Leadership

Chantal shares one example of how Cultivating Safe Spaces has transformed her worldview.

Chantal introduces how leaders can embrace the Platinum Rule to express their gratitude to their team.

A leadership post, sharing reflections on how to build trust with your team.

Chantal shares the story behind finding her first ideal job, and the underlying lesson of how to discover yours.

This blog contains recommendations for a baker's dozen books by Indigenous Authors.

This post is to celebrate National Indigenous Veterans Day and touches lightly on Chantal's military to veteran experience.

To me mentoring is when people act as trusted thought partners, helping each other out and celebrating each others' success.

The past two years have highlighted many inequities in the systems we have in place in our communities and workplaces.

Every now and then someone asks me for a list of books by Indigenous authors. There are many reasons, some want to learn more about the lived realities of Indigenous peoples in the lands we call Canada, others want to make a step towards reconciliation by purchasing books written by Indigenous authors.

When I served in the military, shortly after I arrived at a new posting, I met one on one with all my direct reports and invested the time to learn what their career goals were. When new people joined my team, I would hold a meeting to welcome and learn about them too.

Many people don’t enjoy meetings at the best of times. There are entire books written on how to run effective meetings, and lots of cartoons and jokes about ineffective meetings.  Meetings are an obvious pain point for many.

On Monday June 21, 2021 I had the honour to be one of the AVA members to witness Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class (retired) Deborah Eisan being presented with her Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) Honorary Captain (Navy) Scroll and Pins.

Do you feel frustrated with your career, like things aren’t going the way you expected or hoped?

“Recce” is a military term, short for reconnaissance, and basically means exploring the paths you might take without committing too much energy or investing a lot of money and other resources to help you make an educated guess on how you may choose to achieve your goals.

Honesty is something we owe ourselves and the others in our lives. Honesty requires reflection, and facing uncomfortable truths. To me living honestly means that the person I show the world is the person I am. It’s about being genuine and authentic, being true to myself. 

Leadership and Inclusion are two of my special interests. I’ve been learning how to lead people for more than 40 years. Yes, I started learning about leadership while I was a young teenager, as an Air Cadet. I continued to learn more during my military career. Now I’m an entrepreneur and I call myself a Thought Partner.

​I believe that everyone deserves to be treated with respect.

Today, I had the honour of being one of five panelists in an International Women’s Week event co-hosted by the University of Ottawa Institute for Science, Society and Politics and the Idea Connector Network.

One of the top tips shared by content creators is to write about what your audience let’s you know they want to learn more about. This week’s blog is in response to a question on LinkedIn about why the words “Happy Birthday” can be a trigger.

Over the 2020 holiday break, as we kept to our home and connected with our family and friends through phone and video calls, I had the privilege of taking a break from my business.

We’re living through a time full of choices, ranging from radical to small. You may be familiar with the motivational phrases “Attitudes are contagious! Is yours worth catching?”

When I was a child, I was taught that I lived in a man’s world, and that as a woman I would have to do more than men to succeed. My father in particular repeated this teaching. He wasn’t saying that it was the way the world should be, he was arming my sister and I for the reality we would eventually discover when we started work.

Lately I’ve been spending time thinking about my “Why?”

As many of you who’ve been following me on social media know, I ran to become the President of the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW Canada) this year.

Western society expects leaders to be in charge, to give tasks, and make sure that these tasks are completed. My style of leadership follows a different path. I genuinely believe that every person has something to offer their team. I make a point of learning what each individual on my team likes to do, is good at doing, and would prefer to do. I also find out where they need help. Once I know my teams, then we can figure out who is going to do what tasks. In my experience, people perform much better if most of the tasks they’re given are things they enjoy and are good at doing.

Did you know that people can’t read your mind? That your boss can’t reliably guess that you want a lateral transfer? That your clients won’t guess you’d like more money? That your dream career might be a question away?

This week I’d like to talk about leading volunteers. For example, as a Board member with a not for profit organization or in a professional association.

Leadership has been one of my special interests since I was a teen. My time in the Air Cadets followed by a military career, literally gave me decades to study and practice leadership. As a veteran, I lead different groups of people.

I live in Ontario, Canada, where High School students are normally required to complete 40 hours of volunteering to graduate. I believe that most people don’t realize how beneficial volunteering can be.

I’ve had the privilege of being mentored since I was a teenager, first by my parents and their military friends and more recently by business mentors. I’ve been actively mentoring other people for the more than 20 years. I’ve also been privileged to participate in peer mentorship. Every time I’m involved in mentorship regardless of the role, I learn something new.

I’ve worn glasses for more than 40 years. I am visually impaired to the point that without my glasses, I could not legally drive a vehicle. The first thing I do on waking is put on my glasses. I consider myself to be healthy, and am grateful that my body is fit enough to allow me to do pretty much anything I want to. Many of the people I know wear glasses, they’ve become so normalized that most of us don’t think of people wearing glasses as disabled.

​I’ve enjoyed speaking in front of groups for as long as I can remember. As a child in grade school, I used to tell my playmates the story of what we were playing that day, and then assign everyone a role.  I even occasionally assigned speaking parts (forgive me, little sister).

There’s been a lot of talk about Systemic Racism in Canada over the last week. Do we have it? Are our national institutions rife with racism? Do you have to consciously make a choice to act in a racist manner to be a racist?

I’m an avid reader, I have been for as long as I can remember. My family, friends and many of my colleagues know this to be true. I can work a full week, and read 3 or 4 novels when recharging between tasks. Unless the book I’m reading is teaching me something new.

On March 23, 2020 I published a blog which read in part “I'm looking forward to a new, more equitable normal a year from now. When everyone is treated with respect, regardless of what they do for work, their level of education, what language they speak, or any other ‘difference’.”

This morning, after listening to the bird song coming in the open kitchen windows, and writing my list of things I want to accomplish this weekend and next week, I thought to myself “I can’t write a blog post for this week.”

This week’s blog is going back to the theme of what I’d like to see in our New Normal after COVID-19, what I started writing about two months ago. I want to talk about respect. Respect for all workers, all career and education choices.

​One of the hardest lessons to learn is that it’s OK to ask for help. I know my strengths and I know the areas where I can use help. I’m also human, so I sometimes need to be reminded that it’s OK to ask for help.

When I was in the military, every time I changed jobs and met a new team, or had new people join my team, I had a conversation with them. I asked that they tell me what resources and training they needed to do their jobs, what types of work they preferred to do, and what their career aspirations were. I would tell them that quite frankly I was being “mercenary.” If I gave them what they needed, assigned them work that they enjoyed, and helped them achieve their goals, then they would succeed and I would look good.

A lot of people are finding it difficult to deal with the extra challenges that COVID-19 has sent our way.

​Living through COVID 19 offers us an unprecedented opportunity.