Unconventionality produces unconventional leadership. But what, exactly, is unconventional leadership and why should we desire to be an unconventional leader? It all begins with first understanding yourself and where leadership really comes from.
To address this, I wanted to share one of my personal Hawaii walk recordings. This time of thought and reflection was borne out of my angst of wanting to shift what I do in the world, and how I’ve once again found myself at odds with traditional methodology and expectations. As I journey through this, I thought my fellow visionaries might find my own experiences encouraging and enlightening. Sort of a glimpse into the work behind the work. So let’s go.
“Leadership is developing the agency to trust your mind, to believe yourself first.” – Kris Plachy
Email: hello@krisplachy.com
Please help me reach even more women (and men) so that, together, we can change more lives. All it takes is leaving a review of Leadership Is Feminine on your favorite podcast platform(s). Doing so triggers the platform to suggest the podcast to more new listeners. I cannot say THANK YOU enough!
When a major tragedy strikes, businesses and personal lives are affected in countless ways. Some effects are easy to see, some are less obvious. But all are important. And all need and deserve to be lovingly and compassionately addressed.
A personal friend and client of mine, Keani Barnes, is part of the Maui community recently devastated by fires. As a boutique business owner, I wanted to have her on the show to share what’s been happening there and what the aftermath journey has been like.
“Somehow this decision was made by all different people to say, you know, ‘Get out of here’ and ‘Don’t come here’. And that was not at all, I mean what the vast majority of the Maui community was saying... We appreciate that people want to be sensitive… But it was so frustrating for us knowing, like, this is how people pay their bills… To have all of that go away ended up being this double whammy of grief that hit our island.” – Keani Barnes
With her humble beginnings as a casual jewelry maker, Keani Barnes has grown her business from a home office to two retail boutiques and online store on Maui, offering her signature jewelry designs as well as other curated niche finds. Mahalo for being a part of her story and the success of our all female-operated small business team!
Instagram || @keanihawaii || Facebook
Email: hello@krisplachy.com
Please help me reach even more women (and men) so that, together, we can change more lives. All it takes is leaving a review of Leadership Is Feminine on your favorite podcast platform(s). Doing so triggers the platform to suggest the podcast to more new listeners. I cannot say THANK YOU enough!
In sports, the person who shows up, puts in the hard work, and listens to the coach gets the spot. Just being on the team isn’t enough. You don’t perform, you’re benched. Slack off enough, you’re gone. We not only accept this in athletics, we expect it. Why? Because it’s both logical and effective. So why don’t we treat our businesses the same way?
I submit that we ought to. After all, this is why sports metaphors abound and are highly applicable. They’re logical and effective. Let’s talk about how you can transform your team by leading like a coach.
“What we do as leaders is we spend all our time asking, ‘What’s wrong with all these players? Why aren’t they doing their jobs?’... Well, why would they? They get to keep the job and not do the job.” – Kris Plachy
Email: hello@krisplachy.com
Please help me reach even more women (and men) so that, together, we can change more lives. All it takes is leaving a review of Leadership Is Feminine on your favorite podcast platform(s). Doing so triggers the platform to suggest the podcast to more new listeners. I cannot say THANK YOU enough!
Sometimes you just need defined steps to tap into necessary certainty. That’s why I put together a masterclass in which I give you 10 steps to lead with confidence. These steps are specifically designed by women, for women.
In this episode, I share this never-before-released masterclass. In it, I walk you through 10 things to consider and address to propel you into a new level of assurance that you can lead, and lead well. These are what I would discuss with you if we were to work together. They include problems such as team issues, decisions you’re struggling to make, accountability, and much more.
“You are the one who has to step up. You have to learn how to lead and not manage. You have to learn how to be the visionary and not the operator.” – Kris Plachy
Email: hello@krisplachy.com
Please help me reach even more women (and men) so that, together, we can change more lives. All it takes is leaving a review of Leadership Is Feminine on your favorite podcast platform(s). Doing so triggers the platform to suggest the podcast to more new listeners. I cannot say THANK YOU enough!
