Leadership Blog

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From Incite to Leadership founder and CEO Jo Ilfeld, read the latest on strategic vision, leading change amid complexity, and honing the way you communicate and collaborate with others. Get resources, practical strategies, research, and more.

Get Specific About Gratitude

By Jo Ilfeld, PhD | December 15, 2021 |
Jo Ilfeld | Executive Leadership Coach | Getting Specific About Gratitude

The holidays are a good time to express gratitude but, to be honest, so is January and February, or any time of the year.  What are you doing to acknowledge the accomplishments of the people who work for you? Try to get as specific as you can as it adds a new level of recognition…

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Navigating Change: Slow Down Before You Land on Your Butt

By Jo Ilfeld, PhD | December 2, 2021 |
Jo Ilfeld | Executive Leadership Coach | Navigating Change: Slow Down Before You Land on Your Butt

Change. So many of my clients are talking about change lately. It can be big areas of change within their company: new objectives, hybrid working, or returning back to the workplace. It might be dealing with kids going back to school or college or changes in family situations with elderly parents. If you find yourself…

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How to be Compassionately Persistent

By Jo Ilfeld, PhD | November 24, 2021 |
Jo Ilfeld | Executive Leadership Coach | How to be Compassionately Persistent

Is it possible to get your needs met and be compassionate at the same time? Yes, you can and in this video below, I share how a good friend of mine helped me make that realization. I would love to hear your thoughts. What are your suggestions for being persistent in getting your needs met…

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Envy: What is it Telling You?

By Jo Ilfeld, PhD | November 18, 2021 |
Jo Ilfeld | Executive Leadership Coach | Envy: What is it Telling You?

Hands up if you have an occasional stab of envy when a friend or colleague shares something about their life? Yeah, me too. Sometimes when we experience envy, it could be a really good signal to us of something that we really care about or something we might want to prioritize in our life. But…

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How do you know when enough is enough?

By Jo Ilfeld, PhD | November 10, 2021 |
Jo Ilfeld | Executive Leadership Coach | Enough is Enough

For the past few months, I’ve been returning again and again to this question, “How do you know when enough is enough? I will give you an example of what I mean. Over the summer, my kids were at camp and I put together two care packages for them. It involved a whole lot of…

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Amplify Voices on Your Team

By Jo Ilfeld, PhD | October 21, 2021 |
Jo Ilfeld | Emotional Intelligence | Executive Leadership Coach |Amplify Voices on Your Team

Have you ever been in a meeting where you said something that you thought was really brilliant and no one really seemed to notice and then a few minutes later, someone else said something remarkably similar and everyone piled onto it? That can be pretty frustrating, right? Believe it or not, I’ve heard more stories…

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Less Focus and More Blending

By Jo Ilfeld, PhD | October 20, 2021 |

Even in sunny California, the season is changing. The mornings are crisp, I rarely worry about being too hot on my weekly hikes anymore, and often when I wake up now, it’s still dark (never very motivating for a non-morning person like myself!). It’s also a big month in my world. My youngest is getting…

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Ambition vs. Gratitude

By Jo Ilfeld, PhD | October 14, 2021 |
Jo Ilfeld | Ambition |Executive Leadership Coach| Ambition vs. Gratitude

Ambition vs. gratitude and the tension between the two.  Do you feel that there is so much in your life that is going well and yet you still want something more? And then you feel guilty because you feel you are not grateful enough for what you do have? Many of my clients feel this…

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Are You Tripping Yourself Up?

By Jo Ilfeld, PhD | October 6, 2021 |
Jo Ilfeld | Relationship Building | Executive Leadership Coach |Are you tripping yourself up?

This past summer, I had the joy of spending two summer weeks in Carmel, a place by the ocean I love. It was a working vacation but I made time every morning to walk along the ocean and on the beach. It got me to start my day with a gorgeous vista, it got my…

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What Are You Avoiding?

By Jo Ilfeld, PhD | September 28, 2021 |
Jo Ilfeld |Executive Leadership Coach | What Are You Avoiding?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how there’s always something we are avoiding but different types of people are avoiding different types of things. Are you a hard-driving, hard-charging personality? Then you might be avoiding rest or taking time for yourself. Or are you facing a really big task that seems overwhelming and you…

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