essential in leadership | Executive Leadership Coach

The Poetry of Leadership: Embracing Hollow Space

What feels like the longest summer ever is coming to an end. With the pandemic forcing a slowdown, our family swapped cross-country travel plans and sleep-away camps with late morning coffees on the deck, lazy kayak floats down the river, and s’mores roasted over our newly built firepit. Hollow space lies where so much activity used to rush and rumble…

Lori Mercer art of leadership and business Leadership Development Stories

Leaders Rising: Lori Mercer

With dreams of being an astronaut, Lori Mercer was a STEM Girl from an early age. When her father brought a computer home from his job moonlighting at the local computer store Lori, as a self-motivated and academically gifted seven-year-old, taught herself to program. “He put a BASIC programming book in my hand and let me run.”
“Growing up in rural Ohio, with not a lot of money, my parents wanted the best for us.” Lori’s father, born in South Eastern Kentucky, worked his way through college to…

Stockdale Paradox Creative Tension Executive Leadership Coaching

Readjusting Creative Tension

In an interview with Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, Navy Admiral James Stockdale reflected on his time in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp: “Who didn’t make it out?” “Oh, that’s easy,” [Stockdale] said. “The optimists… they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go…

Laura Wallace CEO vulnerable leader leadership development stories

Leaders Rising: Laura Wallace

It was a hot summer afternoon of running errands. Seven-year-old Laura was sitting in the backseat of her mom’s car when a familiar Bon Jovi song came on the radio. This Romeo is bleeding / But you can’t see his blood / It’s nothing but some feelings / That this old dog kicked up / It’s been raining since you left me / Now I’m drowning in the flood You see, I’ve always been a fighter…

Leadership chaos and uncertainty Executive Leadership Coaching

Elastigirl To The Rescue?

The emotional tailspin I hear leaders grappling with during this pandemic is rivaling the swings and sways of our stock market and news cycles. Fear and uncertainty looms. So much is unknown about when and how we’ll all be able to get safely back to work. Will your family survive? Will your team survive? Will your business survive? This kind of chaos and uncertainty has a way…