professional development

Are You Avoiding Kindness?

by

Real kindness requires backbone, not telling people what they want to hear (aka platitudes). In today’s workplace, kindness is required to be effective and to be a results‑producer.

A lack of kindness often comes at the expense of teamwork, accountability, quality, client care, and the bottom line.

Kindness used to mean helping people grow, telling the truth, and doing what’s right even when it’s hard.

But today, “kindness” has been reduced to being agreeable, avoiding discomfort, and keeping everyone happy. It’s a way of avoiding potential legal issues, addressing unreasonable demands, and preventing team or customer upsets. That’s not kindness. When leaders focus on being liked, keeping the customer or boss happy, and protecting the bottom line, this surface‑level civility (aka fake kindness) creates a legacy of being nice but makes the leader ineffective.

Where Has Kindness Gone Missing?

  • Truth telling. Leaders avoid honest feedback to “be kind,” leaving teams stuck, costs rising, and customers unhappy.
  • Accountability. Standards are softened to avoid hurt feelings, creating mediocrity.
  • Follow-through. Leaders promise support but fail to provide the resources and feedback required, negatively impacting the company and clients.
  • Kindness creates confusion when leaders tolerate conflicts, factions, and groupthink out of fear of being labeled a bad or mean boss.
  • Hard conversations are avoided due to lack of skill, fear of failure, or making the situation worse.
  • Kindness is applied selectively, creating confusion and resentment.
  • Offense‑seeking. Teams (and leaders) look for opportunities to feel offended, diminished, or discredited.
  • Decision‑making. Leaders delay or avoid making timely decisions to prevent upsetting someone, harming progress and trust.
  • Performance management. Avoiding tough conversations about poor performance hurts the individual, the team, and the customer.

The Blunt Truth About Kindness

Kindness isn’t soft or fuzzy. As a leader, it’s crucial to develop kindness with a backbone while guiding teams and customers through the inevitable difficulties, conflicts, and upsets.

  • Be Clear. Clarity is kindness. Provide the resources and truth required to get the job done. These conversations will take longer. The benefit? They allow the team to be innovative and surpass the intended results.
  • Be Direct. Directness with diplomacy prevents misunderstandings and raises standards. Keep the goal and intention in the forefront to move everyone forward.
  • Be Consistent. Consistency builds trust when you tell the truth early, directly, and respectfully. Remember you will need to repeat it many times during meetings and conversations.
  • Be Accountable. Accountability protects people and results through intended actions, not avoidance.
  • Be Courageous. Courage is the highest form of kindness for yourself and others. It guides teams and customers to do what they’ve been avoiding.
  • Be Compassionate. Chances are you’ve had a similar experience. Share a short story about how you handled a situation or relationship to support your own growth.
  • Be Generous. Appreciate each team member’s contribution. Encourage them to brag about their successes too.
  • Be Self‑Aware. Listen to the “tiny voice in your head” before saying something you’ll regret. Stop, breathe, and use silence when your critical voice is too loud.

A Leader’s Self‑Check

  • “Am I being kind or just agreeable?”
  • “Am I helping this person grow or keeping them comfortable?”
  • “Am I avoiding the truth and calling it kindness?”
  • “Am I protecting people through silence at the expense of the team or client?”
  • “Am I being authentic or just saying what is expected of me?”
  • “Are my expectations ego‑based?”
  • “Am I failing to hire the right people required to achieve needed results for customers?”
  • “Am I gaslighting someone because I failed to take responsibility?” (e.g., overscheduling, failing to keep promises, failing to listen, ignoring policies or systems)

Kindness isn’t about keeping people comfortable. It’s about guiding them to succeed. In today’s work world, kindness is required.

© Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a legacy‑driven Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author. For over 33 years, she has empowered thousands of executives and business leaders to achieve sustainable success through strategic hiring, values‑based coaching, and intentional leadership development. Her work blends clarity, accountability, and soulful impact—activating performance and purpose at every level.

When “Civility” Masks Achieving Intended Results

by

Trust and respect are core to effective leadership, and required to achieve intended results. But both erode when leaders hide behind “civility” and insist on polite instead of intentional conversations that move a team, company, and project forward.

While civility can create space for dialogue and reduce friction, surface‑level communication (e.g., civility) is often used as a mask or shield to block accountability for results, relationships, and client care. Used this way, civility enables leaders to talk about issues without addressing them and gives cover for avoiding needed action. This often occurs when the issue has been allowed to grow too long, and solutions seem impossible. Or, the leader just doesn’t have the confidence or skills required.

