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About two weeks ago, I had a coaching call with a people manager at a fast growing tech company. She started the call with “200 people got laid off today, including my boss. No warning.”

This is by no means an isolated incident. Dozens of other companies are laying off people right now, not twelve months after companies were desperate to hire talent. The speed of this shift is shocking, and this may be just the beginning.

Back in 2008, I ran a large team at a tech company and when everything fell apart, I was very focused on my team. What I learned is that was not enough.

What questions should you be asking yourself right now? Here are some ideas:

• How can I focus on my team and what they are experiencing?
• What do they need from me?
• What can I do to drive the business forward in this environment of uncertainty? How can I stay focused?
• Where is the business opportunity?
• How can I add value to the company?

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to about 60 women at a Charleston Chamber of Commerce luncheon. This highly interactive session had these women asking questions, trying new things, and learning dozens of communication tools and techniques.

One of the points I made when talking about executive presence, is to be aware of negative thought patterns since negativity influences our language, how we say what we say and how we show up in our bodies. Positivity, humor, mindfulness, happiness and joy can all be antidotes to negativity.

As I was researching the topic, I stumbled upon Ingrid Fetell Lee, a designer and author, who delves into the psychology and neuroscience behind joy. She believes that the use of color, rounded shapes and nature have a positive affect on our ability to feel joy. Check out her TED talk if you want to learn more.

One of the questions she asks: “When was the last time you felt a true, unfettered moment of joy?”.

Have you ever thought about your personal brand? What does your brand say about you? How do you want to be seen by others at work?

When coaching clients, these questions come up a lot because they help us to be more intentional about ourselves and how we show up. One of my clients, “Casey”, is struggling with a volatile boss who is quite challenging to work with.

While Casey said she wants her brand to be seen as smart, decisive and effective, the language she uses when talking with this challenging boss is anything but clear and direct. Understanding what she wants her brand to be and how she wants to be seen helped her have clarity around what she needed to shift to align with her brand vision. How we speak, how we dress, how we show up on video or in person all tell others about our brand. Be intentional about your brand.

When coaching a senior leader recently, I challenged him to think about his colleagues on the leadership team at his mid-sized company. They have been in business for over a decade, and by most business measures, are very successful.

When he rated himself and his fellow leaders on a one to ten scale for leadership, management and success in each of their current roles, he only gave out only eight. Every other score was considerably lower, with most in the three to five range. Keep in mind, this is a successful organization. How could he rate them so low?

My client suffers from having a huge negativity bias. He looks at things through such a negative lens that he is dragging down himself and his colleagues.

One of the principles of Emotional Intelligence is positivity. Being positive, especially as a leader, has an out-sized impact on your organization.

There are some new business concepts floating around that are worth exploring:

One concept is called quiet quitting, which has been in the news a lot lately. Apparently it started as a social media trend, but it speaks to a fundamental shift that has happened since the pandemic. What I have read is that it amounts to people doing the bare minimum at their job with the hope that they can achieve some sort of work/life balance. Employees are often stressed out, burned out and looking for their next gig. Here is an article from Korn Ferry if you would like to learn more.

The other is concept is allyship, defined as actively supporting other colleagues in the organization who are often not heard. I have coached this technique quite a bit in my group coaching engagements. Beneficiaries of allyship are often women and those from underrepresented groups. Making sure that everyone in your organization is heard is everyone’s responsibility, especially the responsibility of leadership. What are you doing to make sure that allyship is promoted internally?

Two weeks ago, I hit a wall. There was just too much going on, I felt like I had no time and was feeling drained and overwhelmed. So, I turned to an Executive Coach for coaching. Imagine that! An Executive Coach asking to be coached.

From that coaching partnership, I learned a powerful insight about myself and how I work. That insight gave me clarity on several levels and also brought me a measure of acceptance and peace. I also learned that I needed to calendar block more effectively and to slow down a bit.

Summer is coming to an end.  Here in Charleston, kids are already back in school, Q3 is kicking into high gear and we are getting ready for Q4. What are you doing for yourself to better manage your time? How can you enter September truly energized and ready to operate at full speed?

Yesterday, a sales leader that I coach wanted to talk about how to manage the “fire alarms that are going off constantly”. “Dave” said that there is so much going on at work, everyone is running around like crazy and nothing is getting done. It sounded like mice running in a wheel.

We talked about Dave being more intentional with his communications so that his leadership understands the implications of their fire drills, allowing his team to get more focused and move the business forward. With all that is happening in the economy, things will get even rockier. How can we prepare for that?

Be intentional. One big area for Dave to work on is to be more intentional with his time. What about you? Do you take time to reflect, to strategize, to focus? Stop being a mice on a wheel.

The other day, I coached a client through the results of her 360 assessment, a valuable tool where several of her direct reports and managers provided her with confidential feedback on various skills including leadership, ability to motivate others, build talent, execute, innovate and communicate.

This client rated herself about 50% lower than others rated her on several different metrics including listening, managing time and important tasks and remaining focused. The gap was substantial! As I coached her through the results, she was genuinely stumped by the gap. There was another interesting insight, her managers rated her a lot lower on her leadership skills than her direct reports. My client does not own her value and it shows with upper management.

Are you being honest with yourself about the value you bring to your organization? I often ask clients “Are you missing the bragging gene?”

For those of you that know my story, you know that I led national sales teams for almost 20 years, and before that, I sold food to restaurants then advertising space for various media companies.

Recently, I have had the pleasure of coaching two different clients in the world of sales. For the first, I ran a workshop on sales do’s and don’ts for a global manufacturing company. It was so fun! The key insight from participants? We all pick up bad habits and having a “refresher course” is worthwhile, even for senior sellers. Keep learning.

My second client is the CEO of a tech start-up who is building out a sales team. He is open to learning and curious about what he does not know, including the fact that sales people think differently. Let’s be honest, sales people are different. Appreciate that, respect it, and appreciate the value they bring to the organization. We all play a role in the company’s success, and for most (if not all) companies, sellers are critical.

Lately, I have been doing quite a bit of work with clients around their emotional intelligence, the work pioneered by Daniel Goleman in the 1990s. There are four buckets: Self Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness and Relationship Management. Under Social Awareness, the element that many managers find challenging to actively demonstrate with team members is empathy, the ability to tune into the other person’s thinking and feeling.

Yesterday, I coached a senior leader on how to coach her manager about their apparent lack of empathy and the negative impact it was having on the department. That is not as easy as it sounds. People that lack empathy are unaware of how they show up (low self-awareness) and don’t even realize that “walking in someone else’s shoes” matters. For leaders, however, having empathy is CRITICAL if you want to build a team and get the best from your team.

Here is some good news: you can learn to become more empathetic. How do you build empathy? Start by showing that you care by actually caring.