Fundraising Leadership ™

Executive Coaching, Leadership Training, and Personal Development

The Daily Clean Slate – Establishing a Leadership Habit

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How many of you wake up to a freshly filled Inbox and a daily agenda filled with a range of difficult conversations and challenging work? Tempting to dive right in, right? But, if you’re like me, that trap can ruin a morning and, honestly, not give the work the attention and venue it deserves.

Well, my coach gave me some great advice about a year ago about a better way to start the day and it has made all the difference. But here’s the trick: it takes some serious discipline until a habit is formed. After that? It’s no more difficult than your 5 am sleepwalk to the coffee machine. [Read more…]

Do You Know How to Subtract?

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Less is MoreThis week my family and I are moving. It’s a significant downsize in anticipation of my oldest daughter going off to college in a year. As a family of four, we’re transitioning from a 3BR+Den+Garage house to a 2BR+Den and no garage condo by the beach in Naples, FL. In preparation for the move, we’ve been “subtracting” a significant amount of stuff from our lives over the past few weeks–giving most of it away to Goodwill, or families whom we know can put it to good use.

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5 Tips to Cultivate a Growth Mindset Culture

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Fostering a culture of accountability within your team is a key skill and it aligns perfectly with the coach-like style of leadership. We have covered the topic of accountability in past posts “Creating a Culture of Accountability” and “A is For Accountability.”

The foundation of accountability lies in asking three questions:

What will you do? When will it be completed? How will you report back?

When you create a work culture that embraces accountability you need to ensure that it is held without judgement. This creates an environment where everyone can learn from success and failure. [Read more…]

9 Essential Qualities of Successful Nonprofit Leaders

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Human resource professionals and hiring managers often ask me if there are certain qualities to look for when hiring prospective new successful nonprofit leaders that are likely to make them extraordinarily successful in their leadership roles. While there are no absolutes, Janice Cunning and I identified nine essential qualities through our personal experience in the nonprofit world as well as our work training and coaching nonprofit professionals that make nonprofit executives extraordinary.  We found that there are a few characteristics that if carefully screened for can yield excellent new-hire results. [Read more…]

Improve Your Pay While Maintaining Balance

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Many coaching clients I work with are at the point in their careers where they are deciding on what’s next. Often there is both desire and hesitation about moving up the ladder.

Advancing in your career has many positives. There is the opportunity to make a greater impact; to motivate and inspire others; to undertake more challenging and fulfilling work; and to achieve greater financial security with a bigger paycheck. [Read more…]

Dealing with Difficult Emotions

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Next week, I meet with the Conscious Leadership Tribe to discuss Commitment #3 from the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leaders: “I commit to feeling my feelings all the way through to completion. They come, and I locate them in my body then move, breathe and vocalize them, so they release all the way.” It’s a topic that this group of leaders comes back to from time-to-time because we assert that conscious leaders are emotionally intelligent.

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Leadership Starts From Within

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What images come to mind when you think of a leader? Do you imagine a visionary who has attached a large following? Or do you connect the idea of leadership to certain job titles?  Perhaps you only define yourself as a leader if you have people reporting to you. I think it is quite common to see leaders as those out in front or at the top of an organization.
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