In companies that reward civility over accountability, leaders avoid tough decisions, delay taking required actions, and limit innovation. Civility shifts from a tool for connection to a strategy for avoidance. It is the way to sidestep unpopular decisions and uncomfortable truths. And when that happens, quality drops, retention suffers, revenues decline, and outcomes take the hit.

Signs of Leadership Avoidance

  • Punishing honesty. People are subtly punished for saying what leaders don’t want to hear.
  • Dodging discomfort. Issues are ignored because leaders don’t want to feel uncomfortable.
  • Civility as a shield. Tough conversations are avoided because they’re seen as “not nice.”
  • No accountability. Responsibility is dumped on others who don’t have the authority to make a difference.
  • Problems spiral. Leaders chase trivial wins while major issues spiral out of control.
  • Conflict avoidance. Teams tiptoe around the elephant in the room and clients fire you.
  • Facts are twisted to make people doubt what they see and hear.
  • Consensus hiding. Decisions are stalled by demanding “everyone agree” to avoid action and failure.
  • Politics over people. Internal politics matter more than taking care of employees or clients.
  • Fear of change stalls execution.

The Bottom Line. This type of leader is often in the wrong job due to poor job fit and/or because their bosses liked them, and not because they can deliver results. This continues as long as the company tolerates rising costs, declining revenues, costly turnover, miscommunication, and mediocre results, and fails to correctly identify the real problem.

Companies need leaders who address issues directly, early, and consistently. Civility helps, but only when paired with clear enforcement and follow‑through. When civility becomes a distraction, it stops being a virtue and becomes a leadership liability.

Effective Leaders: Civility with Backbone

Effective leaders don’t abandon civility. Instead, they:

  • Strengthen civility. Pair it with responsibility and accountability.
  • Improve clarity. Build trust by acting to move an issue, team, or project forward, not just talk about it.
  • Replace avoidance. Raise standards, grow trust, and improve results through direct communication.
  • Demonstrate backbone. Use civility to drive performance, and stop using excuses.
  • Practice self‑awareness. Notice when comfort is replacing clarity and have the tough conversations.
  • Set expectations and follow-through. Be consistent, honor policies, and address issues early.
  • Model accountability with empathy. Use civility for clarity, protect people through action, and manage the process, not personalities.

These behaviors turn civility into a leadership strength rather than a shield for avoidance by taking the required steps and having intentional conversations for required results.

A Leader’s Self‑Check

  • “Am I using civility to connect or to avoid?”
  • “Am I enforcing standards or explaining them away?”
  • “Am I building a culture that works or one that merely talks about working?”
  • “Am I fearing the disruption needed to achieve the results, or trusting the process?”
  • “Am I focused on the wrong areas of this issue or job?”

Civility matters when paired with accountability. Without courage, it’s just decoration.

© Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people in empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

Be a Bold-Committed Listener and Achieve Stellar Results

by

Mastering the art of being a bold, committed listener is not just impressive, it’s a game-changer in your role as a boss and leader. This skill doesn’t go unnoticed. It empowers you to create an environment where team members, customers, and even your bosses can express themselves freely, without fear of you becoming defensive or offended. They feel truly heard and valued, which is a powerful tool in your leadership arsenal.

As a bold listener, you hold the key to unlocking your team’s potential. You can turn a problematic situation, conflict, or poor performance into a positive outcome. Often, the solution is right there, waiting to be heard. By simply listening, you empower your team to find their own solutions, boosting their confidence and satisfaction in their contributions.

Being a bold, committed listener isn’t hard, but it takes your willingness to listen, especially when you don’t want to hear what is said.

How to Be a Bold, Committed Listener Who Values Others

Identify Your Biases. Identifying and acknowledging your biases, snap judgments, and instant assessments about others is essential to becoming a committed listener. Yes, we ALL have them. It’s important to be aware and set them aside when listening to others. This self-awareness is a crucial aspect of effective communication and understanding.

Encourage Face-to-Face Conversations. Either on-site or via online conferencing. Relying on emails or texts will cause miscommunication, and people (including you) will not feel heard. Poor communication is often due to reliance on emojis, misused jargon, inability to articulate true thoughts and feelings, and abbreviations.

