Tag Archive for: Leadership Coach Training

8-Week Leadership Attribute Enhancement Exercises

Focus on one attribute weekly for 8 weeks and experience the transformation! You can follow the leadership attribute enhancement activities listed below, or define your own based on your current roadblocks and challenges to success.

WEEK 1:

Evaluate where you are at with your personal/professional/team/ business goal objectives. Define what actions you can take to reach your goals in the defined timelines. Set out a plan to enable time in your schedule to fulfill the necessary actions that you will have to take to be successful.

WEEK 2:

Actively focus on how you are listening in conversations. Set aside your distractions during conversations so you can thoughtfully participate. Don’t interrupt in a conversation. Ask questions before you offer a solution or course of action, and ask for feedback on your listening skills.

WEEK 3:

Embrace one new idea (yours or a team member’s) and encourage your team to adapt and learn from it.

WEEK 4:

Practice humility. Daily give credit, a compliment, or thanks to a team member who has made a difference through their work contributions or interactions with internal or external stakeholders. Do this every day for one week, and it will become a very natural task that I encourage you to continue.

WEEK 5:

Actively seek out an opportunity for growth (personal or professional) and share this with your team members so they can hold you accountable.

WEEK 6:

For every commitment you have in your schedule this week, follow through, be present, and ensure you meet your deadlines. At the end of the week when you conduct your weekly review, other than thinking how busy you have been and not sure what you have accomplished, you can list your wins, accomplishments, and actions required moving forward to take goals to the next level.

WEEK 7:

Ask every person on your team what their personal and professional goals are for the next month or 6 months or next year.

WEEK 8:

Reflect on your biggest wins, challenges and lessons learned in the past month or 6 months or year. Define five to seven professional and personal goals and set a timeline for these.

 

Reach out to us if you need more information on these leadership attribute enhancement activities or, need help in identifying your current roadblocks and challenges. Book a complimentary 30-minute  consultation to find out how Jenny Reilly Consulting can help you. Or, please email askme@jennyreilly.com to coordinate a convenient consultation time.

Building Trust and Rapport: Leadership Lessons for Every Client Interaction

January may be behind us, but the real work of 2025 is just getting started. As we chase ambitious goals, it’s easy to focus on tasks and strategies—but here’s the truth: no matter how well-crafted your plans are, your success depends as much on who you’re connecting with and how you’re building those relationships. Goals are achieved through collaboration, trust, and meaningful partnerships—relationships that don’t just support your work but amplify your impact.

 

Whether you are leading a team, working with clients, or collaborating with stakeholders, the strength of your relationships—built on mutual respect, understanding, and clear communication—is what truly drives progress and fuels meaningful outcomes.

 

I encourage you to approach each interaction with purpose—be present, listen actively, and leave others with a positive impression that fosters trust and inspires collaboration. By doing so, you’ll create opportunities to build meaningful relationships that can open new doors and drive success throughout the year.

 

The Power of First Impressions

First impressions, both professional and personal, are powerful – they set the tone for your entire relationship. Princeton psychologists Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov revealed that it takes only a tenth of a second to form a first impression of someone. Once made, these impressions can be difficult to change, often requiring consistent positive and professional interactions over time to shift. Before meeting someone for the first time, do you take the time to reflect on how you can make the interaction positive and set the stage for success?

 

Actionable Steps:

    • Start with active listening: Let the other person speak first. You demonstrate respect by giving them space to share their thoughts, questions, or goals and set the stage for collaboration.
    • Be authentic and relatable: Find common ground through shared interests or mutual connections and let your authenticity shine through.
    • Add a personal touch: Use humor or relatable anecdotes to humanize the conversation and build rapport. Being honest and genuine helps others feel comfortable and connected.

Why it Matters:

People do business with those they like and trust. Starting on the right foot ensures the time needed to build that trust. With just a fraction of a second to make a first impression, it’s essential to be intentional and authentic in every interaction to lay the groundwork for long-term relationships.

 

Preparation Builds Confidence

As a leader, your ability to prepare effectively sets the tone for how others perceive your professionalism, expertise, and respect for their time. Whether you’re meeting with clients, stakeholders, or team members, preparation demonstrates that you’re fully invested in achieving shared goals.

