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For Leaders: The Accidental Bad Boss
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BETTER THAN THIS — Article 8 of 9 This is the eighth article in the Better Than This series on toxic workplace cultures — what they are, how they work, and what actually helps. New to the series? Start with Article 1: The Workplace That Wears You Down → Most leaders do not wake…
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What Actually Helps: Evidence-Based Strategies for Surviving a Toxic Workplace
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BETTER THAN THIS — Article 7 of 9 This is the seventh article in the Better Than This series on toxic workplace cultures — what they are, how they work, and what actually helps. New to the series? Start with Article 1: The Workplace That Wears You Down → This is the seventh article…
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The Lost Art of Listening: Why No One Feels Heard at Work
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BETTER THAN THIS — Article 5 of 9 This is the fifth article in the Better Than This series on toxic workplace cultures — what they are, how they work, and what actually helps. New to the series? Start with Article 1: The Workplace That Wears You Down → Think about the last time…
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The Nervous System at Work: Why You Can’t Just “Calm Down”
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BETTER THAN THIS — Article 4 of 9 This is the fourth article in the Better Than This series. If you’re new, you may want to start with Article 1: The Workplace That Wears You Down, or pick up from Article 3: Burnout Is Not a Personal Failing In the last article, we talked…
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“It’s Not That Bad”: Microaggressions, Complicity, and the Invisible Harm We Normalize
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BETTER THAN THIS — ARTICLE 2 OF 9 This is the second article in the Better Than This series on toxic workplace cultures — what they are, how they work, and what actually helps. If this is your introduction to the series, you may want to start with Article 1: The Workplace That Wears…
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The Enneagram at Work: Moving from Friction to Understanding
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We don’t all see and approach the world in the same way. It sounds obvious, but in the middle of a busy week, a looming deadline, or a tense meeting, it’s surprisingly easy to forget. The coworker who keeps asking clarifying questions when the project is already in production.The manager who is eager—almost too…
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When Stuck Is Actually Protection
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You know what you need to do. You’ve thought about it. Researched it. Maybe even planned it. You want to move forward—genuinely. But something keeps you frozen. Not lazy. Not unmotivated. Not indecisive. Stuck. And if you’re reading this, you’ve probably been stuck for longer than you’d like to admit. The Paralysis of Purpose…
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The Lost Art of Listening: Love Beyond Words
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Valentine’s Day gets a lot of attention for grand gestures—flowers, cards, dinner reservations. But some of the most profound expressions of love don’t cost anything. They just require your full attention. Real love—real empathy—asks you to suspend your own wants, agendas, and assumptions long enough to truly focus on someone else. Not to fix…
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The Support Staff Paradox: Responsibility Without Power
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Your job requires you to hold people accountable. You chase down approvals. You remind managers about deadlines. You follow up on documentation that’s three weeks overdue. You enforce policies and requirements that everyone agrees are important—right up until you ask them to actually comply. And here’s the catch: the people you’re reminding don’t report…
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The Power of Encouragement: Catching People Doing Things Right
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Back in May, we talked about strategic encouragement—how intentional, well-timed recognition can fuel sustainable high performance. The focus then was on the broader system: how leaders can use encouragement as a strategic tool to build engagement, motivation, and resilience across teams. This time, I want to bring it closer to the ground. Because encouragement…