Be Present. Do not drive while having a conversation! I cannot say this enough: multi-tasking is a myth. (If you don’t believe me, use a search engine to read about how the brain is wired.) Set aside electronic distractions and anything else that distracts your attention, including internal mental chatter!

Choose Your Words. Be responsible for the words you use when responding to others. Labeling people never goes well and can be offensive. One of the most common labels right now is “narcissist.” Encourage others using these labels to “use their words” to describe their issues and concerns instead of using labels or catch-all phrases.

Silence is Golden. Allow others to use you as a sounding board, which is part of your job as a boss and leader. Ask open-ended questions to direct the conversation and guide them to find the answers for themselves.

Tell Stories. People love stories when they are brief and on-point in the conversation. A well-told story will be what the person will remember for a very long time. Note: Keep people’s names and other identifiers confidential.

Celebrate Unrecognized Achievements. Too often, people downplay what they’ve accomplished and fail to brag!. Be the type of leader who not only hears the successes but also says, “Congrats!”

©Jeannette Seibly 2024 – 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a legacy‑driven Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author. For over 33 years, she has empowered thousands of executives and business leaders to achieve sustainable success through strategic hiring, values‑based coaching, and intentional leadership development. Her work blends clarity, accountability, and soulful impact—activating performance and purpose at every level.

Today’s Professionals Can’t Afford to Stay Lukewarm – It’s Time to Leverage Up

by

Many business professionals today are flying solo in consulting, coaching, or taking on fractional roles, while still relying on the same mindset, habits, and approaches they used years ago. The result? Lukewarm performance, frustrated clients, and stalled careers. It’s not a legacy that successful professionals want to leave.

It’s time to leverage up and elevate your integrity, mindset, and practices so you can deliver real value and empower yourself rather than being unconsciously complacent or fearful.

What Happens When You Fail to Leverage Up

When you stay in your comfort zone, you unintentionally cap your effectiveness. You repeat outdated methods, rely on assumptions, and overlook the habits that limit your impact … no matter what you tell yourself.

The cost is real:

  • Clients lose confidence
  • Employees disengage
  • Revenues decline
  • Your reputation stagnates
  • Your self-talk isn’t positive

Professionals who fail to leverage up often don’t see the problem because they’re too busy doing the work to notice they’ve stopped growing.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

Today’s business environment demands adaptability, emotional intelligence, and integrity. When you don’t elevate your mindset, you unintentionally create risk for the people who depend on you. And, as Warren Buffet would say, without “integrity” the other two won’t matter!

Leaders, consultants, and coaches who stay lukewarm:

  • Miss critical details
  • Rely on outdated thinking
  • Overlook blind spots
  • Fail to build trust
  • Struggle to deliver consistent results

And remember, this isn’t about perfection. It’s about responsibility.

How to Leverage Up Your Effectiveness

  • Be Open. Everyone has a block: an internal barrier that keeps them stuck. Before you dismiss an idea, consider how often you resist feedback, avoid discomfort, or rely on what you already know. Openness is the gateway to growth. Ask open-ended questions to move the conversation forward.
  • Know Thy Self. Most professionals believe they are self-aware. Yet they fail to see how others experience working or interacting with them. Blind spots, defensiveness, and fear of the unknown limit effectiveness. Use job fit assessment tools that provide the scientific validation for objectivity and insights.
  • Hire an Executive Coach. Yes, I know … you don’t believe you can afford to do so. The problem is you cannot afford not to do so! An experienced coach can guide you through challenges, relationships, and opportunities and increase your awareness as you build your legacy.
  • Invest in Yourself. Take at least one course a year. Listen to podcasts that elevate your thinking. Read materials that challenges your assumptions. Growth requires intentional input.
  • Avoid Shiny Objects. Hype is everywhere. Tools, trends, and shortcuts promise miracles. Be responsible for what you adopt and how you guide others. Your credibility depends on discernment.
  • Use a Healthy Ego. Your ego isn’t the enemy … a misused ego is. A healthy ego keeps you focused on results, helps you resist bad habits (e.g., talking over others), and supports confident collaboration.
  • Use Assessments Appropriately. Not all assessments are scientifically or legally sound. Most fail the Department of Labor standards for pre-employment and selection use. Relying on weak tools damages trust and exposes employees and clients to risk.
  • Lead with Integrity When you cut corners, use inappropriate tools, or fail to honor your commitments, you lose your ability to influence a team, system, or client. Integrity is the foundation for leveraging up.

