Your First 90 Days in a New Executive Role (And Why the Urge to Fix Everything Will Sink You)
In your first 90 days in a new executive role, the highest-leverage move is not to fix things. It’s to slow down and listen. Meet one-on-one with every person on your team, get out of the corporate office to talk with business unit leaders and visit the locations you now support, then prioritize what you […]
When to Hire an Executive Coach (Do You Actually Need One?)
Wondering when to hire an executive coach? Discover the 3 clear seasons you might need one, how to choose the right coach, and when you should just coast.
How to Develop Executive Presence
Executive presence is not a personality trait you either have or do not have. It is a set of learnable skills built deliberately over time, including how you communicate across levels, how you hold your composure under pressure, how much you speak versus how much you listen, and whether the room gets calmer or more […]
Executive Communication Skills: The 5 Shifts That Separate VPs From the C-Suite
Here’s something nobody tells you directly… the communication habits that got you to the vice president level are the same habits quietly killing your shot at the C-suite. I’ve watched this play out more times than I can count across almost 50 acquisitions and two IPOs. The pattern never changes. Communication expectations shift at every […]
How to Keep an Audience Engaged When Presenting on Stage
Most presenters lose the room in the first sixty seconds, and it comes down to a handful of small, fixable habits. Here’s how to keep an audience engaged when presenting: cut the filler words, open with a story instead of a pitch, use the whole stage, and stop reading your slides.
Personal Branding for Executives: How Getting on Stages Gets You Promoted
Personal branding for executives is not vanity; it is the mechanism that turns strong work into the promotion you have been waiting on. A couple of weeks ago I was in Nashville, riding a scooter around the city before delivering a personal branding keynote to a room full of cybersecurity executives, and it struck me […]
How Introverts Build Executive Presence: From Quiet IT Guy to Closing Keynote
Executive presence for introverts is not a personality trait reserved for natural extroverts. It is a learned set of skills built on behavioral self-awareness, foundational communication fundamentals, the ability to read a room in real time, and a mindset shift around how others actually perceive you. The introverted senior leaders I coach consistently outperform their […]
Why High Performers Fail at Leadership (I Was the Perfect Hire and the Wrong Kind of Leader)
High performers often fail in their first leadership role because the skills that earned them the promotion are not the skills the role actually requires. The transition from individual contributor to leader is an identity shift, not a skill upgrade, and it comes down to three things: redefining what hard work means, treating kindness as […]
Why Your Boss Stopped Advocating for You: 3 Reasons Executive Sponsorship Goes Quiet
You got passed over for another meeting. Then you find out you were passed over for several meetings on a project you’re going to be doing all of the work for. If your boss used to put you in front of executives and the invitations have quietly stopped showing up, your executive advocacy has gone […]
C-Suite Communication Skills: 5 Skills Every Executive Must Master
Most senior leaders underestimate how much their communication is holding them back. The technical skills that got you to director or VP will not carry you into the C-suite. What gets you there is how you communicate, how you read a room, and how you land your point with the people sitting at the executive […]