Victim thinking needs to be detoxed from our lives. There are so many negatives that invade when we permit victim thinking, as well as victim thinkers. But we don’t have to allow either one. We may still have things that happen, and we may not be able to completely eliminate all victim thinkers from our sphere of influence, but we can mitigate the potential damage.
The key is choosing to embrace ownership. But first, what is the difference between ownership and victimhood? What feeds the internal and external drama or lack of drama in each characteristic? What should a true leader look like in the midst of drama? Let’s talk about all these questions and more.
“Owners understand and focus on what they can control. And victims focus on what they can’t.” – Kris Plachy
Email: hello@krisplachy.com
Please help me reach even more women (and men) so that, together, we can change more lives. All it takes is leaving a review of Leadership Is Feminine on your favorite podcast platform(s). Doing so triggers the platform to suggest the podcast to more new listeners. I cannot say THANK YOU enough!
Tailored help for your business and the unique circumstances you face is invaluable. While many issues are universal, your position alters your challenges. For example, someone running a 6-figure business, has different challenges than someone running a 7 or 8-figure business or someone who is senior leadership in an organization.
To discuss all this, I brought on Michelle Arant, EdD for this episode. Michelle is a master certified coach and part of my team. Together, we discussed some of the top leadership challenges female entrepreneurs face, how they vary from situation to situation, and what some of the things you can maybe do right now to help yourself.
This reality of differing needs is why we decided to divide up some of the coaching in our LEAD FOR WOMEN program. We want to address the specific growth areas each position presents and not simply offer a one-size-fits-all approach. If you haven’t yet looked into the program, there is still time but it’s closing fast.
“All of those little things that keep nagging at you, those things scale bigger, just like your business scales. So it really is a great opportunity for you to start as soon as you can working through those types of things.” – Michelle Arant, EdD
Get Your Spark Back Webinar: thevisionary.ceo/spark. Tuesday, August 29, 2023 at 11:30 a.m. Pacific (2:30 p.m. Eastern). Registration required.
Michelle Arant helps female entrepreneurs get the results from their team that they are paying them to deliver. She is a former Chief Operations Officer of an online training company, business owner, online college professor, wife, mom, daughter, and friend. She and Kris Plachy met many years ago when Michelle was going through her Coach Certification program and also wanted to improve her own leadership practices as a COO.
Over time, Michelle transitioned from being Kris' client, to joining Kris' Leadership Coach Certification program and learned all of the unique tools now shared in The Manager Formula.
Michelle is an unparalleled master certified coach in her field with a keen level of insight, intuition and experience that brings a powerful coaching experience and RESULTS to all of our clients!
Email: hello@krisplachy.com
Please help me reach even more women (and men) so that, together, we can change more lives. All it takes is leaving a review of Leadership Is Feminine on your favorite podcast platform(s). Doing so triggers the platform to suggest the podcast to more new listeners. I cannot say THANK YOU enough!
Executive leadership is a visionary role. You’re inspired to lead at a higher level, increase and improve team productivity and efficiency to meet and exceed goals, and to grow yourself in your ability and skills in leading. Therefore, it’s important for you to see–and treat–yourself as a visionary, an entrepreneurial leader, regardless of who owns the company for which you work.
As I’ve worked with thousands of women, I have felt deep pain for those in positions of authority who are throttled by those for whom they work. There is a misalignment of vision and goals where women meet resistance to–or perhaps are even prevented from–achievement. It’s time to change that and no longer allow your potential to be diminished.
“Vision is not exclusive to just founders and business owners and entrepreneurs. Vision exists within companies.” – Kris Plachy
Email: hello@krisplachy.com
Team member mental health is an important, sensitive and timely topic. But it can be difficult to navigate as a leader because it is also a very heavy and extremely personal topic. In general, mental health issues intensified due to COVID and all the things that came along with that. From it, one positive did emerge, which is that there is now much less stigma associated with needing mental health care and support.
Let me start by clarifying: I’m not a mental health expert. Therefore, I highly encourage you to seek one if you need. And this episode isn’t about addressing anything specific. But it is about how mental illness at work is affecting work and what is happening in our businesses. People need to take time off, they need adjusted schedules, performances have declined, and more. It can be an overwhelming problem. So how do we marry the need to be sensitive and accommodating to the very real needs of our team members, while still meeting the needs of a growing business? Let’s examine this topic together.