Get Started and Leverage Up

To start the process, use the PXT Select® Leadership Report to provide objective insights into how you think, behave, and make decisions … especially under pressure.

This state-of-the-art tool helps professionals:

  • Understand natural strengths
  • Identify blind spots
  • Improve communication
  • Reduce conflict
  • Strengthen team alignment

These tools (along with an experienced coach) bolster both leaders and team members, especially when miscommunication, conflict, or repeated mistakes have eroded trust.

The Bottom Line

Leveraging up is not optional. It’s the difference between being a professional who merely “does the work” and one who elevates people, systems, and results leaving a positive legacy.

© Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a legacy‑driven Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author. For over 33 years, she has empowered thousands of executives and business leaders to achieve sustainable success through strategic hiring, values‑based coaching, and intentional leadership development. Her work blends clarity, accountability, and soulful impact—activating performance and purpose at every level.

Want to Accelerate Career Options? Make a Lateral Move

by

I remember talking with a woman who had been unemployed for a while. When I suggested she ‘stretch’ from finance into operations by making a lateral move, she looked at me like I’d grown another head.

“Oh no! I’m very committed to staying in my profession,” she exclaimed.

I replied, “It doesn’t mean you will not return to finance. However, gaining operational experience in running a department or team can greatly boost your business acumen. Lateral moves can provide you a diverse skill set, increased visibility, and credibility as a future leader.”

What are lateral career moves?

A lateral career move is a strategic transition to a role at the same level of responsibility and pay, designed to broaden skills, gain new experiences, and position yourself for future advancement. (Indeed)

What are the benefits?

  • Can be beneficial for learning new skills or securing your future.
  • Learning different duties or responsibilities.
  • Increased visibility
  • Credibility as a future leader
  • Note: Not recommended if you make too many of them or face a career setback.

Making a lateral move doesn’t mean you were not qualified in your current profession or previous position. A “stretch position” can accelerate your career growth and options because it provides broader exposure to business challenges, making you a better boss/leader, decision-maker, and business professional. It’s also a great way to skill stack your experiences, education, and expertise.

How to Prepare for a Lateral Move

Job Fit Assessment. Be clear about your strengths and weaknesses before making a job transition. Use an objective job fit assessment that provides a “job fit pattern” for the lateral position. This helps you (and your new boss) understand where to focus when coaching and managing you for success.

Get Your Brag On! Complete the five easy steps for sharing your wins and successes. Sharing these during networking meetings and interviews for the lateral position will make a difference. Remember, there will be “cross-over” skills, and you must emphasize them (e.g., communication, finance, people, technology) since you cannot rely on the job titles, professional experiences, and job responsibilities they normally seek.

Networking Works. Do your homework by going out for coffee or lunch, or Zoom with several people already working in the profession. What do they enjoy about it? What are the challenges? How can you, with your current experiences, make a difference? Use open-ended questions to learn more. Remember, this is crucial … listen to learn!

Prepare for the Interview. You will be ready for the interview after following the first three recommendations above. Be sure to conduct your due diligence during all interviews for the lateral position about expectations, goals, and any challenges in the position. It is important to address any reluctance of the company, team, or hiring boss upfront without being defensive. After you’ve been offered the position, it’s time to discuss salary and benefits … they may not change … this is about gaining experience, not a pay increase at the present moment.

Keys for Success: Learn the basics, listen more than talk, and have a positive can-do attitude. Hire an executive coach and select a mentor to talk through the inevitable sticky situations and political work relationships that will occur. Also, take the time now to develop essential leadership skills in emotional intelligence, communication, critical thinking, and project management. These are valued “cross-over skills” in any position aka skill stacking.

©Jeannette Seibly 2024-2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a legacy‑driven Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author. For over 33 years, she has empowered thousands of executives and business leaders to achieve sustainable success through strategic hiring, values‑based coaching, and intentional leadership development. Her work blends clarity, accountability, and soulful impact—activating performance and purpose at every level.

Why We Block Ourselves and How to Finally Step Through

by

Many people block themselves, especially if they are high achievers and struggle with self‑imposed barriers. What’s missing for them and the rest of us? Accountability, resilience, responsibility, clarity, and moving forward.

These blocks can last hours, days, and weeks.