 

Actionable Steps:

    • Understand the context: Research your clients, stakeholders, or team members beforehand using tools like LinkedIn, company news, and industry reports to understand their priorities, challenges, and opportunities.
    • Tailor your communication: Align your messaging to their specific needs and goals, incorporating relevant terminology or examples that resonate with their organization or industry.
    • Define success: Before every meeting or interaction, ask yourself, “What would success look like for them?” Use this as a guide to shape your approach and ensure your contribution adds value.

Why it Matters:

When you’re well-prepared, you project confidence and competence, making others feel reassured and valued. Leaders who prioritize preparation build trust, foster stronger relationships, and create a foundation for productive and successful collaboration.

 

Small Gestures, Big Impact

Your thoughtfulness and attention to detail can transform routine into meaningful connections. Small, intentional actions show others that you care, turning transactional relationships into partnerships built on trust and mutual respect. 

 

Actionable Steps:

  • Communicate proactively: Keep your team, clients, or stakeholders informed at critical milestones. Proactive communication reduces uncertainty and demonstrates reliability.
  • Anticipate needs: Show initiative by addressing potential challenges or offering support, whether it’s adjusting meeting schedules, helping with logistics, or simplifying processes.
  • Personalize interactions: Reference shared successes, mutual experiences, or inside jokes to create a sense of connection and familiarity.

Why it Matters:

Small, thoughtful gestures amplify your leadership presence by showing that you value others’ time and effort. These actions build trust, strengthen relationships, and leave a lasting impression that motivates people to go the extra mile with you.

 

Tailor Your Approach for Greater Impact

Whether you’re working with clients, stakeholders, or teams, everyone appreciates personalized attention. Your ability to personalize your approach demonstrates empathy, strategic thinking, and a commitment to understanding the needs of those you work with. Thoughtful customization shows that you’ve taken the time to understand their unique needs, values, and goals, which can make all the difference in building trust and engagement.

 

Actionable Steps:

  • Do your homework: Research the company, team, or individuals you’re engaging with. Look into their industry trends, recent achievements, or key challenges, and use these insights to tailor your approach.
  • Acknowledge successes and goals: Recognize accomplishments or shared objectives to make interactions more relatable and inspiring. Align your messaging with their priorities to demonstrate your shared focus.
  • Create meaningful connections: Align their values or mission with your leadership vision, showing how your efforts address their specific challenges or opportunities in a way that resonates.

Why it Matters:

By tailoring your approach, you strengthen relationships, build trust, and ensure that others feel valued and understood. Whether you’re presenting ideas, negotiating deals, or collaborating on projects, tailoring your approach fosters stronger relationships and ensures others feel valued and understood. This attention to detail fosters long-term loyalty and creates an environment where collaboration thrives. 

Closing Thought:


Strong relationships don’t happen by chance—they’re built with intention, preparation, and a genuine investment in the success of others. As leaders, the way we show up in every interaction shapes the trust, collaboration, and results we achieve. These connections aren’t just an advantage—they’re the foundation for lasting impact.

What intentional steps will you take in your next interaction to build trust and strengthen relationships? I’d love to hear how you’re applying these strategies or share ideas to support your leadership journey—feel free to reach out at jenny@jennyreilly.com.

Let’s Work Together!

Great leadership starts with intentional action—and I’m here to help you and your organization achieve even greater success. Whether you need guidance on leadership coaching, business consulting, or facilitation, I’m ready to partner with you to create meaningful results.

 

I specialize in:

  • Strategic Retreats: Facilitating transformative sessions to align leadership teams, drive clarity, and set actionable goals.
  • Business Consulting: Helping organizations navigate challenges, strengthen team effectiveness, and implement strategies for sustained success.
  • Leadership Coaching: Empowering business owners, C-Suite executives, and emerging leaders to enhance communication, decision-making, and overall impact.
  • Keynote Speaking and Workshop Facilitation: Delivering dynamic presentations and workshops designed to engage, inspire, and drive action.

 

If you’re planning a retreat, organizing a conference, or seeking a trusted partner to elevate your team or business, let’s connect. And if someone in your network could benefit from my expertise, I’d be grateful for your referral.

 

Ready to start the conversation? Email me at jenny@jennyreilly.com, and let’s explore how we can work together to achieve your goals.

