The Building Champions Leadership Development Blog

Drawing upon their decades of leadership experience — and the hundreds of conversations they have each week with leaders across the country — our team of coaches deliver insights, strategies, and tips to help you improve how you lead and live.

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Abundance vs. Scarcity Mindset
Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran

Abundance vs. Scarcity Mindset

Resources can often feel finite and limited. And sometimes they are. That’s why stewardship is important in leadership. But often during times of economic uncertainty, it can feel safest to restrict spending and limit growth. And sometimes that’s exactly the right move. But what happens when that type of thinking becomes your norm? When it’s no longer a season of limits, but a lifestyle? Well, that’s when you’re headed toward a scarcity mindset.

In this article, we’ll break down what it can look like to live and lead with a mindset of abundance versus one of scarcity. And you can decide for yourself—which one looks like an easier way to live?

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Executive Presence for Women: The Power of Making Others Feel Important and Valued
Women in Leadership Carrie Pierce Women in Leadership Carrie Pierce

Executive Presence for Women: The Power of Making Others Feel Important and Valued

Executive presence has long been recognized as a crucial factor in the success of business leaders, particularly women. It goes beyond merely possessing knowledge or competence in your role; it's about the lasting impression you create and the feelings you inspire in others. In today's fast-paced, competitive business world, women leaders need to focus on cultivating a strong executive presence to stand out and make a difference.

This article will delve into how executive presence for women is less about finding the perfect words or delivering them forcefully, and more about making the people in the room feel incredibly important and valued.

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Flow and Its Connection to Workplace Performance
Women in Leadership Carlos Marín Women in Leadership Carlos Marín

Flow and Its Connection to Workplace Performance

Join our COO and Executive Coach Dan Foster in this Coach Video Tip as he interviews Coach Carlos Marín on flow and its connection to performance. If you've ever experienced a time when you're in the zone, everything is in sync, clicking and working, then that's a time when you've experienced a state of flow. Your work feels more effortless than usual and you're getting stuff done. In this video, Coach Carlos explains the precursors to flow and how to lead yourself into and from a state of flow more often so that you can increase your performance and productivity!

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How to Lead a Debate Back to a Healthy Dialogue
Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran

How to Lead a Debate Back to a Healthy Dialogue

Have you ever been in a conversation either personally or professionally when you realize that it’s no longer a dialogue, but a debate that you didn’t sign up for? It can be easy to want to run from such conversations, or depending on your personality style, it may be easy to respond emotionally (and regrettably). Regardless, it’s never fun when you recognize that someone is no longer participating in an exchange of ideas, but intent on “winning” a conversation.

However, as a leader, you have a responsibility to share your opinions and perspective while maintaining curiosity and showing respect to others—even (and especially) when they aren’t showing respect back. That is leading yourself really well. In this article, we’ll address how to disagree well and lead a debate back to a healthy dialogue.

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Rethink Disruption
Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran

Rethink Disruption

Forbes recently published an article highlighting the women on their 50 over 50 list and I loved the title: “The Age of Disruption.” Not only because both women and the age of 50 are being celebrated but because disruption is often seen as a negative, yet in this article it’s viewed as a positive.

So how do we begin seeing the good in disruptors? How do we become unafraid of disruption and instead embrace it? Well, you’ve got to lead it, not let it lead you. And I have three recommendations for you to practice to begin viewing disruption as positive.

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How to Lead Yourself Toward Your Healthiest and Happiest Life
Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran

How to Lead Yourself Toward Your Healthiest and Happiest Life

What makes for a healthy and happy life? Depending on who you ask, you’ll probably get a different answer because everyone has their own idea of what health and happiness looks like for them—and, if you don’t, then culture (ahem, most likely social media) will tell you what to strive for. But what does research have to say?

Harvard Study of Adult Development shared their findings from their more than 80 years long study of people, revealing two big takeaways: the happiest people who lived long lives took care of their health and experienced close relationships.

So what does that have to do with leadership? Well, everything. Because how you lead yourself matters. And whether you intend it to or not, your well-being impacts those around you—and it clearly affects the health and happiness of your lifespan.

In this article, we offer coaching tips for you on how to pursue physical health, grow in your most important relationships and manage the balance needed in your career so that you can increase your well-being and live the healthiest and happiest life that you can!

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How to Effectively Lead in a Remote/Hybrid Work Environment
Women in Leadership Annette Pellinat Women in Leadership Annette Pellinat

How to Effectively Lead in a Remote/Hybrid Work Environment

Join Building Champions COO and Executive Coach Dan Foster as he interviews Executive Coach Annette Pellinat on the hot topic of leading effectively in a remote/hybrid work environment! In this Coach Video Tip, you’ll learn what’s happening in the landscape of work and how both leaders and employees are experiencing it. Coach Annette has some actionable tips for leaders to implement today to help increase employee engagement and enhance remote leadership in this new and ever-evolving work environment. As she says, “Be curious and be intentional.”

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Manifest Your Goals
Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran

Manifest Your Goals

It can feel impossible to do it all, everything we say we want to and feel we should do. And with the hustle culture language subliminally embedded in our psyche, it’s normal to become overwhelmed and discouraged when we miss a deadline or fail to achieve a goal. But with 24 hours in a day, we can control more than we might realize. The solution isn’t to get as much done in as little time as possible (that can result in sloppy deliverables or lead you toward burnout), but instead to get the right things done in the time that you do have—focusing your attention on the goals and projects that you’ve identified as most important in your life and leadership.

In this article, we’ll break down the four key areas of our Focus Plan so that you can spend your time on the things that you say are important. Plus, our Focus Plan will help you better understand why a goal is important to you so that you can make the mindset shifts and behavior changes needed to improve both your performance and productivity.

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3 Key Components to Casting a Compelling Vision
Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran

3 Key Components to Casting a Compelling Vision

Everyone wants to belong to something bigger than themselves—it gives us purpose, motivation and the boost to get out of bed on days when we just want to hit the snooze button. When you’re aligned with the convictions and vision of the organization that you trade your days for, then you’ll feel inspired to give it your all. And everyone needs a vision pulling them forward.

In research by UK company Rungway, it was revealed that 52% of employees surveyed couldn’t state the vision of their organization and 49% couldn’t even list the values. Does that mean these companies don’t have visions? Or does that mean the visions haven’t been effectively communicated?

Well, either way, there’s a problem because compelling organizational visions attract and retain top talent, foster innovation and inspire productivity. And leaders, your organization can be that very place—one that creates a dynamic culture of high-producing individuals working together toward a common goal. You just need a vision. In this article, we’ll share why vision casting is so important in life and leadership and the three key components needed when building your vision.

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Live Your Best Life
Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran Women in Leadership Cara O'Halloran

Live Your Best Life

What do you think of when you hear the term life planning? Does end-of-life come to mind, like estate planning and wills and beneficiaries? Or does it bring to mind more emotion-based, supernatural type thinking?

Well, at Building Champions, we believe that life planning is a practical way to help you identify and, more importantly, live your best life. That’s why we give our Life Plan tool away for free. We want everyone to live their best life. And we know it’s possible.

In this article, we’ll explain what sets our Life Plan apart and how it’ll help you design the life you’ve always been dreaming of. It’s easier to reach than you think. And we can help you get there.

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