Brenda is a master coach specializing in career endeavors.

She works with people in three different areas:

1. Facilitate Successful Career Change – anyone who wants to make a change will be so thankful they found Brenda!

2. Guides entrepreneurs to build their business to the next level – HINT: This is what Brenda is talking about on this video

3. Helps executives in corporate environments to facilitate a successful sane and rewarding career, plus be a support pillar to them.

So for this video let’s focus on #2 – Calling all entrepreneurs! Let’s get you ready for the best year yet in your endeavors in business for 2022!

😎 Check out other articles on my blog to read all the tips and tricks I have for you on Business and Career! https://brendaholley.com/blog 🎁🎁

Or you can email me at Brenda@BrendaHolley.com to setup your free 30 minute consultation to see how we can transform your life!

😲 ENTREPRENEURIAL BUSINESS COACHING by Brenda Holley! – Jointly identify key focuses for business growth based on your current situation. – Examine areas for improvement and devise clear next steps to maximize growth. – Remove the overwhelm and provide you with a priority roadmap. https://brendaholley.com/life-coaching

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March is women’s history month, designated by Congress in 1987. Women deserve this turn in the spotlight. Women weren’t legally guaranteed equal educational opportunities until 1972. Yes, just 50 years ago. Today, more women earn college degrees than men. There are so many wonderful stories to share about female achievement and, yes, I did start going down that rabbit hole and wanting to share story after story before jerking myself out by my ankles.

Hello, I’m Brenda Holley and I want to talk with you today about something that is so close to my heart every month – successfully navigating work for professional women.

All of my coaching centers around careers. One area I’m particularly passionate about is professional women who are at the Sr Manager or Director level and above. I say that knowing that titles can vary…a lot. Let’s boil it down and say women with a lot of responsibility.

I close my eyes and I see you and know what you’ve done to get where you are. The struggles. The triumphs. The frustration. The hard-won promotions that are so richly deserved. The hills you want to climb. The accolades that are yet to be received. The barriers that are still ahead.

Do you need a partner beside you in your career?

If you are a professional woman, the answer to that is a resounding yes. Fact is, everyone can use guidance in their careers. Coaching has long been established as a huge difference-maker to professional success. This level of support is especially beneficial for professional women, who are proven to soar when they’re able to get insight, feedback and support from other professional women who have been in their situations.

Corporations call outside eyes the Board of Directors. You need to have your own board. Here’s two reasons why my outside eyes are so valuable to you.

1. You know too much!

The danger is that, as an expert at your company and in your job, you can easily overlook or underestimate what is going on in the firm. After all, you know the landscape inside out. So, you don’t always see the subtle sign of things changing. I’ll bring fresh perspectives to you on what I see based on your feedback and my experience from having worked with hundreds of different companies and professional women. Work is always changing. It’s a matter of being aware and ready.

2. You’re standing too close!

None of us really see ourselves as others see us. That’s just a bridge too far. I ask new and different questions to help you with your strategic decision making. I give honest feedback that is hard to get from friends and family so you have clarity about how you are perceived and what you would benefit from bolstering up. You have a-ha moments. I bring extensive business acumen and know a lot about all aspects of running a business. You benefit.

What I offer:

• Deep knowledge of large publicly and privately held businesses. I have worked for both, along with government and medium-sized privately held firms. When I share my business knowledge culled from interactions across 30 plus years of partnering with company leaders, my value is immense.
• Focus on what your priorities are. No cookie cutter plans or sessions. You are unique and have special goals.

Plenty of tools for you to choose from as well as deep work on:

• Strategic planning
• Increasing emotional Intelligence
• Effective goal setting
• Your personal well-being
• Leadership skills for today
• Amping up personal power
• Using your intuition to your advantage

THE Career Tip that I want to offer you today is don’t emulate men at work.

Women have done that entirely too much over the last 40 years and it has not served them well. That’s where women leave their zone of genius and dishonor their intrinsic strengths. Here are both facts and key areas of strength for women to underscore this.

Facts

1. Research has also shown that Fortune 500 companies with a high representation of women on their boards regularly outperform those that do not. This all translates to more profitable companies. It’s reported that companies where at least 30% of leaders are women can expect to add more than 1% to their net margin compared with other companies with no to limited female leadership. That’s a lot of margin dollars.