Common blocks are:

  • Many of us have confidence, yet choose not to use it.
  • We can be great listeners, yet talk over people.
  • We are reliable, yet arrive late or deliver incomplete work.
  • We are results‑producers, yet fail to make the sale or get buy‑in for a new idea.
  • We are leaders, yet have become followers of something we don’t even believe in.

The problem isn’t the block. The problem is what we make the block mean.

No one is perfect. Forgive yourself, apologize when needed, and step through and move forward now. Stop waiting and take one step today that honors your word and moves you forward. If you’re still stuck or blocked, consider talking with an executive coach or therapist to help you regain clarity and momentum.

The Real Reasons We Give in to the Blocks

When asked why we don’t get work done, pursue a dream, or complete a project, most people offer familiar excuses:

  • “I have a bad boss.”
  • “I don’t enjoy my job.”
  • “Someone else can handle it.”
  • “I don’t have the money.”
  • “I don’t have the time.”

But the truth is simpler and harder to admit: You actually don’t want to do it, and no one is going to make you. It’s your block!

Today, many people feel entitled to their emotional reactions, using them as justification to block their own success. We all have emotional blocks. They can tend to show up at the worst possible times. Yet, the problem is we treat them as if they are the truth about ourselves, the situation, or the relationship!

Remember, there are many other people with the same familiar excuses, yet they persevere and step forward, creating momentum by taking one small step at a time.

A Moment of Choice

Recently, at a first‑time event, I found myself hesitating since I didn’t know anyone but the host of the meeting. I was being careful, quiet, and holding back. Then I caught myself: “Whoa. Stop.”

When the leader called on me, I stepped through the block and spoke with confidence. That’s the moment everything shifted: the moment I chose to be the person I am.

Now, think of a moment when you have allowed your self‑consciousness or fear to block you and get in the way. Then you used it as your excuse to play small, withhold ideas, or leave the conversation early (while still in the meeting).

This is your reminder to stop letting those moments define you. It requires taking the first step through them now, or reach out to an executive coach who can help you practice doing so.

How to Get There

  • Get thoughts out of your head and onto paper.
  • Acknowledge the block. Name it. Don’t dramatize it.
  • Listen to podcasts. Fill your mind with voices that elevate your thinking.
  • Write a full page of successes. Wins, abundance, positive moments. Writing activates the brain differently and builds confidence. (For additional insight, “Get Your Brag On!”)
  • Stay out of rabbit holes. Overthinking is a trap disguised as productivity.
  • Set a daily goal and intention. Small commitments build momentum.
  • Dial up humbleness; dial down ego. Replace “I shouldn’t have to do this” with “This moves me forward.” A healthy (not overactive) ego can make a world of difference!
  • Allow others to help. Drop the “I can do it myself” mindset.
  • Review what’s true. Separate your reality from others’ expectations.
  • Apologize to yourself and others. Then follow through. Integrity grows from action.

If you continue to struggle on how to step through you block(s), work with a coach or a therapist to help you stay accountable and move forward faster.

© Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a legacy‑driven Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author. For over 33 years, she has empowered thousands of executives and business leaders to achieve sustainable success through strategic hiring, values‑based coaching, and intentional leadership development. Her work blends clarity, accountability, and soulful impact—activating performance and purpose at every level.

Leaders With Healthy Egos Produce Intended Results

by

Your ego, as a leader, can be both a benefit and a cost to relationships, retention, results, and revenues. Egos can be both useful and dangerous: it can fuel confidence and drive OR blind leaders to reality and damage trust and results.

Example: When hiring employees, your ego gets in the way by not listening and instead, relying on intuition, gut reactions, or biases. The hiring boss fails to collect objective data, and then, acts surprised when the new employee miscommunicates, ignores team members, and performance is subpar.

Egos fuel entitlement and self-sabotage. Egotistical leaders believe the rules don’t apply to them or that their position earns them special treatment. They rely on being right, being in control, or being seen as the smartest person in the room. This erodes their credibility and trust because the ego is wired to protect identity and status, especially when a leader feels insecure, which undermines intended results.

Conversely, a healthy ego becomes a stabilizer. Leaders who don’t need special treatment or constant validation make clearer decisions, build stronger relationships, and earn genuine respect. This grounded approach strengthens trust, psychological safety, and a culture where team members follow because they want to.

