Melissa’s most recent book, Help Them Thrive, discusses an experience in which she labeled herself a hater! Are you surprised by her transparency? I was! But as she explains in the book, it’s okay to admit feelings of envy.

Did you know your leadership impact alone accounts for 70% of the variance in team engagement? Gulp. 😳

Only 31% of workers are engaged in the US. As leaders, we unintentionally toxify the workplace and subject our teams to environments where they cannot thrive.

Need to defend your diversity, equity, or inclusion initiatives? Please allow me to provide some talking points and language you can repurpose to justify your work with stakeholders-clients, board, employees, and the court of public opinion. Use this script as you see fit and best wishes for sustaining your investment in this worthy work. I want you to thrive. If my team can be of service, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Humans have always disagreed. It's in our nature and will remain as such; if we're lucky. Freedom doesn't exist without balanced differences of opinion; that's the beauty of democracy; we are free to disagree…

Have you ever anticipated being in a situation where you would have to defend yourself or your beliefs? What did you do? Likely, you avoided the situation or prepared to rumble.

Being an inclusive leadership speaker, I have to frequently navigate this natural human response because many people believe they should avoid inclusion-related education because it feels like a psychological threat.

Have you ever "canceled" an employee? What I mean by "canceling" is to avoid the uncomfortable and complicated process of coaching and feedback; instead, add the employee to an unsaid RIF (reduction in force) waitlist, tolerate their poor performance until the time comes, then terminate them. Easy, right? No personal blame for firing (instead, we blame financial performance or whatever reasoning is being peddled for the RIF), no tedious performance management plans…no compassion, no feedback, and no leadership.

At work, how often do you feel misunderstood? If you're anything like the 350+ folks I posed this question to last year, you'd likely say you feel misunderstood around 40% of the time. In other words, we only understand our colleagues 60% of the time? Yikes!