2. Companies that increased the number of senior leaders that are female by 10% actually saw 9.7% more profitable returns. That figure alone should cause companies to rethink their promotion strategies and diversity hiring initiatives.

3. Having women in leadership roles creates less gender discrimination in recruitment, promotion and retention. This allows companies to hire and keep the most qualified people. This has never been more important than it is today with DEI awareness so high. Workplaces that honor and hire diversity saw all of their employees experiencing less burnout and increased satisfaction in work. Diversity increases with women at the helm.

These figures exist because the women behind them are bringing in their unique skills, not emulating male counterparts.

Key areas of Strength for Women Technical skill, experience, and knowledge are fundamental to success, and organizations are now also holding soft skills in much higher regard. According to the Department of Labor, soft skills are now rated as even more important to work readiness. These skills are what are now more commonly referred to as transformational skills instead of soft skills. Women excel in this area. Here are a few of them.

1. Emotional Intelligence A 55,000-person study conducted by global consulting firm, Korn Ferry, across 90 countries, found that women outperformed men in 11 out of 12 emotional competence skills. Researchers found that when companies integrate these capabilities into the workplace, employees’ needs, experiences, and talents are recognized, increasing workplace satisfaction and company success. Using emotional intelligence, workplaces can also solve problems before they emerge. Think about the change this would make for employee retention when so many employees are dissatisfied and leaving.

2. Communication can’t be regarded too highly as it both prevents problems and encourages openness and collaboration. When a manager is verbally communicative and transparent, she encourages her team to follow her example. Clear communication can also create a safe space that enables members of a team to be honest, sharing difficulties as they come up, and problem-solving together. This is a skill that comes naturally to many women.

3. Collaboration Women are good at problem solving and fostering trust. A company that values a culture of collaboration shows consistent strides in innovation and higher revenue. Collaboration has always been essential for workplace success and is becoming increasingly valuable in our workplaces today as we operate across different time zones. Women tend to work well with other team members, valuing the collective good over their personal interests.

4. Seeing both the bigger picture and with the Little details. Women tend to exemplify a strong sense of awareness; this allows them to pick up on the little nuances at work. Women also are skilled at working individually with employees and investing in personal goal-development and that leads to successful companies. While these skills are not unique to women, they are more often exemplified by women. When a leader knows her team, facilitates clear and honest communication, and fosters a collaborative culture, workers can problem-solve together and think creatively.

Are you ready to take on your work challenges and make an impact? How about plan for a promotion and boost your executive presence? Reach out to me at brenda@brendaholley.com and check out my website www.brendaholley.com.

The post The Art of Successful Work – Successfully Navigating Work for Professional Women appeared first on Brenda Holley Coaching.

There’s so much that’s been said about The Great Resignation. I want to share current facts about this topic with you and tell you how to resign if you have leaving on your mind.

Saying goodbye can be a difficult and it’s a necessary part of life in a variety of ways. Goodbyes are a part of what we deal with as humans. We live with ongoing change and we continue to struggle with it.

First up – here’s the current status of The Great Resignation

1. Nearly 4.3 million people quit their jobs in January of this year in our country.
2. In 2021, that number was nearly 48 million, and that’s a record.
3. Resignations remain 23% higher month-over-month than they were pre-pandemic.
4. Most people are leaving their positions for better jobs. The number of positions available is so high and pay has increased a lot for new hires. People aren’t leaving to sit on the sidelines.
5. A lot of people who were at home for a while are now accepting new jobs with the hold of the pandemic lessening. That’s why we see the number of new hires continuing to be high.
6. Higher pay and either hybrid or remote work opportunities are two of the key factors that are driving forces for people to move on.

To underscore how common goodbyes are for us, I looked at songs that have been sung about goodbyes. There are a ton of them. Many of those songs are directed at relationships ending as we would expect. But not all of them. Nor are they all sad. How about these:

“Send Me On My Way” by Rusted Root. It was written about the type of goodbyes that come along with growth. These goodbyes are neither good nor bad, but comfortingly inevitable…like job change. “Send Me On My Way” is upbeat and lively and still sticks around in regular airplay since the mid 1990’s. Take a listen to it and feel lifted.