“One of the biggest issues, in general, with management and mental health is that we still have rampant lack of self-awareness and lack of emotional acumen in people who lead.” – Kris Plachy
Websites:
Email: hello@krisplachy.com
Whether you liked, disliked or are indifferent toward The Barbie Movie, I thought after viewing it that there were some positive lessons in the movie and some points I felt more doubt about. Overall, the movie’s premise is that, in Barbie Land, the women have accomplished countless advancements for womankind. They believe that because they’ve done so much there, it’s that way everywhere. But Barbie discovers that in the real world things are not as they are in Barbie Land. Similarly, Ken also discovers he’s treated very differently in the real world than he is in Barbie Land.
In reflecting on these overall takeaways, I liked how the characters powerfully didn’t self-deprecate and they supported one another from the heart. That was refreshing. Then, on the other hand, one of the things I didn’t really like was the way the indoctrinated and not indoctrinated used the current system to try to change the system. I question if we should be doing that in the real world, and what else we’re doing that may only be perpetuating stereotypes. Let’s talk about this and a whole lot more.
“It’s also rooted in the collective misinterpretations about who we’re all supposed to be… What kind of judgments do we hold against each other?... What is it that we do that separates us from one another–that we perpetuate the stereotypes that we resent?... It’s so baked in.” – Kris Plachy
In most cultures, there has been a prevalent teaching–whether direct or indirect–that women should always be nice. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should be mean or rude, but I am saying that, as female leaders, we need to stop being so nice. Immediately.
Why am I advocating for such a seemingly controversial shift in how women lead? Because we need to be expecting, and directly expressing to people, a different expectation, a higher level of personal responsibility. And frankly, holding others to that higher expectation often appears “mean”. So how do we actively hold people to a proper standard? What is the opposite of nice without being seen as witchy? Let’s talk about it.
“Nice doesn’t win the day. That nice compromises you as a leader, it compromises respect, and frankly, it compromises the growth and potential of your company.” – Kris Plachy
There has been a death of the art of mentorship. We moved from the emphasis of knowing how to do things into the emphasis of education and holding a degree. The issue with this is few people know how to be anything other than managed. And even fewer people have been mentored and know how to mentor. We’re facing a massive deficit in people who know how to develop themselves and others.
Because this does affect our businesses in a very real way, this episode contains an excerpt from one of the modules in my new LEAD FOR WOMEN program, as well as an excerpt from one of the Voxer messages I left a client. I wanted to share these as a podcast episode because they perfectly display both the necessity of and a real-world application of moving from managing people to mentoring them. So let’s go, Mama!
“I believe that if you could learn and adopt a mentorship and a leadership philosophy to how you run your business, instead of a management and a command / control approach, it will change everything for you.” – Kris Plachy
Hiring is a delicate process and I don’t really think there is just one right way to do it. What worked for one person may not work for you. After all, people are all different. But there are some common mistakes I’ve seen clients make–and I’ve made a few myself–that I’d like to help you avoid.
So I feel it’s worth a conversation on how to at least avoid the top five hiring mistakes entrepreneurs make. Whenever we can learn from the experiences of others, we become better equipped and more empowered. Speaking of which, I want to encourage you once again to check out my LEAD FOR WOMEN program. Through this program, myself and my team work with Elite Visionary Women who are effectively leading their teams to bring their genius to life… of which hiring is an integral part.
“The sooner you can sort of start to recognize there will always be a cadence to your business that will require you to be hiring, you can get, hopefully, out of this resentment, burden mode and just accept that this is part of what you do.” – Kris Plachy
Self-honesty and the ability to express that honestly is a game changer in life. Yet we avoid telling some truths, both to ourselves and others. Why is that? Is it because we downplay how critical it is? Is it because we aren’t sure how to express ourselves without seeming rude or cruel? Is it because we are–at the heart of it–afraid?
