The workday reality for the majority of us is one full of distraction and interruption.

Our schedules are dictated by emails, meetings and the small, urgent tasks that pop up daily.   

The opportunity for focused, productive time is unfortunately few and far between.  

In my latest episode of the Influence & Impact for Female Leaders podcast, I interviewed Alicia Navarro the founder and CEO of FLOWN. They’re on a mission to help knowledge workers create deep work spaces to get significant work done, be more creative and take joy in the journey. 

What is Deep Work?   

Deep work is focused, uninterrupted time where you’re working on something challenging, significant or you’re having a learning experience.  

Alicia’s shared that deep work based in the idea that:  

“When you get opportunities to work in an...

As you develop your career and become more senior, there’s a good chance that you’ll move from being a specialist to a generalist.

In a typical office environment, many of us start off in a generalist role as an assistant or coordinator, helping the team with anything and everything.  

As you progress you become more specialised and when you reach management or head of level, you’re an expert in your area.  

But then the time comes when you move above that level and instead of just managing people from your specialism, you find yourself having to lead, manage and trust people from different specialisms. All who know more about their areas than you do. 

This transition from successful specialist to a successful generalist can be difficult to navigate. 

The more senior you are, the more important this transition becomes.  After all, a great Chief Executive is...

The most important relationship you’ll ever have is with yourself... so why not make it a kind and loving one?

I believe the most powerful way to live a happier life is to learn how to be kinder to yourself and love yourself more.  

As women, we often struggle with accepting ourselves and being confident and secure in who we are.  

Being kinder to yourself not only makes your relationship with yourself a better one, it also improves how you show up as a leader. 

Many of the issues that come up around perfectionism, negative self-talk and overwork can be reduced almost completely by just being kinder to yourself and fully accepting and embracing who you are. 

If you love yourself, you are operating from a secure place.  This means you don’t feel like you need to push yourself ridiculously hard to prove that you're good enough or believe that the quality of your work defines your...

There’s a reason why we need women’s leadership coaches and women’s leadership programmes.

The playing field that women operate on in the workplace is shockingly unlevel. 

The Current Environment 

Let’s start with some stats to see the real picture of the current environment we work in.  

I learnt some very interesting facts on this from Why Women Win At Work by Gill Whitty-Collins – a book I highly recommend. 

At the beginning of their career, 43% of women and 34% of men aspire to reach top management. Surprisingly, it's actually more women than men aspire for that.  

Just two years later, 34% of men still aspire to reach top management. However, the percentage of women has dropped to 16%.  

The question on my mind is what’s happening in those two years of experiencing the workplace that is changing women's minds about what they want to do or what they think is...

As a leader, your voice is a powerful tool for communicating your expertise, confidence and authority.

However, many people don’t know how to use their voice to its full effect.  

If you want communicate powerfully, then it’s time to give it some attention.   

In the latest episode of the Influence & Impact for Female Leaders podcast, I interviewed Sharon Stacey, a Voice Coach and Musical Director.  

Sharon teaches people how to use vocal clarity, attentive tone and confidence for delivering in person and online meetings, keynote speeches and business pitches. 

She shared six ways you can use your voice to boost your gravitas in meetings: 

Look After Your Voice 

Warming up is not something reserved for singers. Before your meeting, practice saying a few sentences using the full range of your voice and emphasising different words....

Are you a perfectionist and is it pushing you towards overwork and burnout? 

For years I thought that I was doing well in my career because I worked so hard and held myself to such high standards. Then I realised that those strategies were actually perfectionism in disguise and were causing as much harm as they were good.  

I coach a lot of high achieving women, at all levels and perfectionism in its various guises, crops up all the time. If you struggle with overworking, trying to be in control of everything in your life, procrastinating and fear of failure, you might be a perfectionist.  
 

What is a perfectionist?  

There are many definitions but essentially, people who experience perfectionism are very focused on how things should be done and feel that they need to perform perfectly every time with nothing short of this being acceptable.  

I love this quote from Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s...

I learnt how to end my anxiety for good using this one simple approach that you can do today 

The number of people who struggle with anxiety is rising each year and the pandemic has certainly heightened this. If the past year has made you feel more anxious and you’re feeling apprehensive about a return to “normal”, you’re not alone.  

Although anxiety is something that is very personal, we experience it in all sorts of situations, including the workplace. Many of the managers and leaders that I work with mention anxiety as one of the things they struggle with.  

I know how they feel.  

I’m naturally quite an anxious person which I think was triggered by my tendency to want to be in control combined with my shy personality.  

We all feel different physical symptoms for anxiety. You could have a racing heart, feel very hot, sweat, be unable to think straight or...