The second one that comes to my mind “On the Road Again” by Wilie Nelson and it takes for a very happy spin on the subject of moving on. I have always thought about this song when I’ve changed jobs because I was “on the road again” and… it was okay. Willie sings “like a band of gypsies, we go down the highway.” It won Willie a Grammy. It’s a classic and it’s applicable to all kinds of transitions. We go somewhere else and all is well even if the road feels bumpy at the start.

Goodbyes can even be pleasant sometimes. “Happy Trails” by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans is a pleasant goodbye song. It could be used for saying goodbye to anything. This is an oldie from the 1940’s that most of us are familiar with. Listen to this little piece of the lyrics:

“It’s the way you ride the trail that counts, Here’s a happy one for you.

Happy trails to you, Until we meet again. Happy trails to you, Keep smiling until then.”

Think about that first sentence. It is the way you ride the trail that counts. Even Van Halen recorded that song and it’s great. Check that rendition out. What song could you use to support yourself as you contemplate next steps? Think about one that speaks to you.

I’d like to share with you how to execute goodbyes successfully in your career. Here are my top four tips on how to do that:

1. Have your next step plans in place for the resignation itself. These vary immensely by situation. Make sure yours is solid for your unique circumstances. This isn’t the place to wing it.

2. Have a well-crafted resignation letter done. The letter should be brief and to the point. That letter will go in your employment file so make sure the tone is professional and polite.

· You are leaving so it doesn’t help to criticize the company, your manager or the job. You may need a reference from them at some point in time and you want to make sure that the relationship is as intact as it can be for your benefit. Yes, I know this can be hard.

· Proofread the letter and ask a trusted friend or coach to put eyes on it.

3. Resign in person if possible and if that’s not an option, schedule a video call with your boss. I know that a phone call may be necessary and if so that’s the next best idea. It’s important to not take the easy way out around a resignation like with an email. Power up and do the hard thing. Be as positive and graceful in resigning as you are when interviewing. I know that can be very challenging when you don’t like your job. It’s just as challenging to resign when you do like your job, but you’ve gotten the offer you can’t refuse. A graceful resignation includes:

· A “thank you” for the opportunity. Again, this can be a stretch under less than ideal circumstances. You can do hard things.

· Brief overview of why you are leaving. The key word here is brief. It’s fine to say that you have accepted a position that you are excited about…period. If you are leaving for advanced education opportunities or to pursue another interest, say so. This is not an explanation, which you don’t owe an employer. It’s a brief statement to give closure.

· An offer to help with the transition.

· Your notice time. This should be offered at a minimum of two weeks. If you have agreed to another time frame, be sure to check your paperwork and be clear on that and prepared to honor it.

4. What are the possible scenarios once you have turned in your notice? It’s one of three things. You can get a feel for more likely options based on what you’ve seen happen at the company in the past and factoring in your situation.

· Scenario One – Be prepared to leave immediately. You may be asked to do so. Have as much of your personal items gathered up as you can and make sure that you have any personal emails cleared from your work system. This can feel abrupt and in some cases, it’s the best option. Preparation helps.

· Scenario Two – You are asked to stay longer. Decide ahead of time if you can or should work a longer notice if requested. This is situation dependent. It is so hard to recruit in our current economy that this could come up. Have your plan in mind and stick to it.

· Scenario Three – You could be asked to stay. My basic recommendation on this subject is to make sure you want to go before you resign. This is a separate topic itself, filled with so many variables. If you find yourself faced with this option, I’d suggest that you contact a professional to walk through it. I offer a one session coaching hour specifically to address counteroffers. Contact me for more information on that.

Last, these are my best practices on how you can keep the focus on you during this time of transition.