Costs of Allowing Egos to Manage the Leader

  • Self‑Belief vs. Arrogance. When confidence becomes arrogance, leaders become defensive, overconfident, and dismissive, driving poor decisions and pushing top talent and customers out the door.
  • Lack of Self‑Awareness. Without self‑awareness, leaders miss the moment when the ego takes over, derails conversations, damages relationships, and creates avoidable conflict.
  • Breakdown in Listening. Ego-driven leaders talk over others, assume they already know the answer, and shut down collaboration, which stifles innovation and team engagement.
  • Distorted Decision‑Making. Egos narrow perspective, causing leaders to ignore data and dismiss alternatives to “prove they’re right.”
  • Avoid Accountability. Leaders who let their egos run the show blame others, justify poor choices, and resist feedback, weakening credibility and slowing team performance.
  • Erosion of Trust. When ego overshadows humility, psychological safety disappears, people stop speaking up, and overall innovation and performance decline.

How to Develop a Healthy Ego

A healthy ego provides confidence, resilience, and steadiness when under pressure. Strong leaders know when to dial the ego down and dial humility up to move teams forward, handle tough conversations, and build reliable working relationships.

  • Self‑Belief vs. Arrogance. Leaders with true confidence asks open-ended questions, listen, and build win-win-win results. When they make mistakes or misspeak, they apologize immediately.
  • Self‑Awareness as the Regulator. Self‑awareness helps leaders recognize when ego is helping and when it’s hijacking judgment. Pausing, noticing triggers, and using feedback as a mirror prevents unnecessary conflict and poor decisions.
  • Intentional Listening. Practicing curiosity and humility are skills that can be developed. This way of listening restores collaboration without letting conversations go sideways.
  • Objective Decision‑Making. Using objective data while engaging in diverse viewpoints and structured decision processes prevents costly missteps, especially in hiring, strategy creation, and fulfillment of intended results.
  • Accountability and Ownership. A healthy ego takes responsibility, slows down to include the team, and ensures everyone contributes for stronger results.
  • Build Trust. When balancing ego with humbleness, a healthy ego helps leaders believe in their teams, overcome setbacks, and create win‑win‑win outcomes.
  • Strengthen Effectiveness. Leaders with a healthy ego build self‑awareness habits, seek reality checks, use structured decision frameworks, separate identity from ideas, and treat humility as a leadership tool.
  • Ask For and Accept Help. Healthy‑ego leaders know they can’t do it all. Asking for help, accepting support, and working with mentors or a coach keeps blind spots in check and strengthens decision‑making.

A healthy ego models strength by showing the team that collaboration, guidance, and continuous improvement are essential to effective leadership. Tools like PXT Select® and the PXT Select® Leadership Report provide objective insights into how leaders think, behave, and make decisions, especially when under pressure. (The PXT Select® also bolsters team members, especially when there has been conflict, miscommunication, and too many mistakes and failures along the way.)

©Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved (Written with research assistance from AI)

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people in empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

The Secrets of an Effective Apology

by

Many leaders have trouble admitting they were wrong, or their actions had a negative impact on a person or group. Or, they failed to fulfill a promise using the age-old excuses of failing to remember or being too busy. To make matters worse, they attempt to blame others.

Mistakes happen! How you handle them either builds your credibility or diminishes your career growth.

One overlooked truth is that explanations rarely rebuild trust, apologies do. Explanations satisfy the mind, but apologies repair the relationship.

When leaders (and others) offer explanations, it’s a fear of …

  • Admitting they were wrong
  • Failing to take responsibility
  • Listening and speaking honestly
  • The list is endless

What’s often overlooked is the deeper fear underneath all of this: losing psychological safety.

When leaders avoid apologizing, they unintentionally signal that mistakes are dangerous to admit, creating a culture where people stay silent rather than speak up.

The costs:

  • Top talent – no one wants to be lied to
  • Clients – no one wants to be manipulated
  • Management team – unwilling to take responsibility for leaders’ words or actions
  • Team culture – blame becomes normalized, and people mirror the leader’s defensiveness
  • Productivity – issues linger longer even though a simple apology could have resolved them sooner

Polly, Director of Customer Support, told employees they needed to be in the office three days a week but failed to update policies or address obvious logistical issues. She let everyone continue as before. Some never showed up. Instead of apologizing, she shrugged, “Well … people will be people.” The impact on revenues, retention, and results was significant. With her executive coach’s support, Polly finally apologized and cleaned up the mess by implementing a clear hybrid policy and enforcing it.

