Suddenly, his chemistry brain clicked with my leadership brain: He doesn’t want to be the leader who slows things down for his team.

Our leadership team had our quarterly review last week, and together, we got to wrap up and celebrate the best quarter we’ve ever had.

I believe that it’s possible to make every single decision with intention, but few do. It requires knowing our values and operating from them.

For many years, my leadership journey looked like a constant search for consensus. It made other people happy, but for me, it was exhausting. I thought it was the right thing to do, but it actually hurt us.

So far, our bonus experiment is working better than any structure we’ve had. I thought I’d share how we approached this new system in case you too have struggled with how to best create rewarding, meaningful financial incentives.

One of the most common questions I get is, “When you see something that could be better but don’t have the power to fix it, what do you do?”

Recently, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect, and I’ve realized that I need someone on my team who can help me think through challenges and ideas in a low-pressure, low-stakes environment.

It used to be rare for me to slow down and appreciate the progress, but I’m grateful to my coach for helping me see the value of taking time to pause once a quarter for a review with my team.

Last week, I led one of the most important and uncomfortable conversations we’ve ever had as a team: What do we believe as an organization?

No matter what our relationship with feedback is, and no matter how much or how little we know about how to best deliver it, we can get better at accepting it and help others do the same.

There’s no overnight trick to building resilience; it truly is a muscle that we have to strengthen over time. But I’ve learned there are things we can do to develop resilience on a regular basis.

I think we need to use the pandemic as a chance to press the reset button harder than we’ve ever pressed it.

I’ve learned that whenever I get up the courage to lean into a tough convo, I immediately see the trust on my team grow as well as their confidence in me as a leader.

I am thankful for a week of listening, learning, and reflecting. But I know that what happens after we learn is what matters most.

A message from Kristen's team about how to help those who help us the most.

Remote work and virtual meetings are here to stay. So how do we get really good at building, strengthening, and maintaining trust from behind computer screens?

I never used to be someone who was motivated by money in my business. For me, it was all about building a great place to work and creating a culture where people really felt valued and like they mattered.

It’s extremely important that we as leaders feel empowered to take risks and try new things—even if some of our ideas may fail. But how do we help others feel empowered?