The Importance of Transitions

“It is when we are in transition that we are most completely alive.”
— William Bridges

This quote from William Bridges emphasizes the importance of transitions in our personal and professional lives. While some transitions can be challenging to prepare for, they can also give us energy, motivation, and inspiration. How we react during a change is critical to our success as leaders. We must focus on our leadership traits and how we react in different situations, primarily how we handle stress and unpredictability.

It’s essential to listen first, act consistently, and communicate transparently.

Here are some tips to keep in mind during a transition:

  • FOCUS on the next best step you can make and act on it.
  • THINK about the consequences of what you say and how you say it – before opening your mouth.
  • LISTEN to your team, ask questions, and be curious.
  • USE facts to back up your perceptions.
  • INVEST in what will put you in a better position to improve productivity.
  • CREATE a one-page document that includes your vision, values, strategy pillars, and targets – this will help you remain focused on what is critical to the triple bottom line and not get sidetracked.
  • FOCUS on what you are good at and what you can get results on that no one else can – delegate everything else, and don’t get stuck in the minutia.

Remember to be conscious of your time management, the talent you are surrounded by, and your operating rhythm to ensure you spend time on what matters most. Conduct a weekly review and preview of your priorities to stay on track and focus time quarterly on organizational operational and strategic issues.

Transitions can be challenging but can also be opportunities for growth and success. Embrace the change, focus on what you can control, and lead with clarity and purpose.

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”
— John C. Maxwell

If you have any questions or want to learn more on the powerful benefits of executive coaching to elevate your success, please contact us or reach out directly to jenny@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session.

 

 

FIVE CORE LEADERSHIP TACTICS

There are five leadership tactics that I follow that help me in my consulting practice. I encourage you to think about how they could help you in your position.

1.) Planning Backwards:

Focusing on the future and planning backwards is an effective leadership tactic. It encourages unconstrained thinking and disruptive ideas and will help you to propel your organization forward. Once you have a focused vision, align your people to engage on goals, and develop a comprehensive action plan to move forward.

  • Where do you want to be professionally and personally one year from today?
  • What do you need to do to get there? (Of your action items, prioritize them in sequenced order and develop an action plan on what is required in each step.)

2.) Purpose-driven and value-focused:

My consultancy purpose and values determine my guiding principles. If you have not listed your guiding principles, it is time to do so. Your guiding principles outline how you operate, the organization’s role and the individual within. 

  • What is your company vision, purpose statement/mission, and what values define how you do business? 

3.) Intentionally listen actively:

Leadership is a conversation. Improving your listening ability will be a cornerstone of your leadership success. Listening will assist you in problem-solving, determining and implementing innovative ideas, defining process improvements, and developing new ideas for faster and better outcomes. Engage your team, clients/customers and external stakeholders in a discussion on progress once modifications have been agreed upon, design and circle back to question if you have it right. 

4.) Innovate continually.

You cannot afford to become too comfortable and complacent. Customer and client preferences in the product or service area you are offering are continually changing. Technology advances will improve speed and results, can transform our processes, and adaption of best practices. Quarterly question processes, this will help you retain focus on improvement and will become part of your culture. Encourage bottom-up and top-down idea initiatives for improvement. Make decisions faster and base them on data with a focus on quality. Quarterly, prioritize the top three areas you can innovate to bring the greatest return to your organization. 

5.) Performance – think short and long-term.

To thrive in the long term, we need to have not only long-term goals but also short-term goals to gain momentum. Future-proof your performance by answering the questions below: 

  • What trends are influencing your business and sector?
  • What are your customers and clients seeking or asking that is not currently being provided? 
  • What is your data telling you? The facts have the answers. 
  • Ask your employees for feedback on what is working and what isn’t and any suggestions they have for improvement.
  • What are your duties and responsibilities – are they aligned with your purpose? 
  • Assess how you are doing things, is it the best and most effective way, or have you fallen into a routine and repeated past actions hoping for better results? 

If you have any questions about leadership tactics or want to learn more on the powerful benefits of executive coaching to elevate your professional success, please reach out to +1 604-616-1967 or askme@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session. If you want monthly leadership and professional development tips, sign up for my JRC newsletter or check out my social media on Instagram for information on my new upcoming 6-month executive leadership course.

HOW CAN ‘DEEP WORK’ GET YOU BACK TO DOING AN EXTRAORDINARY JOB?

Do you want to do your job or do an extraordinary job?

