The Heart of the Matter
The Heart of the Matter is a free newsletter for motivated professionals who want to create meaningful change in the modern workplace. Delivered to your inbox twice a month, this newsletter is designed to help you lead with greater clarity, confidence, and authenticity.
The Heart of the Matter: Six Questions to Move Beyond Self-Imposed Barriers
Resource Roundup: Your monthly mix of fuel for action and food for thought. “Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.” Rumi The biggest barriers to growth are usually the ones you've put there yourself. Think about it: How many of your limits are actually beliefs you’ve inherited from others or self-doubts that you've just accepted as truth? If you ever find yourself hesitating to pursue something meaningful or talking yourself...
The cost of playing it safe at work
One of my coaching clients has gotten really good at playing it safe. Project after project, he volunteers for the same, mostly operational tasks that are well within his wheelhouse. He’s reliable and valued for being so, but when his manager asked if he wanted to lead a new cross-functional strategic team, he immediately deflected: "I think Kiran would be better for that." He admitted to me later that he’d never really paused to imagine anything beyond his usual scope of work. A strategic...
The Heart of the Matter: Tools for the Globally Minded
Resource Roundup: Your monthly mix of fuel for action and food for thought. “Every profound innovation is based on an inward-bound journey, on going to a deeper place where knowing comes to the surface.” W. Brian Arthur Two executives attended the same conference, sat through the same sessions, and scribbled down the same wisdom and references. Both left feeling inspired. Weeks later, one of their teams was thriving while the other was falling apart. The first executive tried to redesign her...
You're qualified. You're smart. So why aren't they calling back?
She satisfied every criterion in the job description. Ten years managing cross-functional teams. An MBA from a top program. Strong technical skills. A referral from someone on the hiring committee. After her final interview, the feedback was diplomatic but unhelpful: "We decided to go with someone who brings a different perspective." "Ginny, I'm doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what," she emailed me late that night. She'd applied to nearly 150 jobs over six months, customizing...
The Heart of the Matter: May Roundup
Resource Roundup: Your monthly mix of fuel for action and food for thought. “If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.” Steve Jobs The most profound leadership lessons come long before you encounter any formal training. Your earliest influences—parents, mentors, caretakers—demonstrate responses to difficulties that shape your leadership instincts, whether you consciously internalize them or not. In my last newsletter, I introduced you to my earliest leadership model:...
Root causes revealed: Why your team’s issues keep resurfacing
When fixing the team doesn’t fix the problem You’ve overcome each obstacle in turn: updated your tools, adjusted roles, redefined your expectations, even brought in new talent. Yet, no matter how many changes you implement, something’s still not working. Instead, the energy’s flat. Deadlines lapse. The team isn’t jiving. Despite putting the expected managerial approaches to use, you’re not achieving lasting results. I’d like to suggest that your focus has been in the wrong place. After all,...
The Heart of the Matter: April Roundup
Resource Roundup: Your monthly mix of fuel for action and food for thought. “Stop crowdsourcing your decisions; some things only you can judge without others’ input.” Ginny Clarke | To a lot of people, all the time A friend called me last week, completely twisted up about whether to leave her VP role at a major bank to join an early-stage fintech company. The new job would mean a pay cut, but would include equity and a sense of purpose, something she admitted had been missing for years. “I...
When are you enough? Addressing insecurity in the workplace
There’s a reaction I’ve come to expect when I’m speaking to executives. I’ll share this statistic, “In 2016, a Gallup poll found that only 18% of managers demonstrated a high level of talent for managing others, meaning a significant 82% of managers were not very good at leading people.” It’s like the air gets sucked out of the room. Seriously; people go quiet. You can see them start mentally auditing the leaders they’ve been comparing themselves to, only now, those people seem a little less...
The Heart of the Matter: March Roundup
Resource Roundup: Your monthly mix of fuel for action and food for thought. "The world exists as you perceive it. It is not what you see, it is how you see it. It is not what you hear, but how you hear it. It is not what you feel, but how you feel it." Rumi Could the way you see your workplace matter just as much as what’s actually happening there? How two leaders interpret the same challenges can create completely different environments; one where employees maintain morale during moments of...
Stop worrying and start leading: A guide to confidence in uncertainty
My newsletter for motivated professionals who want to create meaningful change in the modern workplace — designed to help you lead with greater clarity, confidence, and authenticity. I once worked with a brilliant strategist, let's call him Jacob. He'd risen quickly through management ranks and, by broad consensus, was destined for the executive suite. But Jacob developed a habit that ultimately burnt him out: planning obsessively for every possible outcome before making decisions. He'd...
The Heart of the Matter is a free newsletter for motivated professionals who want to create meaningful change in the modern workplace. Delivered to your inbox twice a month, this newsletter is designed to help you lead with greater clarity, confidence, and authenticity.