In this episode, I touch on why we don’t have honest conversations and how we can change that. As you listen, I encourage you to examine your own approach to honesty. After all, pure honesty must first begin with being truthful with yourself. I also encourage you to consider going much deeper into this self-awareness through my LEAD FOR WOMEN program. In it, I and my team can work with you personally to root out why you’re afraid of speaking your truth.
“If we had a core belief that we were strong enough to handle whatever happens on the other side of an honest conversation, what might we do differently?” – Kris Plachy
Websites:
Email: hello@krisplachy.com
It’s finally live! After a very long time of contemplation, evaluation and hard work, LEAD FOR WOMEN is ready. As I’ve moved through this extremely intense season of change and confusion, I have embraced that success in life is not about having the perfect “how to”. It’s about embracing feminine leadership, making it your own.
When we look at the world, they want you to just buy tactics. But I want to help you move past this archaic approach and into the power of leading as a woman in today’s culture – without falling prey to the old “how to” ways that emphasize masculine traits. Let’s come together to leverage our feminine power and wisdom and change the world.
“I believe that the wisdom of the years that have come and gone have never left the energy of every woman on this planet. I believe that she hears a voice that calls to her, that tells her when she’s in her truth and can be her most powerful.” – Kris Plachy
When it comes to releasing and detoxing, money can be a huge issue. Some people have a great relationship with their finances, others a horrible one, and I would say the majority of us fall somewhere in the middle. For myself, I discovered I had unknowingly harbored a lot of toxicity about finances. When I would think about my connotations regarding money, my thoughts and feelings appeared pretty on the surface… but they really weren’t.
In this episode, I open up about my own money detoxing. Through the process, I learned I was believing some things about myself and my finances that weren’t as freeing as I’d thought them to be. I hope by sharing my experience, I can help you recognize and release any of your own toxic thoughts and beliefs.
“We make money because we step into a different version of ourselves and that version attracts more abundance, more wealth… Transformation generates wealth.” – Kris Plachy
Editing and evaluating your life is super powerful. It reinforces a firm foundation when you take time out to evaluate where you’ve been and then decide if that is where you truly want to be and the pursuit you wish to continue. After all, what good is it to continue to build on top of something that isn’t what you really want and/or isn’t serving you well?
To this end, years ago I began doing the visionary business & life edit for myself. It is an intense yet refreshing and invigorating deep dive into where I’ve been and where I’m going. As the edit unfolds, it probes into those things that are being avoided or not dealt with, and even into those things that aren’t being as savored and celebrated as they should. I invite you to join me both through this podcast and, potentially, in person for your business & life edit.
“The win is in the way… How I achieve what I want is actually the win. It’s not what I want, because that target moves.” – Kris Plachy
Why do we feel shame and guilt when we succeed? Where does that come from and why does it hang on, despite the fact that women are punching through old norms?
First, it’s important to note that success is defined by a variety of factors. What one person views as success, another may view as not as important. It might be a particular amount in your bank account, the number of your clients, the size of your team, your notoriety, your following, the amount of personal freedom you enjoy… It’s not about what you consider success, it’s about how you feel about that success. And I believe that, especially as women, we all struggle with this on some level.
“We make the correlation that our joy means we deserve our pain… [And] it takes away our ability in the moment to relish and savor the joy… [Because] we believe there is a boomerang… we dull the joy to protect ourselves from imminent bad.” – Kris Plachy
We all have a subconscious or invisible internal compass. Like a physical compass, it naturally shows us where we currently are in space and time, and gives us clarity in the direction we should go next. But unlike a physical compass, it can be much more difficult to read.
Pondering this concept, I wanted to talk about how we all operate with our invisible compass but aren’t always aware of it. Knowing this, is there a way to change our focus so we can more readily both direct and follow our internal compass? I think so. Let’s talk about it.
“The answers that you provide to the questions that you ask yourself are your subconscious life and business plan. This is how you operate in the world… it is an ongoing, pulsing heartbeat of belief.” – Kris Plachy
What about rest? True rest? What would that look like? Most of us are not very good at facilitating and executing true rest. We are, on the other hand, very good at having so much to do that we block our ability to rest. You know what I mean… having too many of those things that suck our time and leave us exhausted and overwhelmed.
