Picture this. Your company has grown from 15 people to just over 50. It's been a fantastic year.

Sales closes a big deal. The client is thrilled, and so is the sales team. The contract includes a delivery date that somehow isn’t shared with operations.

Someone on your team needs to make a decision, but instead of making the call, they bring it to you.

You decide. You smile, feel efficient and helpful. After all, that's why you are there, right?

If you ask most leaders about their culture, you'll likely get the reply, “It's great!”

If you press a bit and ask them to describe their culture, they might say, “We have great people. We're like a family.”

Reflect on this scenario (and see if it hits home). You’re rolling out a process change — whether it’s a new way of running meetings, a shift in how the team handles handoffs, or a value you want embedded into how things actually work.

Imagine this scenario: you've been trying to fill a role for six weeks. The team is stressed and cranky because the extra work is falling on them. Your manager is asking questions about what is taking so long.

The session went well. People were engaged. There were “aha” moments. Someone said it was the best team activity they’d done in years. Then everyone went back to work.

There’s a reason culture feels easy when you’re small. As the founder, the company revolves around you. You have a hand in every hire, you’re in all the meetings and ultimately, the decisions all flow through you. Your company is you, and so the culture is also you.

Technology, including our phones, instantly connects us with those around the world, and in the next room. We can collaborate in incredible ways (including from the comfort of our homes).

We’ve all played a difficult conversation over and over in our head – often before it even happens. But not in a helpful, planning, way; more in a work ourselves up, catastrophize it way. Sometimes, this cycle in our head creates enough doubt and anxiety that we continue to avoid the conversation altogether.

Remember the day you found out you got promoted to manager? There's that initial rush of excitement—recognition for your hard work, validation of your skills, probably a bump in salary. But if you're honest, there was also something else: a knot of anxiety in your stomach.

The Burnout Trap: Recognizing the Patterns and Breaking the Cycle

We often ignore the tangible, and intangible, costs of burnout. We say things like:

• “Just power through it.”

• “I can sleep when I’m dead.”

• “Strong people don’t need breaks.”

We all carry baggage when it comes to conflict. How we were raised, previous experiences, our personality styles—all of it shapes how we feel about conflict and whether we face it head-on or avoid it entirely.

While change is constant and inevitable, our reactions to it vary wildly. Some people embrace it, seek it out, and thrive in fast-paced environments.

Values may be the latest buzzword in business, but they’re far from new. What is new is the level of importance employees—especially younger generations—place on working for organizations whose values align with their own.

There was a time when staying in the same role, doing the same tasks year after year, was considered a good thing. Stability was the goal, and growth often meant a promotion or moving up the ladder.

A few years ago, leading a hybrid team was a challenge mostly faced by large organizations. Today, it's the norm across companies of all sizes. And while hybrid work offers flexibility and access to broader talent, it also presents real leadership challenges — ones many of us were never trained to navigate.

While leadership and management are used interchangeably, they are in fact different. I often hear, “I’m not the manager - I can’t do anything.”

But here’s the truth: regardless of whether you manage others, you can be a leader.  

A high-performing team isn’t just a collection of talented individuals; it’s a group that understands, trust and complements each other.

Whether you're leading a team or part of one, the truth is the same: your success depends on the people around you.

Assembling a group of people and expecting them to behave like a high-functioning, cohesive team is unrealistic.

Yet, it’s what we do all the time.

Elementary teachers have it figured out; they are aces of recognition. Few people make you feel like you’re succeeding more than an early elementary teacher. The praise, popcorn parties, and the piece de resistance: the scratch and sniff sticker.