Leading Elephants

🎉 Cheers to Connection and Community at Leading Elephants! 🎉 It’s become a tradition at Leading Elephants to come up with creative ways to connect at the end of the year and this time we planned a Holiday Mocktail Hour! And let us tell you… It was a joyful reminder of what makes our team so special. We spent the hour building community—mixing up festive mocktails, sharing where we’re from, our unique holiday traditions, and our hopes for the year ahead. These moments of connection are what we cherish most as an ever-growing team. 🧡 Building community as a fully virtual team can be tricky, but we always find a way because we deeply value connection—and love infusing it with fun, light, and joy. It’s how we show we value each other as colleagues and as people and how we show our gratitude for a year of challenges hurdled and successes won together! A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us for this celebration and to all those who we’ve worked with this year. We are continually inspired by your hard work and dedication to the mission of creating workplaces where everyone thrives. How is your team celebrating the holidays or wrapping up the year together? We’d love to hear about your celebrations in the comments! ✨

“Values are like fingerprints, nobody’s are the same, but you leave them over everything that you do.”- Elvis Presley Your values are more than the guiding principles of your life. When we only think of them that way, they can feel lofty and act as a constant reminder that we have not achieved some idealized version of ourselves. Instead, think of them as your fingerprint- a unique marker that shows you were there. Your presence mattered and changed the course of events because you brought your thoughts, beliefs, and convictions to the table. We enjoy exploring the meaning of values and asking the big questions. Who are you and what do you value? Are your values, goals and the life you are living in alignment? What value do you bring to your team or work? How do you recognize the value of others? Follow us along on this journey! To start, take 10 minutes and complete this Core Value exercise. https://hubs.ly/Q02XlCST0 When you’ve finished, bravely post your core values in the comments. We’ll do it with you 🤗

🤦♀️ Don’t let feelings of overwhelm paralyze you! 🙋♂️ We love the intentionality leaders bring. But if we aren’t careful it can cause paralysis, and everyone suffers. Sometimes, we want to “get it right” so much that we stall ourselves out… circling the same culture issue or project plan over and over in hopes to account for all the challenges that might arise. We write and rewrite the strategy, bring everyone in, and talk and talk, but the work never seems to get going. Before we know it, we’ve fallen into the trap of comprehensiveness and perfectionism, and it’s hard to find a way out. Despite our best intentions, some great ideas stay on the shelf and team morale dips due to lack of clarity, misalignment, and multiple false starts. In the pursuit of perfect strategy, leaders can give mixed messages and fail to to honor the needs of their teams and the work that’s already been done. By continually shifting and redoing work, leaders often signal whose time, effort, and expertise is important and whose is not - treating the efforts and ideas as disposable commodities without remembering the people who gave them. And when collaborating across lines of difference, this comprehensiveness compounds into multi-cultural no-no with far reaching implications that can affect the sense of belonging on your team. If this has been you and your team, there is good news. You can overcome this paralysis and baby step your way out of a problem. Here are 4 ways to help you give yourself a way to step forward, even when you don’t see it all: 🙌Create a learning agenda with specific experiments to work out 🙌Name a future moment to take stock of what is emerging, but make a short term plan and move forward 🙌Narrate what you do know … and when you will know more 🙌Allocate your energy. Set up time to work on the clear stuff in front of you, making sense of the slightly murky stuff, and getting way outside the box. Here’s the thing… You will never know everything before you begin a course of action. The learning comes as you go. And therein lies the strategy for how to move forward. Take on an experimental posture that allows you and your team the freedom to make progress without needing to see the end from the beginning. Trust in the process and just do the next right thing. #leadership #coaching #training #management #education #teams #leadingelephants

When we work with leaders, we don’t just have them talk about the patterns they want to stop. ✨ We help them picture a positive version of what they want to be. ✨ It’s powerful to help them have a positive anchor because it helps them imagine their new reality. As you consider the YOU that you want to be in 2025, take some time to picture this. When you want to make a change, map out what it looks like / sounds like / feels like. By articulating a new destination, you’re halfway there. #leadership #coaching #training #management #education #teams #leadingelephants