So I’m calling this a summer of rest. The summer we detoxed from saying yes and said no more. I invite you to implement your own Visionary Summer Detox along with me. In this episode, I share my thoughts and ideas that I hope provide you with inspiration and some direction. Let’s get to resting.
“Let that toxicity of the unsaid words leave your body. It’s time. It’s exhausting to carry around unspoken conversations.” – Kris Plachy
We may not–yet–be able to address all the reasons there are not more women at the top of organizations, but we can address areas in which we have more control. We do have authority and agency over certain aspects of this current reality. So while we work toward systemic change, let’s also work on the daily decisions we make and with whom we choose to surround ourselves.
As we examine this together, I want to encourage us all to be bold in exploring our own beliefs about ourselves. Where might we be unknowingly limiting ourselves? How might we be unintentionally not advancing our leadership skills? How might we be unwittingly diminishing our presence, even within our own companies? There is a lot to consider, so let’s dive deeply into it.
“You don’t owe anybody any version of yourself other than the one that’s real. And we change. All of us change.” – Kris Plachy
You need a crew, strong woman, a team. As women, we are conditioned to be the caregivers, the ones helping everyone else. Unfortunately, this can lead to extremes, such as being unable to allow ourselves to get connected to a team and becoming demanding or having a team but struggling to really allow them to help us and unintentionally compromising.
Regardless of where you are on this spectrum, it's time to take to heart the truth that you need some help. You need people to come alongside you to do the things that they can do, to free you to do what only you can do. Let’s talk about it.
“A strong woman recognizes that weakness does not exist in asking for help. Weakness only exists in suffering without help.” – Kris Plachy
YOU are the prize and you do not chase. But, if this is true–and it is–why do we not live in this reality? Why do we find ourselves chasing, rather than living as the prize?
As a woman who believes deeply in the value of women (not to say I don’t value men), I desire for you to see yourself as you truly are. Someone of worth. Someone with a beautiful gift to give. Someone worth being supported, listened to, respected... and living the truth that the prize does not chase–regardless of what we’ve been taught over our lifetimes.
“Why is it that not everybody lives by that? Because you don’t believe you’re a prize… You don’t believe you are worthy of not chasing.” – Kris Plachy
There is a decision that has the power to separate you from where you are to where you want to be. But if you don’t even know what it is, if you’re stuck in the spin of crisis, how can you make that decision?
As I’ve worked with my clients, I’ve found that in dealing with a crisis, there is typically just one decision that is preventing all other decisions from happening. Literally it is one decision standing in your way, causing everything else to stall and stagnate. But when you can identify that decision within the swirl of all that is happening, and deal with it… all else begins to be resolved as well. Let’s talk about it.
“It was just one decision that would lead to one action. And then, that one action would allow for everything else to be resolved.” – Kris Plachy
As we go along in our journey, especially as visionaries, we grow, we change, our thinking evolves. It can be liberating and scary and wonderful and nerve-racking, all at the same time. But it is inevitable. We don’t stay the same, and I would say this is good, as we shouldn’t stay the same in many regards.
In this episode, I talk about the visionary’s journey. About my journey. I share my thoughts, my heart, and how I’ve changed in the way I think about what I do as a result of my journey. If you’re a visionary, it’s likely you’re on your own journey. So I hope by sharing some of mine, I might offer you some insights and encouragement. Please come with me.
“That may mean that the business doesn’t have the same trajectory that it did under the visionary but that doesn’t make the trajectory bad.” – Kris Plachy
Visionaries are more than simply dreamers. Visionaries focus not only on what might be but how to make it into reality. They hold a deep belief that what they dream can–and will–happen. To me, this is a sense like smelling or hearing. But what happens if this asset you’ve always relied upon suddenly isn’t there?
Every visionary has times when she cannot see. And it’s disorienting. It’s stifling. It’s paralytic. It’s shameful. But don’t worry, it’s okay. You’re not broken. It’s not a character flaw. After all, vision is ether. Let’s talk about it.
“I think you don’t know because the answer doesn’t exist yet. And we have to trust that.” – Kris Plachy