Have you ever wished you were being intentionally developed more in your current position? Did you know that being developed by your boss is one of the most desired aspects of someone’s job that doesn’t happen? In fact, in his management research, Michael Losey found that the Number 2 reason people leave an organization is because of a lack of career development (the Number 1 reason being compensation and benefits). Whether or not your boss intentionally helps you with your development plan, know this: YOU ARE WORTH INVESTING IN. So, what can you do about it?

Fears are one of those things that we ALL have. No one is free from them. The reality though is that too many people let fears hold them back and keep them from pursuing their God-given destiny. Whether it’s fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of loneliness, fear of success, fear of saying no, etc. We ALL have them. It seems no one is immune.

As women continue to gain access to leadership positions historically unavailable to them, it is so common for women to be the only woman at the table. Sometimes this can be intimidating, sometimes it can be a reminder of what you've had to overcome to get a seat at the table, and sometimes it reminds you how much more there is to be done to give women the equal access of their male counterparts and it can be a trigger. As someone who’s spent much of her career here, I’ve developed practices that have helped me to thrive in my leadership as the only woman at the table. Here are 5 tips that I've picked up along that I want to share with you!

Do you ever feel uncertain, unsure, or anxious when faced with a new situation and higher levels of responsibility are expected of you? When I talk with especially women starting out in leadership, one of the recurring themes I hear is that they feel insecure. It’s not surprising at all though! For some, new situations and increased responsibility is invigorating and motivating and acts as a catalyst forward. Or you might find that it has the opposite effect on you and holds you back. But it doesn’t have to! Let’s go behind the scenes of insecurity and discover what the opposite can look like for you.

It can feel like so much of our life is out of our control. And some of it truly is. But there is also so much we can intentionally control and influence in our life! There are so many things we do have control over that set us up for success no matter what our days hold.

Have you ever wondered, “are leaders born or made?” If so, you wouldn’t be alone! Here’s my answer: it’s both and. Here’s what I mean by that. Everyone is born and every effective leader is made. Being an effective leader is simply a person who has learned the skills of leadership and applies them consistently. Even if you believe leaders can be made, there are stereotypes about who can be an effective leader that seem to hold many people back, maybe even you?

One of the biggest challenges in leadership is avoiding burnout. Which can be really challenging when your list of responsibilities keeps increasing, the demands on you seem endless, and you frequently get asked to do and be part of more. And when you have a passion for people and enjoy seeing others happy, this can manifest into people-pleasing and having a really hard time telling people no. After all, we genuinely want to help people! The challenge is that the demands on us and the requests of us are going never going to stop. Let’s face it, people think you’re valuable and want you to be a part of what they’re doing! But if you continue to say “yes” to everything, burnout is inevitable. But it doesn’t have to be.

5 years ago, I was in an unfulfilling job working at the Capitol, living in a cute condo in South Minneapolis, and was a five-minute walk away from a gorgeous rose garden and what became one of my favorite lakes to run around (if you know you know). One of the books I read in that season motivated me to start giving God the first part of my day (Secrets of the Vine). So, I decided I should give it a try! I committed to getting up an hour earlier every morning. And it wasn’t what I expected.

When you get a new job and step into a new position, one of the greatest temptations is to feel the need to prove yourself. It can be so easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you need to prove to everyone around you why you were chosen for the position. And while you absolutely should feel confident in your new role because they did choose you for it, there is also another crucial element to your initial and long-term success. In fact, there are three things you can do to set not only yourself up for success, but also set up those around you for success, and create the kind of culture you hope to establish in your new role.

The first time someone asked me if I was going to go into ministry, I literally laughed out loud and confidently shook my head and said, “no.” I had just spoken to my home congregation of 5,000 over two days and three services having just come home from spending time visiting our sister church in rural Tanzania. In fact, the first time I spoke to an audience that wasn’t in a classroom setting (aka that wasn’t part of a school assignment) was while I was in that rural Tanzanian village. I was 21 and had an interpreter next to me translating my message into Swahili. I couldn’t have articulated it then, but I now know that I didn’t think I would be a good fit for ministry because truthfully, I didn’t see examples of women like myself in leadership roles.

As people, products, and services move around the world at increasingly faster rates, there’s a greater demand than ever for effective global leaders. As with anything in leadership, being and becoming a global leader is a process, not a destination. Like leadership in general, effective global leaders are made not born. So, what makes a global leader effective? And how do leaders become global leaders?

Does the list of all that you’d like to accomplish in your lifetime excite you and simultaneously seem impossible? Are you in a place of feeling constantly overwhelmed by all that you have to do or that there simply doesn’t seem to be enough time to do all you feel called to AND be there for your loved ones? Or maybe even worse, do the people you see great potential in and then bring on to work with you leave way earlier than you ever imagined?

Finding the right people outside of your organization to partner with can be tiresome and confusing, if only it was as easy as picking your favorite ice cream flavor. Okay, so that isn’t really that easy either, how about your go-to shoes?!

Newly in my position I was standing in front of a group of parents whom I didn't know very well yet. I was giving them all the details about a week-long canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) for their high schoolers. After I shared an enthusiastic and detailed vision for everything the week would entail, I confidently asked if there were any questions. I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be any as I had laid out all the details and now it was simply time for their kids to sign up!

We all know that we have to avoid burnout, or deal with the eventual consequences. And, we all know as well, these consequences don’t just affect us, they affect everyone around us: our team, our personal relationships, our quality of life, our health, and so much more.

We were grabbing dinner at the local open-air restaurant on a hot Tanzanian night. My Swedish friend across the table wondered aloud why the waiter had left her bottle top on our table after having opened her coke, wasn’t that rude? While a smile on his face, our Tanzanian friend nicely rested the bottle top back over the opening of her coke bottle and replied, “because now you can cover your coke and keep the bugs out.” Touché.

With the expansion of globalization and rapid advancements in technology, cross-cultural interactions around the globe are at an all-time high. No longer are cultures bound by their geographic borders. Local developments be they technological, political, social, economic or environmental can now have instantaneous global impact. With news available 24-7 around the world, people are more aware than ever before of what is happening globally, and businesses and organizations are affected more quickly than ever before by events in far reaching places. Take the 2008 economic crisis in the United States for example, its impact was felt way beyond the United States’ geographical borders.

s your system for change costing you? When change is necessary, does it feel more painful implementing change then it does just leaving things the way they are? Letting problems stay the same longer than necessary could be costing your organization immensely. And making changes in the wrong order could be as well.

How it is that some organizations have diverse leadership teams while others seem to only have leaders who look, act, and talk the same? I once heard an executive leader of a 25,000-person organization located in a very diverse metro area in the U.S. say that while they believed in women in leadership, they couldn’t find any qualified enough in their organization. Somehow, I highly doubt that to be entirely true.

Making a difference in the world isn’t just a passion for many people, it’s becoming the pursuit of more organizations and businesses. More businesses and organizations than ever before are becoming socially conscious as more and more people demand it, inside and outside their organizations, the world over.