEO role I ended up coaching in the late afternoons and early evenings.

Sometimes people don't want to go into the dark corners of their lives. I'm fascinated by the dark corners because I know by experience how empty they are and that I can shed light there.

✅ I see when someone has lost their magic. This is the saddest for me and is when I am especially attentive to someone’s pain.

✅ I see when people are in their own way.

✅ I see when ‘business’ has taken the place of acceptance.

✅ I see a life change when someone shifts from resentment, aloneness, blaming and complaining to confidence, connection and calm.

You may already be in the top 5% of your peers bec...

Managing Staff in Today's Culture

#leadership career career coach executive coach executive presence management managing mary lee gannon plan quiet quitting staff Oct 21, 2022

Every office is struggling with hiring and employee retention. I read and study it with fascination. The Industrial Age left employees with few options and they stayed because it was safe. The Information Age inspired a standard of living that employees aspired to and climbing the corporate ladder was what kept people motivated. After the economic crash of 2008 the Social Age emerged where people want quality of life because the economy and jobs are too unforgiving and unstable. We have to adapt because creating cultures that play to past Age dynamics are not working.

Create an environment where employees have an opportunity to learn, grow, expand, explore. Options are abundant for employees. Contracts and incentives to stay don’t work. Don’t expect their loyalty or that they need you because your company is the biggest, or that the safety of their secure job will keep them. They’ll leave for a better opportunity to challenge themselves. You must be their “always better.”

I bring m...

Can We Please Nomalize PTO?

#career #coach #executive coach #executive presence #leadership #plan career goals executive coach hilton head mary lee gannon pittsburgh pto retirment Oct 10, 2022

Can we all please normalize appreciating PTO. Arnie and I decided a long time ago that we have to be the ones to prioritize our wellbeing. We didn’t wait for retirement to get the beach house. We don’t wait for retirement to travel. We don’t wait for retirement to regularly visit our children out of town. We don’t wait for retirement to take up hobbies, new sports, creative endeavors, meet new friends. We don’t have a bucket list. We live it every day.

I've spent most of my career as an execuitive at hospitals all to often seeing people retire, think they're going to do everything they've been waiting their whole lives to do, and an illness stops them in their tracks. Don't wait. Scale your dreams to what is reasonable and live them now.

Arnie and I are both high achievers and realize that sometimes doing our best means reflecting on what’s in the way of that happening.

The American culture has convinced many people that the work treadmill is necessary for success. That you must p...

You're Doubting Yourself AND A Special Offer!

Your 10 Step Career and Life Plan for 2024

Compassion is Hard When We Have Nothing Left to Give

When You Can't Let Go

It's a Superpower

Managing Staff in Today's Culture

Can We Please Nomalize PTO?

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