1. Just like the resignation itself, have a plan. Decide what you want to do next. A timeline to execute around. What’s important to you in a job. Write down “all the things.” This is where a career coach can come in very handy and I have phenomenal tools to help with that.
2. Don’t drag it out. While the plan is a core component, lingering too long is the other side of that coin. If you have been dissatisfied for a while, remind yourself that every month you stay in a job you don’t like is a month that you could have spent doing something much more rewarding. You deserve to be fulfilled at work.
3. Prioritize YOU. I see too many people not doing this. It’s laudable that you care about your company and coworkers. It’s more important that you care about your career and well-being. You are the CEO of that career. It’s up to you to lead the charge and follow your desires to design your work life to be what you want it to be.
4. Update your skills. If you can find time to binge-watch your favorite shows, you can find time to take classes from the comfort of your home. Check out online platforms like Coursera, Lynda.com and Udemy. Convenient. Cost effective. Great for your resume. New credentials. Do it!
5. Keep your bridges in great shape. You may want to cross them again. Have you heard about boomerangs? Boomerangs is a new term for people who’ve been either gone from a company or the workforce for a while and they boomerang back in. This can happen within a few months or even years later. Note that companies are calling in retirees that have been gone for quite some time to come back. Stay in touch with people you’ve worked with. Losing touch with our networks has become all too common during the last couple of years. Reach out. A phone call. Email. LinkedIn message. Schedule a coffee or a lunch.

If you’d like help or clarity on resigning or to work with a professional on your career, reach out to me at brenda@brendaholley.com. I partner with people in career transition and have 34 years of HR expertise. I’ve helped thousands of people with their careers and I can help you.

The post How to Say Goodbye at Work appeared first on Brenda Holley Coaching.

Who owns your career?

I hope you are loudly saying right now “I do!” It’s solely up to each of us as individuals. A short thirty years ago, many people went to work at a company, or maybe a few at most, and stayed. Their training, promotions, and compensation all came from that one firm. The career “ladder” was linear and pretty straight forward for most individuals.

What I say now is “what career ladder”? It’s not that there isn’t progress to be had and promotions available, there’s just no ladder. The ladder now looks like a jungle gym with bars connecting left, right, up and sideways. So many ways to have career progress. And so many shifting priorities in what we want from work. It’s all different.

In a study by LinkedIn, results showed that over the last twenty years, that’s just 2002 folks, the number of places people worked for in the five years following graduation has nearly doubled. The average job tenure for all of us is now is now 4.1 years. Job change is no longer seen as a negative but as a sense of being open to growth.

CEO of Your Career

With that being the case, there is no corporate hammock to swing any of us happily through our career. The first component of taking charge of your career is the full acknowledgement that you are the CEO of your career. And that’s just the way you want it to be. Who would you want to be in control of your destiny besides you?

I want to share CEO behaviors that you can use as a guideline for making your career decisions. These will shift your mindset and serve as goalposts for you to follow.

1. CEO’s will make tough decisions. There’s never as much data as one would want to have on important matters, and at some point a decision has to be made. Ask yourself the hard questions about the career choice in front of you and consider the various outcomes that are possible. You then get to live with your decision. That’s fair. Think about the advice you’d give a close friend if they were in your shoes to remove yourself a step or two.
2. CEO’s are always learning and don’t rest on their accomplishments to date. New soft skills and technologies. Classes. Certificates. Degrees. Executive Coaching. Leadership. Time Management Skills . Taking the time to be up-to-date and to invest in themselves is never pushed to the backburner for too long. Take a page from their playbook and hold yourself highly accountable for keeping current in the ways that matter most in your career field.
3. CEO’s have mastered the art of saying “no”. Make sure you say “yes” to the things that you have prioritized and that move your goals forward. Keep your calendar focused on the things that will give you the results you want in your career. Develop the skill to gracefully decline the things that don’t. Why are those two little letters so difficult? The culprits are usually clustered around people pleasing tendencies, fear of disappointing others, or anxiety about repercussions that can occur at work or in our personal lives. Make your answer succinct. Try one of these two ideas: “I’m sorry, I’m not able to fit this in” “I don’t have the bandwidth for that right now” Add no more to the sentence you choose. If we continue on, our statement loses weight and people sense that and will press forward for a change of heart from you. Short and firm is definitely the way to proceed.
4. CEO’s are known by the company they keep. We’ve all heard the statement that “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with” from motivational guru Jim Rohn. And it’s way bigger than that. We are an average of the community we surround ourselves with in our lives. Make sure your community gives you support, honesty, feedback and a listening ear.
5. CEO’s illustrate perseverance. I believe it’s one of the best qualities any of us can have in life and in our work. There will always be adversity, setbacks, unexpected bumps and conflicts. A few quotes here: The last thing to grow on a fruit tree is the fruit. – Tom Bilyeu Ponder that. We get so impatient. You can’t lose if you don’t quit. – Stephen C. Storey We only lose when we stop trying. Let me tell you the strength that has led me to my goal. My strength ties solely to my tenacity. – Louis Pasteur You know, the guy who discovered pasteurization of milk and wine to stop bacterial contamination and moved vaccine principles to a whole new sphere, only changing all of our lives?

