Posts by Jo Ilfeld, PhD
Are You Paying Attention to Awe and Wonder?
Are you paying attention to the things of awe and wonder around you? A few weeks ago, I was in beautiful Carmel and its beauty inspired me to make this quick video while I was walking on the beach. I encourage you to spend a few moments this week looking at the wonderful, awesome beauty…
Read MoreWhat’s Your Leadership Style: Push or Pull?
When you think of your leadership style, how much do you pull information from the people on your team and how much do you push information and decisions down to them? I read a recent article in Harvard Business Review recently on leadership style. Leaders who push decisions, data and action plans down to their teams, their…
Read MoreWhat’s more important: work or family? Tips for making choices.
There’s a reason we’re all Marie Kondo’ing our homes, our email inboxes and our lives. There is a lot going on for all of us and with the number of things happening, it inevitably means we are making choices– lots of them. Every. Single. Day. Not only are the choices tiring but they often feel…
Read MoreAre You Missing The Obvious?
Recently I had the joy of spending some time on Cape Cod with my daughter, who was about to go to camp, and one of my oldest and best friends. While my daughter was plugged into her earbuds, my friend and I had a lot of time to talk as we drove around the Cape.…
Read MoreHow to Improve Strategic Thinking
I’m sure you have those times when you know you need to think more deeply about something, you know it needs more strategy and work. How can you improve strategic thinking? If you’re like me, you probably tell yourself, “I’ll think about it when I’m in the car picking up the kids from school.” Or…
Read MoreSelf-compassion Is Hard
Is self-compassion more important than self-esteem? Well, research shows it can be. But practicing self-compassion is hard. On Valentine’s Day this past year, I broke my ankle (better than a broken heart perhaps?), and as I was reflecting back on that time, it made me think about self-compassion. Self-esteem makes us feel like “I can…
Read MoreKeeping Self-Care Alive
How do you make time for self-care when your to-do list overflowing? I don’t have any wisdom to offer you on how to manage your to-do lists but I do have one thing to share that I believe is very important in times of increased stress and overwhelm. It’s okay to cut back on your…
Read MoreWork Relationships: Being Proactive
Work relationships are something that as a leader or team member you always need to be working on. Recently, I was talking with a client who described a problem he had with one team member because he would never know how upset she was until she would lose it. We talked about how he can…
Read MoreBig-Picture Thinking vs Tunnel Vision
Sometimes you need to put your big-picture thinking aside and adopt tunnel vision in order to give your complete attention and focus to a project and be productive. But what is the price you pay for that? What happens when your vision becomes so focused that you stop paying attention to what’s happening just on…
Read MoreDo Hard-driving Leaders Get Better Results?
Do hard-driving leaders get better results? I’ve been thinking about this question a lot recently, only to open the newspaper recently (yes, we still get a physical newspaper) to an article about lauded UC Berkeley swimming coach, Teri McKeever, who also served as the US Olympic team coach, in which it detailed how she bullied and…
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