Have you ever noticed that when leaders, who you respect, are also the ones that don’t hesitate to apologize? “I’m sorry …” “Oops, my misunderstanding …” They take full responsibility for what they heard and what they have said. Their willingness to apologize creates psychological safety and people feel safe speaking up, asking questions, and being honest.

Understanding the secrets of a powerful apology and developing this all-important skill is required of everyone in any leadership role.

The Three Secrets

Accountability. Being honest about why you did something may not be helpful. Instead, simply say, “I apologize.” Set aside your ego, excuses, and other bad habits when you’ve made a mistake. Otherwise, you diminish your reputation.

  • Apologize for not understanding and share the work that gave you a new perspective.
  • Take a step back and stay emotionally unattached to the outcome.
  • Truly listen to build win‑win‑win results using active listening skills.

Respect. Respect is two‑sided. When leaders don’t apologize for lack of preparation or late arrivals, team members feel dismissed. Explanations meant to elicit sympathy eventually backfire.

  • Respect for others requires stopping the excuses and simply apologizing.
  • Explanations fall flat and are heard as inauthentic.
  • Respect for yourself and your team includes apologizing when your lack of direction has created confusion.

Example: If you’ve allowed your team to be late to meetings, it’s time to change that bad habit: “I apologize upfront that I’ve not been consistent. It’s important that each of you arrive prepared and ready to go at the scheduled time. Any questions?”

Courage. Admitting a mistake and taking responsibility for your team’s poorly completed work takes courage. First, apologize. Then ask questions … not to defend what happened, but to clarify what was overlooked. Remember, 80% of communication is non‑verbal; mental chatter or a defensive ego will distract everyone from resolving the issue.

© Jeannette Seibly, 2017–2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people in empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

Being Indecisive Leads to Poor Results for Leaders

by

Indecisiveness is one of the costliest behaviors for leaders. Making the right decision is hard, especially when you believe your options are limited. But every decision, and every action you take, carries both benefits and consequences. When leaders default to fear, ego, avoidance, or other subjective factors, they almost always move in the wrong direction. And their hesitation doesn’t stay contained. The negative consequences ripple far beyond the moment.

Why It Happens

  • Indecisive personality — chronic hesitation becomes a leadership style.
  • Wrong job fit — lacking the objectivity or competencies required.
  • Emotional attachment to the past — protecting outdated practices or people.
  • Lack of assertiveness — relying on “likeability” instead of leadership.
  • Fear of consequences — lawsuits, reputation, internal politics.
  • Avoiding conflict — hoping issues “resolve themselves.”
  • Ignoring data — choosing gut feelings over facts.
  • Overreliance on consensus — waiting for everyone to agree before acting.

As a leader, you are responsible for the entire organization: financially, legally, ethically, operationally, and culturally. Your decisions, or your refusal to make them, impact employees, customers, vendors, communities, and your management team.

The Cost of Poor Decisions

  • Every poor decision has a cost.
  • Every delayed decision has a cost.
  • A “no decision” is still a decision and has a cost … usually the most expensive one.

Hidden costs include rework, turnover, burnout, and reputational erosion. Opportunity costs include the growth, innovation, and stability the company could have achieved if the leader had made the decision to act sooner.

An Example: The Operations Director Who Chose “Comfort” Over Clarity

A regional operations director at a fast‑growing manufacturing company oversaw three plants, 600+ employees, and millions in monthly output. The company had a well‑defined Quality Hold Policy:
Any product with a suspected defect must be pulled immediately, inspected, and cleared before shipping.

Every supervisor received the policy.

Every supervisor had signed the quality‑hold acknowledgment confirming they understood it.

And everyone also knew the director refused to enforce it.

Instead, he chose the path of least resistance. He:

  • Dismissed concerns from line supervisors who flagged defects
  • Pressured teams to “keep the line moving” to avoid missing quotas
  • Downplayed early warning data from the quality team
  • Avoided tough conversations with a chronically underperforming plant manager

The consequences were immediate and costly:

  • A spike in customer complaints about product failures
  • Two major returns from national retailers
  • A drop in quarterly revenue due to chargebacks
  • Overtime costs skyrocketing as teams reworked defective batches
  • A damaged reputation in an industry where reliability is everything

This wasn’t a quality problem.
This wasn’t a production problem.
This was a leadership decision‑making problem — the refusal to enforce a policy because it felt uncomfortable.

And every company, in every industry, faces this same issue: Leaders who won’t make the hard call, even when the policy is clear, the risks are known, and the consequences are predictable fail.