There are times when we run on all cylinders, everything comes together, and we feel like we are at the top of our game. In contrast, there are times when we may feel we have lost our work mojo, are bored, stagnant, and just go through the motions of our job. I know how I prefer to feel, how about you?

A tool to help you regain focus on what you are doing and how you are doing it is to ensure you immediately implement ‘deep work’ time into your schedule. This mode helps you have an uninterrupted focus on a significant task.

Your ‘deep work’ time should be allocated to projects or tasks that require your undivided attention to move forward and will have the greatest impact. This sounds so straightforward and obvious that you may ask why I even need to write about this, so I challenge you to look at your schedule over the past month and honestly evaluate how much time you allocated to ‘deep work.’

When you allocate time in your day where you can work in isolation, without distraction, the quality and quantity of work you can complete can be extraordinary. It takes time, focus and persistence, but it will be worth it.

Reorganize your month ahead to ensure you have time in your schedule daily for ‘deep work.’

Your days maybe spent, rushing from one meeting to another or putting out continual fires – this is fractured work. Fractured work occurs when you are primarily responding to others’ needs and requirements. It is unrealistic to think that you can cut out fractured work in your day-to-day commitments; however very realistic to combine it with periods of uninterrupted focus.

To do extraordinary work, we need periods of concentration and focus.

Determine how much ‘deep work’ time you need daily, schedule it, and make it a non-negotiable priority for the month ahead.

QUESTIONS FOR YOU TO ANSWER:

  1. How can I schedule my time in September so five days per week, I have at least one hour daily allocated to ‘deep work’?
  2. Are there any periods in the year that I need more time to focus on ‘deep work’? If so, when? Now go ahead and block off that time in your schedule.
  3. What will you have to do in your space to ensure it will promote ‘deep work,’ or where else can you go to facilitate ‘deep work’?

EFFECTIVE ONE-ON-ONE MEETINGS WITH DIRECT REPORTS

Having effective one-on-one meetings is a critical leadership skill. I recommend having weekly one-on-one meetings with each of your direct reports. The objective of this meeting is to ensure there is open and transparent communication on priorities, identification of opportunities, issues or challenges and time to address any questions or concerns that may be affecting the progress of your direct report.

To have effective meetings, ensure you have a plan, are organized to optimize your meeting time, have clear outcomes in mind, and record who is responsible for what by when, making it is easier for you to follow up.

The following are an example of questions that you could ask in a one-on-one:

  • What were your biggest wins over the last week/since we last met?
  • What worked well, what didn’t and why?
  • Are there any areas in that I can support you?
  • What are your top three priorities for the upcoming week?
  • Is there anything else that you would like to cover today?

I encourage you to monitor how much you talk in these meetings. My suggestion is that you should not be speaking for more than 20% of the meeting. Focus on listening, not jumping in and solving problems but asking clarifying questions.

MEETING TIPS

For many, meetings are painful, and I am sure you have felt, heard, or empathize with the following:

‘I have too many meetings.’

‘The meetings are too frequent and too long.’

‘Meetings are a waste of my time.’

‘I hate it when people show up late or don’t contribute – why bother!’

 

Here are some helpful tips for you:

  1. Look at the meetings in your schedule over the upcoming week and determine if your attendance is necessary. If it is not, message the organizer with your rationale and withdraw yourself from attendance.
  2. When scheduling a meeting, ensure that the right people are in attendance and the duration is the correct length (the shorter, the better).
  3. If you are organizing or chairing a meeting in advance, prepare and circulate an agenda along with any documents that need to be reviewed.
  4. Follow up on your meeting notes, complete what you said you would and hold others accountable for assigned tasks.

Speak up on annoying behaviours like:

  • Individuals being on their phones during the meeting, checking emails, social or surfing
  • Arriving late and being disruptive
  • Interrupting and talking too much
  • Not coming prepared
  • No participating

Each behaviour is a sign of disinterest and disengagement, don’t ignore it. Be focused on acknowledging it and changing the behaviour.

If you have any questions about implementing deep work times in your schedule or want to learn more on the powerful benefits of executive coaching to elevate your professional success, please reach out to +1 604-616-1967 or jenny@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session. If you want monthly leadership and professional development tips, sign up for my JRC newsletter or check out my social media on Instagram for top leadership advice throughout the year.