Are You Leading Your Team —or Trying to Save Them? Sometimes we can see our to-do list stacking up, but there are hidden assumptions about leadership that can secretly add to the burdens we carry. As a leader, it’s tempting to take on everything yourself—to be the hero who solves problems and shields your team from overwhelm. Your team may even praise you for it - bringing their problems to you and looking for you to carve out clarity for them. But that approach comes at a cost. Trying to do it all diminishes overall effectiveness—both for you and your team. When you step in to save the day, you take away your team’s opportunity to collaborate and contribute. They end up relying on you, and you carry the burden alone. That’s a fast track to burnout. Leadership isn’t about rescuing—it’s about empowering. What if you didn’t have to figure it all out? Imagine bringing unfinished ideas to the table, allowing your team to work alongside you to shape the solution. Collaboration fosters ownership and shared responsibility. Delegation isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s smart leadership. The next time you are tempted to own the work, take a moment to consider: 💪Think about long-term sustainability. Are you setting a precedent where your team relies on you to fix everything, or are you building a culture of shared responsibility? 💪Consider how delegation can unlock creativity. Your team might have innovative solutions that wouldn’t surface if you take ownership of every task. 💪Assess the opportunities for growth. Delegating allows your team to develop leadership capabilities, preparing them for greater responsibilities. 💪Find your growth in the process, too. You may need to learn to live with less control, or you may need new ways to give feedback or monitor for risks. As you find the opportunities to let go, pay attention to your unease and what it points you to. This likely isn’t your first reminder to let go. But we hope it will bring a new chance for you to explore those assumptions and unlock a little more brilliance from your team. If you’re interested in practicing more, in our upcoming session, we’ll explore how you can distribute the load, shift away from hero leadership, and lead in a way that’s sustainable for you and empowering for your team. Ready to lead differently? Join us on December 6th to learn practical strategies for overcoming overwhelm. https://hubs.li/Q02XlsGz0 #LevelUpLab #overwhelm #workshop #leadingelephants

As the year winds down, it can feel like the world is speeding up. We've just concluded a high-stakes election, the holidays are fast approaching, and shorter days are affecting many people’s mental well-being. Between the constant notifications, mounting to-do lists, and societal pressures, it’s easy to feel like you’re losing control of your balance. Phew! 😮💨 But when the world is pulling you in every direction, grounding becomes more essential than ever. 🌀Change is constant. How we navigate change alleviates our overwhelm. 🌀 Grounding—whether through a physical practice or simply finding your mental center—helps you regain your sense of stability. It reconnects you to the present moment, reducing stress, improving focus, and building resilience. For some, grounding may include connecting with nature, but the essence of grounding is about finding a sense of calm amid chaos. It’s about mentally anchoring yourself, taking deep breaths, and quieting the noise of external demands. By grounding yourself, you can refocus your energy on what truly matters, pushing past distractions and reclaiming a sense of control. It's not about eliminating the chaos but creating a solid foundation from which to navigate it. So today, amid the swirl of everything else going on, we hope that you will invest in a new direction. Our upcoming session, Beyond the Productivity Paradigm: Finding Deeper Solutions to Overcoming Overwhelm, will act as your professional "grounding" exercise, offering practical, proven strategies to overcome overwhelm. You’ll learn how to tune out the noise, reconnect with what centers you, and restore a sense of calm and control. https://hubs.li/Q02XkFzc0 Join us on December 6th to take the first step toward finding your balance in a chaotic world. #LevelUpLab #overwhelm #workshop #invest #leadingelephants

We may not know the election results today, or even this week.  And I don’t own a crystal ball. So while I don’t know the future, I own how I experience it.  And this season more than any other: I CHOOSE JOY! I CHOOSE GRATEFULNESS OVER WORRY.  The world around me can swirl, but I will glory in the miracle of the fall leaves and the perfection of the sunset over Lake Champlain.  There is something beautiful right in front of me every time I just pause to notice. I CHOOSE CONNECTION OVER ISOLATION.  I will love big.  I will send memes to my boys to lighten their worries in their very first election as voters, remind my team and my friends that I’ve got them .. and revel in drawing deeper and deeper threads every day across this extraordinary community I live in.  I CHOOSE HOPE.  I believe that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice" (Dr King) and I hope greater humanity and consciousness.” I have held tight this season to inspiration from: - Dawan Julien who made full-on plans to attend the inauguration she is dreaming of! - Krupa Desai whose celebration of Diwali made me believe that a billion people celebrating the triumph of light over darkness this weekend can't be a coincidence! - Cristine Nardi whose political activism in her community reminded me to be hopeful, while being informed and taking action, and - Bob Stiller who has shown me through his life and success that a group of people can come together to envision a future and bring to fruition things we never thought possible (Three cheers for his first book on Amazon: Better and Better: Creating a Culture of Purpose, Excellence, and Transformative Human Engagement) I wish you all hope, connection, gratefulness and joy as we hold each other through this week.  Notice miracles, love big and be “light over darkness” in your community.  We’ve got each other!