Questions Every Leader Must Ask

  • “Where in my business/company are poor policy enforcement practices sacrosanct?”
  • “What does this cost my company, employees, and customers?”
  • “Where are there other issues being ignored (e.g., financial reporting, recordkeeping, psychological safety)?”
  • “What patterns of avoidance have become “normal” in this company culture?”

This lack of accountability and ethics will not be forgotten. It costs the company top talent, customers, revenues, and reputation.

What To Do

Admitting the truth and making the right changes takes courage. If you’re an indecisive leader, you need help … not more time.

Get Real about Enforcing Policies. If you don’t enforce your own policies, you’ve created a new policy: “We don’t enforce policies.” This invites lawsuits, erodes trust, and destroys retention of employees and customers.

Hire Legal Counsel. Make sure the attorney (a human, not AI) has the experience to move the company forward. While some lawyers take the “safe approach” and recommend posting reminders, those reminders do nothing to change the outcome if not enforced. A proactive approach can turn issues around if you’re willing to listen and take focused action to resolve them.

Hire an Executive Advisor. You need someone who will tell you the truth … not what you want to hear and not what your team has been enabling.

Communicate with Intention. When talking with employees, vendors, and others, be intentional about your message. Communication must be: Timely. Written. Clear. Documented.

Enforce Policies Consistently. Policies should be communicated, read, understood, and signed. Selective enforcement is discrimination. Inconsistent enforcement is incompetence.

If you’re a leader struggling with indecision, avoidance, or policy enforcement, stop trying to fix it alone.
Get the right advisor, the right legal guidance, and the right tools to move forward now.  Your team, your customers, and your reputation depend on it.

Action creates momentum. Your decisions either improve the situation or guarantee it gets worse. Get in action now and contact me.

© Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people in empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

What to Do When Team Members Fail to Tell the Truth

by

(This is part two of a two-part article. Here’s the link for Part 1: https://seibco.com/telling-the-truth/

Team members lie for a variety of reasons. As a leader and boss, it’s crucial you learn how to address and handle situations and relationships where team members (and others) have lied, stretched the truth, or relied on innuendos.

It starts with hiring people who can tell the truth, admit their mistakes, and take responsibility for what they say and do. If you lack a strategic job fit selection process, you will be constantly on guard in conversations, and it will leak into your ability to work well with others too.

Why employees may feel the need to lie:

  • Lying is easier to handle than any fear
  • Fear losing their job, paycheck, or other work assignment
  • Are coping with anxiety and other stress-related issues
  • Avoiding responsibility for the harm and impact on others in the moment
  • Identity and habit (e.g., they were the go-to person – now they are not due to job changes)
  • The damage is already done and nothing bad has happened (yet)

What Can You Do to Protect Yourself, Your Team, and Your Company?

Listen to learn. Proactive protection requires being diligent in conversations and actually listening. This requires no multi-tasking, putting aside any electronic devices or other detractors, and focusing your attention on the speaker.

Ask open-ended questions. Use the Rule of 3 to deep dive into the facts to ensure you know and they know what is being said is the truth. Always use this approach when fact-finding or relying on data presented (e.g., negotiations).

Prep and document. Conduct research before conversations, not during (no multitasking). Write down what is said. Why write? Many studies have shown that writing uses the brain differently. You are more likely to question certain comments or statements. Example: “This is very interesting … can you tell me specifically where you got this data? How did you go about it? What did you learn?”

Encourage them to tell you the truth. “This may be difficult, but I need to know the actual facts of what happened.”

Power of Discernment. This is a skill you develop daily. Don’t be afraid to have the tough conversations by talking straight. (Example, if a company policy has been violated, be clear about what must happen next. And, follow through.)

Emotional Intelligence (EI). Being aware of your own EI helps develop an awareness and mindfulness to decipher when others are telling the truth or camouflaging facts. But, remember, lies, half-truths, and innuendos are an easy trap to fall into when people are in a hurry. Slow down since operating on false information will cost you top talent, key customers, and a positive bottom line.

©Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people in empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

Being able to discern truth from lies can be hard for everyone. When in doubt, ask for help from a qualified coach or therapist. Give me a call.

Listen to: The Business Power Hour: Deb Krier’s 1176 episode with Jeannette Seibly, feel the fear and do it anyway:  https://youtu.be/kQLaw_jN50Q