That’s what they have to say about perseverance. Develop your CEO skills. Use them. Read about CEO’s you admire. There are great books to dive into. Inhabit the thought process that you are a CEO because you are. It’s up to you to play the role well.

Career Plan

Let’s talk about the next component.

A Career Plan. Do you have one? Let’s make sure that’s done with these steps:

1. Self-Exploration and Self-Assessment. Write down your experience, interests, accomplishments, skills, knowledge and values. Write it down. Really. What we write down is forty percent more likely to happen than things we just talk about. This is your career we are looking at. Each one of these items deserves your time and thoughtfulness. See what arises for you. Let it rest. Revisit it. You need to go inward before you can launch into the world with your plan.
2. Research and Feedback. Ask for input from a few trusted advisors. Your manager. Co-workers. Subordinates. People you’ve worked with at past companies. Individuals who know you professionally. Ask them what they think about your accomplishments, skills and business attributes from their point-of-view. Ask the harder question around what you can improve on and insist on honesty. How others perceive you adds a great element to your self-exploration and self-assessment in number one, making a nice overview you can use.
3. Set Initial Employment Goals. Should you stay where you are and grow? If this is a “yes” for you, excellent news. Have a more in-depth conversation with your manager and others who can help guide your career forward. Check out the internal job boards. Talk to Human Resources. Assess what the opportunities for advancement are with clear eyes and make sure they fit in with your plan. This is an area I encourage you to be very honest with yourself about. Or is moving on the best idea? Switching jobs is one of the fastest ways to move up in the ranks and secure a higher salary. With raises hovering at around 3%, staying at the same company can cost you thousands of dollars with no guarantee of job security because that no longer exists. Other reasons to change jobs include the desire for learning and growth opportunities as well as work-life balance, the latter having assumed huge proportions since 2020. Maybe you are interested in becoming an entrepreneur? This requires a lot of work, due diligence, and strategic planning. It is also a path that people who are interested in working for themselves find very worth it. Being an entrepreneur is not the same as having a job. There are a lot of hard days and growth usually doesn’t come easily or quickly. It can be a rewarding and life-changing experience. Talk to other entrepreneurs who’ve successfully stood up a business to get the real skinny. These are your initial goals. You aren’t going to engrave them on a stone tablet. They can change.

Development Plan

The final component is to Build a Development Plan. Time to dig down deeper. Using the knowledge from the CEO of Your Career Section and the Components of Your Career Plan that you identified, you can craft the framework of your own personal development plan. These are components to consider.

1. Skills/Learning What do you need to do to get up to speed on your path? This could include certificates, degrees, classes, courses, networking, reading, videos, blogs, industry events and education. Again, make a written list and prioritize it.
2. Build Relationships – Connect on LinkedIn strategically based on what you’ve determined your next step to be and join appropriate LinkedIn groups. There are over two million LinkedIn Groups. You can join 100 of them. I don’t advise that. Pick a handful, think five to seven and be active. – Join a couple of networking groups that have applicability to your industry. Two or three are just fine. Get involved. – Check out Meet-up Groups. – Start now inviting people you’d like to know better to lunch or coffee based on your plan. – Join industry associations or organizations that support entrepreneurs if that’s your path.
3. Establish a timeline and Take Action I recommend short term goals between when you start the action plan and up to one year, broken down along the way as well as long term goals that are in the three to five year plus range.

This is a great overview…and there is much more to be considered because career choices are so individual and multi-pronged.

Career goals feel big because they are.

We are way too close to our own situations to have the best vision. I work with people to clarify their career choices and decisions. I have an expertise in partnering with women in corporate jobs at the Director level or higher. If you are ready to get excellent clarity on your career situation or are pondering changing jobs, I can help. I’ve worked with thousands of people on their career goals.

Now ponder this quote by Earl Nightingale

“Remember: jobs are owned by the company, you own your career!”

Let’s talk. Reach out to me at brenda@brendaholley.com. Your best life starts now.

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