⏰ There's still time to register for our upcoming Level Up Lab workshop, Beyond the Productivity Paradigm: Finding Deeper Solutions to Overcoming Overwhelm… and get the Early Bird price! In this interactive workshop, you'll identify: ✨The underlying factors that contribute to feelings of overwhelm and explore how our personal beliefs, team expectations, and societal pressures intersect to create an untenable expectation for leadership. ✨Methods of uncovering hidden assumptions and limiting beliefs that keep you moving in the hamster wheel of the workplace. ✨Practical steps to begin shifting your overwhelm dynamic and create the space necessary to sustainably support a new approach. Attending this workshop will give you the space to explore and reflect on the patterns that keep you stuck instead of moving forward with momentum, purpose, and joy. Don't wait! Secure your spot today! https://hubs.li/Q02V__mQ0 #LevelUpLab #LeadingElephants #Overwhelm #Leadership

🪩 A great new year doesn’t start when the ball drops. 🪩 So many of us begin investing in our new year when we are dusting off the confetti from the party. It might sound crazy, but what if we told you that a little action in the next two months could make a major difference in your 2025? We know this time of year is busy, and the idea of making big changes can feel overwhelming. But we’re not talking about a massive overhaul—we’re talking about simple, intentional actions that could make a major difference in how you start 2025. Here are a few ways to set yourself up for success: ✨ Start simplifying now. Take a look at your current workload and commitments. What could be simpler? What could you streamline to reduce stress over the next few weeks? ✨ Plan for a regroup in January. Don’t wait for the new year to catch you off guard. Set up holds in your calendar now to carve out time for reflection and resetting as 2025 begins. Giving yourself this space will make a big difference in how you enter the year. ✨ Disrupt old patterns. Instead of making another round of resolutions, consider how you can break free from the approach that has given your current results. Our upcoming session will guide you through this process, helping you create meaningful, lasting changes that go beyond typical goal-setting. This isn’t about perfection or tackling everything at once—it’s about giving yourself permission to experiment, simplify, and enter the new year with clarity and purpose. Join us for this timely session. A small investment of time now could set the tone for a refreshed, empowered start to 2025. 💪 ✨You deserve it. ✨ https://hubs.li/Q02VcDk40 #LevelUpLab #Training # Overwhelm #Leadership #leadingelephants

Are You Leading Your Life—or Is It Leading You? 🤔 Overwhelm can often feel like something that’s happening to us—a product of external demands, deadlines, and expectations. And while those forces are real, there’s another layer to this experience: the role we play in our own overwhelm. In Conscious Leadership, there’s a powerful shift that occurs when we move from a "To Me" mindset to a "By Me" mindset. In the "To Me" style, we feel like victims to our circumstances, blaming outside forces for our stress. It’s easy to feel like there’s no way out. But what if you could step into a "By Me" mindset, where you reclaim control? The "By Me" approach is about becoming the conscious creator of your experience. It’s about radical responsibility—letting go of blame and asking, What can I learn from this? How can I respond differently? This shift doesn’t mean that external pressures disappear. It’s not about dismissing how challenging things can be. Instead, it’s about recognizing where we have more agency than we think and choosing to engage differently. When we operate from a "By Me" mindset, we can take responsibility for how we react, make decisions, and move through complexity. If you're caught in a swirl of overwhelm, this framework invites you to pause and reflect: 🔎What’s within your control? 🔎How are you showing up in the face of challenges? 🔎Could your approach be contributing to the chaos? The shift from "To Me" to "By Me" is not always easy, but it is transformative. This session will help you recognize where you might be colluding with overwhelm—and how you can begin to shift out of it. Let’s explore together how to stop being at the mercy of external forces and start leading our lives with intention and grace. Join us on December 6 to learn how to move from overwhelm to a grounded, empowered state. https://hubs.li/Q02VcDbw0 (We thank the folks @The Conscious Leadership Group for teaching us this framework that works for overwhelm and so many other challenges.) #LevelUpLab #Training #Overhwelm #Leadership #leadingelephants